Resonance Properties of the Shield of a Coaxial Cable over a Ground Plane

In situations where several high-power transmitters and their antennas are to be used near one another, a certain amount of mutual interference can be expected. An instance of particular interest is that of high-intensity radiation inducing standing waves between the shields of nearby coaxial cables and a metal deck of ground plane. Standing waves induced may cause high potentials and possible breakdown at the ends of the cable, damaging connectors and antennas. There may also be some reduction of the shielding effectiveness of the coaxial cable when high-voltage standing waves are present in the shield. It has been common practice to eliminate such standing waves by periodic grounding of the outer conductor of the coaxial cable. This, however, requires penetration of the insulation material on the cable and formation of metal-to-metal joints on the shield. This is not only an inconvenient method of installation, but is also undesirable around salt water. Copper shielding will corrode, and corrosion at the joint of the dissimilar metal can cause nonlinear interference effects. The standing waves induced in the transmission system formed by the cylindrical shield of a coaxial cable and a conducting plane are examined theoretically and experimentally as a function of the shield-to-ground impedance at the end points only (Z1 and Z2 of Fig. 1). Ordinarily, standing waves are eliminated by terminating a guiding system in its characteristic impedance. In this situation, however, the exciting source (i.e., incident radiation) is distributed along the length of the transmission system.