Note: this analysis assumes that the skin depth is much smaller than the

diameter of the coax center conductor or the thickness of its outer conductor.

Transmission line loss due to metal calculation can be done in a simple three-
step process:

1. Calculate RF sheet resistance of conductors.

2. Calculate ohms/length of the geometry.
3. Calculate the loss/length. All of these quantities are functions of
frequency.

Step one: calculate RF sheet resistance. This is a function of the metal's

permeability and conductivity (in addition to frequency):

Note that you could easily substitute resistivity instead of conductivity into the
equation. Click here to look up resistivity of a variety of metals. Don't assume
that the inner and outer conductors are made of the same metal, often they are
not!

Step two: calculate the resistance per unit length. We recommend you use
meters for length to cut down on confusion, but you can use Potrzebies for all
we care (pronounced po-SHEB-yas). For coax that has inner conductor diameter
"d" and outer conductor inside-diameter "D", you need to integrate the sheet
resistance over the "widths" of both cylindrical surfaces:

Resistance/length =(RF sheet resistance)/[(1/ d)+(1/ D)]

Relax, that integration didn't take more than 8th grade math! The "width" of the
inner conductor surface is d and the outside conductor surface is D. This
solution assumes that five skin depths of metal are available on both inner and
outer conductor, and each is comprised of a single metal within those five skin
depths, which is usually the case. Here's what you get when you plug in R RFSH and
simplify:
Check it out, our equation will let you use different metals for inner and outer
conductors, we've never seen such a beautiful sight in any textbook! Or in
Agilent's ADS!

The final step is to divide the resistance/length by (2Z0) to arrive at loss/length

(units are Nepers/length. To convert to dB, multiply Nepers by 8.686.

The whole ball of wax boils down into the following totally cool closed-form
equation:
Note: Roger pointed out a slight mistake in the above equation in October 2009.
Thanks! And sorry for the inconvenience to everyone else!

Now you can calculate the loss/length of any coax, using different metals for
inside and outside conductors. Sweet! You can skip the three steps we proposed,
and cut to the chase.

RG6 CATV coax cable: an example

Note: this example examines the only metal loss, not dielectric loss tangent
loss...

Let's use RG6 coax cable (which you can buy at Home Depot for wiring up your
satellite dish etc.) as an example and see if the math works out close to
measured data. We downloaded a data sheet on this cable to use as a reference
for the calculations. You can see it here. We hope CommScope doesn't mind!
According to this supplier, the dimensions of RG6 are:

Inside conductor is 18 gauge copper-clad steel (40.4 mils on the AWG scale)

Outside of dielectric is 180 mils diameter

Characteristic impedance is 75 ohms nominal

Outside conductor is aluminum foil.

The dielectric material is "foam polyethylene". Polyethylene by itself has

R=2.25, but in this case it is shot full of air to make it easier to bend, so we
don't know off hand what the correct R is (it must be somewhere between 1
and 2.25, right?
Let's calculate it. We know that the impedance of RG6 is 75 ohms, and it must
obey the coax equation:

The 75 ohm solution is that foam polyethylene R is 1.43.

Now we calculate the RF sheet resistance of the inner and outer conductors. We
did this in a spreadsheet, as a function of frequency. We looked up the
conductivities of copper and aluminum here and here. RG6 is supposed to work
up to 3 GHz, so we analyzed it up to this frequency.

Note that the inner conductor has lower sheet resistance. That's because it
benefits from the superior conductivity of copper, while the outer jacket is
aluminum. We are assuming that the copper-cladding on the steel center
conductor is at least 5 skin depths across this frequency band... that assumption
might be optimistic at MHz frequencies, but CommScope doesn't provide plating
thickness on their data sheet.

Now we calculate the resistance per unit length (ohms per meter). Here the
inner conductor has the most resistance (even though it has worse conductivity),
because its surface area is much smaller than the outer conductor.
Last, we convert to dB/length. We scaled the length units to 100 feet, because
most U.S. cable vendors quote RG6 cable loss this way:

So how did the calculation check with real life data? We calculate 5.85 dB per
100 feet at 1 GHz, the supplier says 6.15 dB. That's close enough for
government work! Part of the disparity could be that we neglected to look at the
effect of dielectric loss tangent loss. But our down-loadable coax spreadsheet will
do this for you!

A possible shortcut...

This info was provided to us by Jorge who works for a large defense contractor.
We haven't tried it yet. It relies on obsolete military specification MIL-C-17.

Instead of calculating the conductor and dielectric attenuation using the given
formulas on the coax page, you can get the results using:

a = K1 x sqrt(F) + K2 x F (dB/100 feet)

Where K1 is the resistive loss constant

K2 is the dielectric loss constant
F frequency in MHz

Just divide the results by 1200, the number of inches in 100 ft., to get dB/inch.
K1 and K2 are available on MIL-C-17 Attenuation and Power Handling tables.

Times Microwave references this calculation on their web site, but they seem to
be the only cable supplier that uses it. We couldn't find K1 and K2 for RG6, to
compare with the loss calculation we performed.

Good luck!
 Technical Data
Imp. Central Weight O/D Connector
Part No. Description Dielectric Sheath
Ohms Conductor, mm Kg/Km mm Type

 390006-C   RG6 Type   75   1/1.00   FPE   PVC   47   6.7   B1 
 390008-C   RG8 Type   50   1/2.74   FPE   PVC   207   10.2   A9 
 390008H-C   RG8 Type   50   1/2.74   FPE   LSHF    207   10.2   A9 
 390011AS   RG11 Type    75   1/1.60   FPE   PVC   84   10.2   A2 
 390011   RG11 A/U   75   7/0.40   PE   PVC   149   10.3   A9 
 390011L   RG11 A/U    75   7/0.40   PE   LSF   149   10.3   A2 
 390011H   RG11 A/U    75   7/0.40   PE   LSHF   149   10.3   A2 
 390011A   RG11 A/U SWA   75   7/0.40   PE   LDPE   380   15.7   A2 
 390012   RG12 A/U    75   7/0.40   PE   LDPE   380   15.7   A2 
 390058   RG58 C/U   50   19/0.18   PE   PVC   46   5.1   A3 
 390058W   RG58 C/U White    50   19/0.18   PE   PVC   46   5.1   A3 
 390058H   RG58 C/U    50   19/0.18   PE   LSHF    46   5.1   A3 
 390058D   RG58 C/U Duct    50   19/0.18   PE   LDPE   59   6.5   A3 
 390059MB   RG59 Mini Black   75   1/0.58   FPE   PVC   16   4.0   A8 
 390059MW   RG59 Mini White    75   1/0.58   FPE   PVC   16   4.0   A8 
 390059MBH   RG59 Mini Black   75   1/0.58   FPE   LSHF   16   4.0   A8 
 390059MWH   RG59 Mini White    75   1/0.58   FPE   LSHF    16   4.0   A8 
 390059   RG59 B/U MIL-C-17   75   1/0.58   PE   PVC   60   6.1   A1 
 390059-C   RG59 B/U Type   75   1/0.58   PE   PVC   58   6.1   A1 
 390059W   RG59 B/U White   75   1/0.58   PE   PVC   60   6.1   A1 
 390059L   RG59 B/U    75   1/0.58   PE   LSF   60   6.1   A1 
 390059H   RG59 B/U    75   1/0.58   PE   LSHF   60   6.1   A1 
 387FTC5903   RG59 Type IEC 60331-21   75   1/0.65   PE/Si   LSHF   110   9.1   FTC 
 390059D   RG59 B/U Duct    75   1/0.58   PE   LDPE   73   7.9   A1 
 390059A   RG59 B/U SWA   75   1/0.58   PE   LDPE   195   10.3   A1 
 390062   RG62 A/U   93   1/0.69   PESS   PVC   60   6.2   A1 
 390062H   RG62 A/U    93   1/0.69   PESS   LSHF   60   6.2   A1 
 390062A   RG62 A/U SWA   93   1/0.69   PESS   LDPE   210   10.4   A1 
 390108   RG108 Twin-Ax    78   2 x 7/0.32   PE   PVC   48   5.9   TBA 
 390115   RG115 A/U    50   7/.71   PTFE   GFB   240   10.6   TBA 
 390142   RG142 B/U   50   1/0.91   PTFE   FEP   74   4.9   A6 
 390165   RG165    50   7/0.81   PTFE   GFB   180   10.4   TBA 
 390174   RG174 A/U   50   7/0.16   PE   PVC   16   2.6   C4 
 390174H   RG174 A/U    50   7/0.16   PE   LSHF   16   2.6   C4 
 390178   RG178 B/U   50   7/0.10   PTFE   FEP   10   1.8   C6 
 390178H   RG178 Type    50   1/0.30   FPE   LSHF    6.9   1.9   C6 
 390179Y   RG179 Type   75   1/0.35   PE   PVC   12   2.6   A7 
 390179H   RG179 Type   75   1/0.35   PE   LSHF   12   2.6   A7 
 390179Y-S   RG179 Type Stranded   75   7/0.10   PE   PVC   12   2.6   A7 
 390179H-S   RG179 Type Stranded   75   7/0.10   PE   LSHF   12   2.6   A7 
 390179   RG179 B/U   75   7/0.10   PTFE   FEP   15   2.5   A7 
 390180   RG180   95   1/0.30   PTFE   TFE   29   3.7   TBA 
 390188   RG188   50   7/0.17   PTFE   FEP   147   2.5   C4 
 390196   RG196    50   7/0.10   PTFE   FEP   8.9   2.0   C6 
 390212   RG212    50   1/1.41   PE   PVC   123   8.4   TBA 
 390213   RG213 /U   50   7/0.75   PE   PVC   166   10.3   A4 
 390213H   RG213 /U   50   7/0.75   PE   LSHF   166   10.3   A4 
 390214   RG214 /U   50   7/0.75   PE   PVC   173   10.8   A5 
 390214H   RG214 /U   50   7/0.75   PE   LSHF   173   10.8   A5 
 390216   RG216    75   7/0.40   PE   PVC   169   10.8   TBA 
 390216H   RG216   75   7/0.40   PE   LSHF   169   10.8   TBA 
 390218   RG218   50   1/4.95   PE   PVC   658   22.0   TBA 
 390223   RG223 /U   50   1/0.90   PE   PVC   49   5.4   TBA 
 390223H   RG223 /U   50   1/0.90   PE   LSHF   49   5.4   TBA 
 390225   RG225   50   7/0.79   PTFE   GFB   268   10.9   TBA 
 390302   RG302    75   1/0.63   PTFE   FEP   47   5.3   TBA 
 390303   RG303   50   1/0.99   PTFE   FEP   46   4.3   TBA 
 390304   RG304    50   1/1.49   PTFE   FEP   131   7.1   TBA 
 390316   RG316   50   7/0.17   PTFE   FEP   15   2.5   C4 
 390316DB   RG316 2 x Braid    50   7/0.17   PTFE   FEP   22   2.6   C4 
 390316H   RG316 Type    50   7/0.17   FPE   LSHF   13   2.7   C4 
 390316HDB   RG316 Type 2 x Braid    50   7/0.17   FPE   LSHF   20   3.1   C4 
 390393   RG393 B/U   50   7/0.79   PTFE   FEP   245   10.0   TBA 
 390393H   RG393 Type   50   7/0.81   FPE   LSHF   180   10.1   TBA 
 390400   RG400   50   19/0.20   PTFE   FEP   74   4.9   A6 
 390400H   RG400 Type   50   19/0.20   FPE   LSHF    55   5.1   A6 

Set Parameters as Desired Results

Line Type: Matched Loss: 24.437

 dB
 50
Line Length: Feet Meters
0
SWR Loss:  dB
Frequency: 2500
 MHz
24.437
Total Loss:  dB
1
Load SWR:  : 1
0.36
Power Out:  W
100
Power In:  W

Set Parameters as Desired

Results
Line Type:
Matched Loss: 36.845
Line Length: 50  dB
Feet Meters
SWR Loss: 0
Frequency: 4500  dB
 MHz
36.845
1
Total Loss:  dB
Load SWR:  : 1
0.021
100
Power Out:  W
Power In:  W

Set Parameters as Desired Results

Line Type: Matched Loss: 56.214

 dB
 50
Line Length: Feet Meters
0
SWR Loss:  dB
Frequency: 8000
 MHz
56.214
Total Loss:  dB
1
Load SWR:  : 1
0
Power Out:  W
100
Power In:  W

Set Parameters as Desired

Results
Line Type:
86.471
50
Matched Loss:  dB
Line Length: Feet Meters
SWR Loss: 0
Frequency: 14000  dB
 MHz
Total Loss: 86.471
Load SWR: 1  dB
 : 1
0
100
Power Out:  W
Power In:  W