ELECTROMAGNETIC BEHAVIOR OF TRANSMISSION LINES AND RESONANT WIRES VERY NEAR A LOSSY DIELECTRIC INTERFACE

A generalized theory is developed whereby the current distribution and the propagation constant of a transmission line wire of arbitrary cross sectional geometry and arbitrarily near an air-earth interface may be found by a moment method. Numerical data for round wires and strip transmission lines are presented. Both longitudinal and transverse currents are included in the theory. Subsectional basis functions are used for the moment method. The limits of various thin-wire approximations are explored.;Next, the theory for determining the complex resonances of thin-wires and buried strips near an air-earth interface is developed. The Sommerfeld integral is extended into the complex frequency domain by a deformation of the integration contour. The limits of the reflection coefficient approximation and the transmission line approximation are explored numerically. The theory is tested by measurements of the impulse response of wires and strips above and below an air-water interface. The possible application to soil parameter measurements is considered.