K7ITM wrote:
Well, maybe I'm mistaken, but I was under the impression that there
was someone around here who was promoting the idea that two waves
propagating in a linear medium could cancel over some non-zero finite
volume, but not cancel everywhere along their path, even though that
path was uninterrupted by any discontinuities in the medium.

Would you please name the person who said such. It certainly
was NOT me. The waves involved in the cancellation are
canceled so fast that they cannot be viewed on an o'scope.
But if they didn't exist, nothing would happen at an
impedance discontinuity.

Take the s-parameter equation, for instance.

b1 = s11(a1) + s12(a2) = 0

If s11(a1) doesn't exist, then s11 and/or a1 must not exist
either. But s11 and a1 can be measured. So if s11 and a1
exist, does s11(a1) exist only to be canceled or did it
never exist. If s11(a1) never existed, what the heck is
an s-parameter analysis good for?

Maybe
I'm mistaken, but I was under the impression that there was someone
around here who was promoting the idea that calculations based on
power rather than on voltage and current in a TEM transmission line
offered some inherent value.

An energy analysis is not supposed to replace a voltage analysis
but is supposed simply to settle the question, Where does the
energy go? If we assume that in a Z0 transmission line, that
Vfor^2/Z0 = forward joules/sec and Vref^2/Z0 = reflected joules/sec,
the energy analysis falls out from the voltage analysis.

If you don't care where the energy goes, that's cool, but some
of us, like Bruene and Maxwell, do care and have been arguing
about it for decades.

To keep an energy analysis from falling out from the voltage
analysis, we have been told that reflected waves don't exist,
and if they did exist, they would be devoid of energy content.
"I have yet to see" an EM wave that can exist devoid of
energy content.
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com