On Fri, 14 Oct 2005 12:55:57 GMT, Cecil Moore wrote:

They why bother with characteristic impedance at all?

This is your question and no one else's.

If Z0 doesn't establish a Z0 environment, then all transmission
lines are just alike and transmission theory is hogwash.

And this is your understanding - alone and in isolation from the rest
of us. Only you, by your logic arrived here by twists and turns.

It has no doubt slipped your mind that on one of those turns, the
requirement for x length of line was lost into the byways of this
labyrinth you traverse.