Abstract
When contact failure occurs in a connector in a coaxial HF signal transmission line, an electromagnetic field is radiated around the line. We have measured the electromagnetic field and examined the characteristics of such radiation. The results show that the radiation is related to the contact resistance and the symmetry of the distribution of contact points at the connector. When contact resistance is low, radiation is observed at resonant frequencies related to the length of the transmission line. If a connector has axially asymmetric contact points, its radiation is higher than that when the contact points are symmetric. We show that if contact points in a connector are axially symmetrical with resistance lower than 0.25Ω, the electromagnetic interference caused by the connector contact failure is as low as the background noise.
