how does a smith chart works.

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Test & Measurement World, July 2001

How does a Smith chart work?
A venerable calculation aid retains its allure in a world of lightning-fast computers and graphical user interfaces.
By Rick Nelson, Senior Technical Editor

The Smith chart appeared in 1939 (Ref. 1) as a graph-based method of simplifying the complex math (that is, calculations involving variables of the form x + jy) needed to describe the characteristics of microwave components. Although calculators and computers can now make short work of the problems the Smith chart was designed to solve, the Smith chart, like other graphical calculation aids (Ref. 2), remains a valuable tool. Smith chart inventor Philip H. Smith explained in Ref. 1, “From the time I could