attenuation

attenuation: The decrease in intensity of a signal, beam, or wave as a result of absorption of energy and of scattering out of the path to the detector, but not including the reduction due to geometric spreading. [After JP1] Note 1: Attenuation is usually expressed in dB. Note 2: "Attenuation" is often used as a misnomer for " attenuation coefficient," which is expressed in dB per kilometer. Note 3: A distinction must be made as to whether the attenuation is that of signal power or signal electric field strength.

This HTML version of Telecom Glossary 2K was last generated on Wed May 8 15:36:48 DT 2002.