Reliability of test procedures for detecting the presence of 180 degrees phase discrepancies when measuring transmission coefficients of lossless multiport rectangular-waveguide components

Two test procedures (based either on principal miners or on singular values ) have previously been proposed for detecting the presence of any 180 degre es phase discrepancies in the transmission-coefficient measurements obtaine d by automatic network analyzers for multiport rectangular-waveguide compon ents. The additional studies conducted in the present paper have confirmed that the test procedure based on principal miners tends to yield low reliab ility, and is thus not suitable for general application. Yet another test p rocedure (based on determinant magnitudes) has been proposed as well; not o nly is it simple to implement anal use, but it has also been found to be mo re reliable than the test procedure based on singular values. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.