There are other academic disciplines at work here, however. The mathematician, for instance, will enjoy all the mathematical effort which is required to obtain the results of this paper, particularly those of the third chapter. The historian will appreciate the portrait of the early days of communication electronics shown through the references to Heaviside, Carson, Collin, and some of the other "fathers" of the industry, in the second chapter. The test and measurement engineer will take keen interest in the fourth and fifth chapters, which present an overview of design constraints for a tapered transmission line and describe the efforts to measure the performance of a sample line. The breadth of coverage of this project has made the work challenging and rewarding.Special mention must be made of the many people who contributed to this paper.First and foremost, loving thanks to my wife, Robbi, for all the support and hard work, often performing the duties of two parents while I was laboring over the project. Thanks also go to Ed Wardzala, Laudie Doubrava, Bill Schell, and many others at Tektronix for their help, and to Tony Tovar, fellow student at PSU, for his assistance with this paper.