A model of a linear digital communication system is introduced and adaptive equalization in general is explained. A five-tap transversal equalizer is designed, breadboarded and tested in a 60MbJs burst mode modem in a quasi-linear and a non-linear channel under the following configurations:1. Parabolic, linear and combination of parabolic and linear delay distortions were inserted after the 2. Case 1 was repeated with distortions inserted before the non-linearity. When parabolic distortion is added before the non-linearity improvements in the BER are non-linearity (TWTA).significant.