The strength of aluminum cable steel reinforced (ACSR) is an important index of loading capacity and safety of cables and will decrease with fatigue damage. However, the strength of ACSR used in transmission lines would be difficultly measured online. Hence the objective of this work is to investigate online measurement parameters employed to characterize fatigue damage of transmission lines. The resistance and strength characteristics of ACSR conductors in long-term service were experimental studied; it revealed that strength loss rate is positively correlated with DC resistance growth rate. Then the DC resistance growth rate may be used as a fatigue damage evaluation index. Although the DC resistance of transmission lines is difficultly measured online, a resistance and inductance (RL) distributed parameter model simplified and an online measurement scheme were proposed. The simulation and experimental results showed that the DC resistance can be effectively and accurately measured online.