Standing wave ratio

Imagine you're jumping on a trampoline with your friend. When you jump, you create waves that travel across the trampoline, just like ripples in a pond. These waves bounce off the edges of the trampoline and come back towards you.

Now, let's say your friend starts jumping too. You both create waves that travel across the trampoline, but since you're jumping in sync, the waves overlap and create bigger waves in some places and smaller waves in others. These bigger waves are called "peaks" and the smaller waves are called "valleys".

If you were to measure the size of the waves at different points on the trampoline, you would notice that the size of the waves changes depending on where you measure them. In some places, the waves might be really big, while in other places they might be really small. The ratio of the biggest wave to the smallest wave is called the "standing wave ratio".

The same thing happens with radio waves that travel through cables, like those used in your Wi-Fi or phone. When a radio wave travels through a cable, it can create a standing wave that bounces back and forth between the two ends of the cable. The size of this standing wave changes along the length of the cable and can cause problems with the quality and strength of the signal.

So, standing wave ratio is just a measure of how much the size of a wave changes along the length of a cable, and it's something that engineers try to minimize in order to make sure that our Wi-Fi and phone signals are strong and reliable.