formed by the union of any combination of gasket and cover flanges, and ideally creates a continuous inner surface from one waveguide to the other, with no crack at the join to interrupt the surface currents. The difficulty with this sort of connection is that any manufacturing imperfections or dirt or damage on the faces of the flanges will result in a crack. Arcing of the current across the crack will cause further damage, loss of power, and may give rise to arcing from one side of the guide to the other, thereby short circuiting it. Choke connection A choke connection is formed by mating one choke flange and one cover (or gasket/cover) flange. The central region of the choke flange face is very slightly recessed so that it does not touch the face of the cover flange, but is separated from it by a narrow gap. The recessed region is bounded by a deep choke trench (or ditch or groove) cut into the face of the flange. Choke flanges are only used with rectangular waveguide, and are invariably pressurizable, having a gasket groove encircling the choke ditch. The presence of these two concentric circular grooves makes choke flanges easily recognizable. The left-hand flange in figure 2 is a choke flange. It is considered wrong to join together two choke flanges; the resulting gap between the flange faces is twice that intended, and the effect is similar to that of having two joins in the guide rather than one. In the absence of unpressurizable choke flanges, all flanges fall into one of three categories: choke, gasket/cover and cover. An E-plane cross section of an assembled choke connection is shown in figure 3. This is the plane cutting each of the broad walls of the waveguide along its centre-line, which is where the longitudinal surface currents—those that must cross the join—are at their strongest. The choke ditch and the gap between the flange faces together form a somewhat convoluted side-branch to the path of the main guide. This side branch is designed to present a low input impedance where it meets the broad walls of the waveguide, so that the surface currents there are not obstructed by the gap, but instead flow onto and off of the separated faces of the flanges. Conversely, on the outer edge of the choke ditch, at the point where the two flanges come into physical