loading, in communications technology, addition of inductance to an antenna or at periodic intervals to a transmission line to improve operating characteristics. Loading coils in telephone lines may be spaced as close as one mile. Counteracting the effects of capacitance, they make line impedance approach the equivalence of pure resistance.
Radio antennas that are too short to be resonant at their operating frequency can be made to approach resonance by inserting a coil in series in the antenna circuit. Automobile radios generally include loading coils because whip antennas are much too short to resonate at broadcast frequencies. Some telephone and telegraph cables are provided with continuous loading by being wrapped with a spiral of magnetic material.