P51, I can understand where you are coming from. Some people become proficient in various subjects, and can't grasp other ideas as easily. I spent 41 years with Ma Bell (Verizon) as a Cable splicer, in the Maintenance side as a troubleshooter. I went to whole gamut from (POTS) plain old telephone service of the old copper cables, all the way through to building, maintaining, and installing fiber optics, which take you from an Old Analog world to the Digital World. POTS lines using copper cables were manufactured to specific designs, and were fairly standard as far as electrical characteristics. The typical copper cables measured .083 Microfarads per mile of cable (26, 24, 22, gauge wires). A set from 19 ga. was in the range of .062-.066. These constants were necessary for good Voice communications. The typical voice range of the human voice is from 300hz-4000hz. A cable that was too long with strictly a capacity value, would affect the high range.
I used to ask other guys I worked with, what a Load Coil was, and how was it used. The 'Load Coil' is an inductor, or coil of wire wrapped around a ferrite core, and in telephone use, they all measured .88 millihenries. The majority of answers were that it amplified the voice. NO, NO, not at all. I would explain it with an analogy actually using Railroad Tracks, in the explanation. POTS service used a pair of wires called Tip & Ring. If a cable exceeded 18000 feet in length, it needed to have "COILS' added in specific spots. The railroad tracks were one rail was the TIP, the other rail was the RING, and if you stood between the two rails, on flat level even ground, what do the rails look like at the far end. Your range of eyesight makes it look like the rails are coming together. So effectively a cable too long "SHORTS" out the circuit. Excess Capacitive reactance, which can only be balanced or cancelled out by placing Inductance into the length. Once the analogy was used, they understood the basics of good old POTS service.
Bring on Fiber Optics, and the digital world, and it is a whole different ball game, but the underlying concept is 1 & 0, which is also known as ON or OFF state, and it goes into Binary Progressions, or multiples. (1-0-1-0-1 and then 11-00-11-00, 111-000-111-000, and so on.
