The Basics
Every student should independently re-cap Chapter 1 of the main course book (Teppati, pages 3-20, 17 p.) at the beginning of the course, since this chapter nicely summarises some of the pre-requisites of this course, such as scattering parameters and using the Smith chart. Please put special emphasis on understanding the concept of the directional coupler because it is an essential component in some microwave measurements. Since these topics are pre-requisites to this course, they are not separately handled/repeated in the contact sessions.
Every student should also read part of Chapter 4 of the second course book (Collier) namely section 4.1 (pages 59-60, 2 p.) and section 4.B.5 (pages 76-77, 2 p.), which discusses coaxial cable connectors and especially SMA connectors from a very practical viewpoint. Coaxial cables with SMA connectors are commonly used in microwave measurements and need to be handled with great care. This whole chapter may provide very useful reference material for your later pratical lab work.