The broadband microwave propagating characteristics of a novel, large volume, coaxial gridded hollow cathode helium plasma is reported in this paper. The basic plasma parameters were determined using an Impedans Ltd. Langmuir probe under a variety of conditions. The transmission attenuation was recorded by using Scattering Parameters (S-parameters) of a vector network analyzer with the frequency range from 2 GHz to 18 GHz and a propagation model was established using the Z transform finite-difference time-domain method for simulating the transmission of microwave. The effects of both the gas pressure and the input power on the electromagnetic wave propagation are analyzed. The results showed that the computational and experimental results of transmission attenuation were in good agreements. Moreover, the electron density ne and the effective collision rate νc were found to play important roles in the propagation of microwave.