As the frequency increases in the development of Body Area Network (BAN), the investigation of real human body becomes necessary. Thus, this paper studies the corresponding electromagnetic channel characteristics at 5.8GHz for a real Chinese male arm. The patch and monopole antennas whose substrates are based on the 100% cotton are considered in order to analyze both the surface wave and line-of-sight (LOS) propagations, respectively. Here, two uniform antennas of each type are placed on the wrist and the upper arm, and study the corresponding electromagnetic channel characteristics by means of their transmission coefficients. The simulated results show that the transmission coefficients on the arm for both antenna types are about 2.5dB higher than those of air due to the existence of surface wave, and the transmission coefficient of the patch antenna is more sensitive than that of the monopole if the antenna separates the arm in the certain distance range.