The effectiveness of the regenerator pertaining to Stirling cycle machines is studied by analyzing the heat transfer characteristics of the oscillating flow in a tube, and a new consistent definition of the regenerator effectiveness can be expressed by the ratio of the heat transfer in axial direction (Q$\_$axial/) to that in transverse direction (Q/su w/), and its approximate form is obtained as a function of Nusselt number for practical utility. Since an approximate value of the ratio Q$\_$axial//Qsub w/ can be expressed in terms of the time-averaged rather than transient temperatures, this expression is useful to estimate the heat transfer coefficient in the Stirling machine regenerator experimentally.