PRINCIPLES OF RADIO COMMUNICATION

Cristian IFRIM

”Henri Coandă” Air Force Academy, Braşov, Romania ( cristi.ifrim07@gmail.com )

Abstract: Electromagnetic waves have their biggest usage in practice in radio

communications. It represents the transmission over distances of information with the help of
electromagnetic waves. The possibility of using these waves in radio communication is
determined by the fact that they transport energy and by their emission speed.
Radio communication involves the existence of radio transmitters. Their purpose is to
produce electromagnetic energy which later on is radiated in space through the transmitting
antennas. The waves are captured by the receiving antennas and they are turned into electric
signals equivalent to the transmitted information. The quality of the received information
depends on the ratio between the received signal and the noise.

Keywords: high frequency, electromagnetic waves, emission, antenna, spectrum, band

Symbols and acronyms:

HF High Frequency SNR Signal to Noise Ratio
BLOS Beyond Line-Of-Sight EMI Electromagnetic Interference

1. GENERAL CONCEPTS
1.1 INTRODUCTION

Radio communication represents one of the few ways of creating a real-time

communication. During the war this technology was used a lot for transmitting messages
using the Morse code. Nowadays, the domain of high frequency waves, also known as
short waves, are very important because they are being used in new technologies. As the
time passed the characteristics of the propagation of radio waves have been better
understood. That is how the operators found out that the used frequencies depend on the
season change and they vary as the time passes.
HF technology has developed in a quite short period of time. Referring to The
Second World War, the HF radio represented the main way to communicate to huge
distances in the military area because it made possible the communication with the air
force, land forces and with the navy. The HF radio allowed the transmitting of
communication across thousand of kilometers because of their propagation through the
ionosphere, see Figure 1.
People lost their interest towards HF radio with the satellites launched in 1960
which offer the possibility of using more channels and a faster emission of information.
The interest for the HF radio increased again after the 1990 when the research and
development in this domain raised and new generation of automatic HF equipments were
invented.
 FIG.1. THE USE OF IONOSPEHER

1.2 OVERVIEW

The understanding of and development of radio communication begins with the

understanding of electromagnetic radiations. Radio waves belong to the family of
electromagnetic radiation which also include x-rays, ultraviolet waves and visible light.
Those are forms of energy which is used very often.
A radio wave is characterized of amplitude, frequency and wavelength.
The amplitude of the radio wave means its height, the distance from origin to its
peak and it is measured in volts.
The frequency of radio waves means the numbers of cycles during a specific
period of time. It is measured in hertz so that one hertz means one cycle per second.
Wavelength represents the distance between identical points on consecutive
waves. If the frequency grows, the wavelength grows as well.
Considering that radio waves propagate with the speed of light (3·10 8
meters/second) the wavelength can be easily determined in meters for any frequency.

FIG.2. THE PATTERN OF THE ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVE

 2. RADIO SPECTRUM

Within the spectrum of frequencies of electromagnetic radiation (see Figure 3),

the frequencies which correspond to radio waves varies from 20 kHz to 30.000 MHz. At
the frequency of 20 kHz the wavelength is 15 kilometers, while at the frequency of
30.000 MHz the wavelength is only 1 centimeter.
It is established for the HF band to be located from 3 to 30 MHz. Even so, in
practice, most of HF radios use the spectrum within 1,6 and 30 MHz. Most of the
communications inside this band take place from 4 to 18 MHz. A higher frequency (from
18 to 30 MHz) could be used from time to time, depending on the condition of the
ionosphere and of the moment of the day.

FIG.3. SPECTRUM OF RADIO FREQUENCY

2.1 HF RADIO SPECTRUM ALLOCATION

Radio spectrum belongs to the category of limited natural resources and that is the
main reason why it should be managed efficient and rationally in order to assure the
satisfaction of the public interest, the social one, the defense of the country.
Within the HF spectrum some certain frequency groups are allocated to some
specific radio services such as: aviation, navy, military, government, amateur (see Figure
4). The frequencies are given depending on the type of emission: emergency, radio, voice,
Morse code, facsimile or data. Those allocations are established by the national licenses.
 FIG.4. HF RADIO SPECTRUM ALLOCATION

3. THE PROPAGATION OF RADIO WAVES

There are two main ways of propagation of the radio signals. Those are ground
waves and sky waves. Ground waves are transmitted alongside earth’s surface and sky
waves keep oscillating between sky and earth (see Figure 5).
Ground waves have three important components: surface waves, direct waves and
ground reflected waves.
Surface waves are emitted alongside earth’s surface reaching points over the
horizon. In the end, wave’s energy ends up being absorbed by the earth.
Direct waves are transmitted in straight line. Their energy becomes lower and
lower as the distance is increased. They can be bent or refracted by the atmosphere which
increases the distances they can reach over the horizon.
Ground reflected waves represent the way which the waves follow, they reflecting
on the earth’s surface between the transmitter and the receiver.
 FIG.5. DIFFERENT PROPAGATION PATHS
4. IONOSPHERE

There are the so called sky waves which make possible the communication
beyond the horizon. Having some specific frequencies, radio waves are refracted or bent
coming back to earth thousands of kilometers away from the point when they were
transmitted. A signal can stand more than one consecutive reflections before reaching the
receiver but this depends on the frequency, moment of the day and of the atmospheric
conditions.
The area from the atmosphere called ionosphere and it consists of a huge number
of particles and gases electrically charged being placed from approximately 50 km to 600
km height. The ionization is determined by the radiation of the sun and it represents the
process during which the electrons leave the atoms, being created particles electrically
charged. The ionosphere is important for the use of HF waves because layer of gases it’s
like a natural satellite, making possible the majority of BLOS radio communications.
When the radio waves hit those ionized layers, depending on frequency, some of them are
being totally absorbed, some of them are reflected, coming back to earth and some of
them pass though the ionosphere, being lost in space. The absorption tends to be higher at
lower frequencies.
The ionosphere is made of four layers, each one of them having different effects
on the HF radio waves, depending on frequency.

FIG.6. LAYERS OF IONOSPHERE AFFECTING HF RADIO WAVES

5. NOISE AND INTERFERENCES

The noise and the interferences come from external and as well from internal
sources. The level of internal noise is way higher than the one of the internal noise on a
significant proportion of the HF band. SNR is the rate that represents the quality of the
signal. It means signal to noise ratio and its measurements are made in dB. The lower
SNR is, the better the quality of the received signal will be.
 The main natural source of noise is the lightening. The atmospheric noise is higher
during the summer, especially during the night. Another natural source of noise is the
cosmic noise, generated in space. This is uniformly distributed in space, within the HF
spectrum, but it doesn’t affect the performances lower than 20 MHz.
The artificial noise is the one produced by human. This kind of noise is generated
by human actions and it is called electromagnetic interference (EMI) and its highest
values are in the urban areas.
Unintentional interferences are caused because of the crowded radio spectrum,
causing interferences to each other, because of the huge number of people.
Intentional interferences or jamming come from the emission of operational
frequencies in order to interrupt communications. Jamming can be aimed on a single
channel or on a wide band. It can be continuous, using continuous emission, or the
radiation can take place only when the signal that have to be jammed exists.

CONCLUSIONS

Nowadays and in the future the HF radio fulfils two major duties. On the one hand
it represents the main way for the communications across huge distances to take place
when there is the need of a mobile system, to support emergencies or military operations.
On the other hand it is an alternative and a support for the other means of communication
such as telephone systems and satellites. In any of these situations the HF radio has to
provide a big diversity of traffic, including transmissions of voice, data and images. The
innovations to digital signal processing will lead to the perpetual improvement of HF
systems and equipments. The improvements of HF systems in technology based on
computer provides networks which reach the level of reliable communications because of
the automatic redirection of signals. Digital circuits will keep to replace the analogical
ones. The former ones are cheaper, more adaptable and more stable. Digital processing
circuits will be using higher and higher frequencies and analogical to digital convertors of
higher speed. The adaptation, which is possible because of the digital circuits, allows
radio modems to be reprogrammed in a short period of time for operations in a wide
band, the result being the occurrence of new levels of performance such as higher data
transfer rates and capabilities of improving the jump frequency.

REFERENCES

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocommunication_service
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_frequency
4. https://www.home-biology.com/electromagnetic-radiation/high-frequency-
electromagnetic-fields
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_spectrum
6. http://www.etsi.org/technologies-clusters/technologies/radio/radio-
spectrum
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_allocation
8. https://www.electronics-notes.com/articles/antennas-
propagation/ionospheric/ionosphere.php
9. https://www.electronics-notes.com/articles/antennas-
propagation/propagation-overview/basics.php
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionosphere
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_(radio)
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_jamming
13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_jamming_and_deception