Summary of Important Transmission Fundamentals

Review Notes
Impedance is the opposition to the transfer of energy which is
considered the dominant characteristics of a cable or circuit that
emanates from its physical structure

When load impedance equals to Zo of the line, it means that the

load absorbs all the power

4:1 – Impedance matching ratio of a coax balun

dBr stands for dB relative level

1000 Hz – Standard test tone used for audio measurement

When VSWR is equal to zero, this means that no power is applied

Reflection coefficient is the ratio of reflected voltage to the forward

traveling voltage

Transmission line must be matched to the load to transfer maximum

power to the load

Dissipation factor indicates the relative energy loss in a capacitor

0 dBm is the standard test tone

Standing waves – the energy that neither radiated into space nor
completely transmitted

1 Angstrom (A°) is equal to 10^-10 m

It is impossible to use a waveguide at low radio frequencies because of

the size of the waveguide

Communications is the transmission and reception of information

Transmission lines are either balanced or unbalanced with respect

to ground

The standing wave ratio is equal to 1 if the load is properly matched with
the transmission line

Low attenuation is the advantage of the balanced transmission line

compared to unbalanced line
Spectral analysis is the method of determining the bandwidth of any
processing system
Losses in the conducting walls of the guide causes the attenuation
present in a waveguide

Balun – a device that converts a balanced line to an unbalanced line of a

transmission line

The average power rating of RG-58 C/u is 50 W

RG-211A – a coaxial cable used for high temperatures

The velocity factor of a transmission line depends on the dielectric

constant of the material used

Impedance inversion can be obtained by a quarter-wave line

Transmission lines when connected to antennas have resistive load at

the resonant frequency

Characteristic impedance – the impedance measured at the input of

the transmission line when its length is infinite

Complex propagation constant is not considered primary line constant

The dielectric constants of materials commonly used in transmission lines

range from about 1.2 to 2.8

Typically, the velocity factor (Vf) of the materials used in transmission

lines rage from 0.6 to 0.9

For an air dielectric two-wire line, the minimum characteristic impedance

value is 83 ohms

When a quarter-wave section transmission line is terminated by a short

circuit and is connected to an RF source at the other end, its input
impedance is equivalent to a parallel resonant LC circuit

The concept used to make one Smith chart universal is

called normalization

The basic elements of communication system are the transmitter,

receiver, and transmission channel

Facsimile is the transmission of printed material over telephone lines

Call waiting tone is a continuous tone generated by the combination of

two frequencies of 350 Hz and 440 Hz used in telephone sets
VF repeaters are unidirectional amplifiers having 20-25 decibel gain that
are placed about 75 km apart used to compensate for losses along the
telephone

Induction coil is a component in the telephone set that has the primary
function of interfacing the handset to the local loop
Pulse dialing has 10 pulse/sec rate

Trunk line is a telephone wire that connects two central offices

MTSO – the central switching office coordinating element for all cell sites
that has cellular processor and cellular switch. It interfaces with telephone
company zone offices, control call processing and handle billing activities

Base station in a cellular system performs radio-related functions for

cellular site.

Frequency re-use – a technology used to increase the capacity of a

mobile phone system

If the grade of service of a telephone system indicated P = 0.05, it

means lost call of 5%

3700 Hz is the Out-of-band signaling between Toll Central Offices (Bell
System Standard)

If the SWR is infinite, the load transmission line is purely reactive

Not more than 12 digits make up an international telephone number as

recommended by CCITT REC. E. 161

One (1) Erlang is equal to 36 CCS

WATS – standard tariff for flat rate telephone service beyond the normal
flat rate in that area

The standard analog telephone channel bandwidth is 300-3400 Hz

Manual switching – type of switching in which a pair of wire from the

telephone set terminates in a jack and the switch is supervised by an
operator

Everytime when the telephone is idle, the handset is in the on-

hook state.

Varistor is a component in the telephone set that has the primary

function of compensating for the local loop length
Electromagnetic receiver is used in conventional telephone handset
A voice-grade circuit using PTN has an ideal passband of 0 to 4 kHz

Basic voice grade (VG) is the minimum-quality circuit available using

the PTN

Direct distance dialing (DDD) network is called Dial-up network

The advantage of sidetone is it assures the customer that the

telephone is working

Tie trunk is a special service circuit connected two private branch

exchanges (PBX)

Tariff – the published rates, regulations, and descriptions governing the

provision of communications service for public use

The power loss of a telephone hybrid is 3 dB

Telephone channel has a band-pass characteristic occupying the

frequency range of 300-3400 Hz

The first strowger step-by-step switch was used in 1897

G.122 is the CCITT recommendation for a preparation of loss plan, a

variable loss plans and a fixed loss plan

Umbrella cells is appropriate for load management, fast moving mobiles

and low-usage areas

In cellular networks, standard base station antennas are replaced

by adaptive array

Analogue cellular technology is the basis of the first generation

wireless local loop

When the calling party hears a “busy” tone on his telephone, the call is
considered completed

Short-circuited stubs are preferred to open circuited stubs because the

latter are liable to radiate

Coefficient of reflection is the ratio of the reflected voltage to the

incident voltage
Quarter-wave matching – one method of determining antenna
impedance

Single-wire line is a single conductor running from the transmitter to

the antenna

Coaxial cable impedance is typically 50 to 75 ohms

Waveguide becomes compulsory above 3 GHz

Normal voice channel bandwidth is 4 kHz

Echo suppressors are used on all communications system when the round
trip propagation time exceeds 50 ms

Quarter-wavelength line is used as impedance transformer

The transmission lines which can convey electromagnetic waves only in

higher modes is usually called waveguide

Nitrogen gas is sometimes used in waveguide to keep the waveguide

dry

It is impossible to use a waveguide at low radio frequencies because of

the size of the waveguide

To couple in and out of a waveguide, insertion of an E-probe into the

waveguide and insertion of an H-loop into the waveguide is done

A rectangular waveguide is operating in the dominant TE10 mode. The

associated flux lines are established transversely across the narrow
dimension of the waveguide

For dominant mode of a rectangular waveguide, the distance between two

instantaneous consecutive positions of maximum field intensity is referred
to as half of the guide wavelength

The guide wavelength, in a rectangular waveguide is greater than the

free-space wavelength at the same signal frequency

Using the TE10 mode, microwave power can only be transmitted in free
rectangular guide provided the wide dimension is greater than one-
half of the wavelength in free space

If the signal frequency applied to a rectangular guide is increased and the

dominant mode is employed, the group velocity is increased
The frequency range over which a rectangular waveguide is excited in the
dominant mode is limited to the difference between the frequency at
which the cutoff wavelength is twice the narrow dimension

If a rectangular waveguide is to be excited in the dominant mode, the E-

probe should be inserted at a distance of one quarter-wavelength
from the sealed end

A quarter-wave line is connected to an RF generator and is shorted out at

the far end. The input impedance to the line generator is a high value of
resistance
If the SWR on a transmission line has a high value, the reason could
be an impedance mismatch between the line and the load

If a quarter-wave transmission line is shorted at one end the line

behaves as a parallel-tuned circuit in relation to the generator

A 50-ohm transmission line is feeding an antenna which represents a 50

ohm resistive load. To shorten the line, the length must be any
convenient value

The outer conductor of the coaxial cable is usually grounded at the

beginning and at the end of the cable

A feature of an infinite transmission line is that its input impedance at

the generator is equal to the line’s surge impedance

When the surge impedance of a line is matched to a load, the line

will transfer maximum power to the load

SWR – ratio of the mismatch between the antenna and the transmitter
power

F3C and A3E – emission designation for a facsimile

AWG #19 – commonly used telephone wire

Wavelength is the distance traveled by a wave in the time of one cycle

The velocity factor is inversely proportional with respect to the square

root of the dielectric constant

Balun circuit connects a balanced line to an unbalanced line

To connect a coaxial line to a parallel wire line, balun is used

Waveguides are transmission lines which can convey electromagnetic

waves only in higher order modes
The amount of uncertainly in a system of symbols is also called entropy

The twists in twisted wire pairs reduced electromagnetic interference

Loading means to the addition of inductance

Coaxial is the most commonly used transmission line for high frequency
application

The characteristic impedance of a transmission does not depend upon

its length
For maximum absorption of power at the antenna, the relationship
between the characteristic impedance of the line Zo and the load
impedance Zl should be Zo = Zl

The mismatch between antenna and transmission line impedance cannot

be corrected for by adjusting the length of transmission line

Standing waves is a pattern of voltage and current variations along a

transmission line not terminated in its characteristic impedance

The desirable SWR on a transmission line is 1

The most desirable reflection coefficient is 0

Reflection coefficient is the ratio expressing the percentage of incident

voltage reflected on a transmission line

At very high frequencies, transmission lines act as tuned circuits

A shorted quarter-wave line at the operating frequency acts like

a parallel resonant circuit

A shorted half-wave line at the operating frequency acts like a series

resonant circuit

Coaxial medium is least susceptible to noise

Twisted pair medium is most widely used in LANs

Coaxial cable is the most commonly used transmission line in television

system

DC blocks are used in coaxial transmission line for the purpose

of preventing AC power supply voltage from being shorted by a
balun or band splitter
Adjacent channel interference is a type of interference caused by off-
air TV channels 2 and 4, plus a satellite dish operating on channel 3

Dithering (in TVRO communications) is a process for reducing the

effect of noise on the TVRO video signal

Frequency and voltage are important useful quantities describing

waveforms

Halving the power means 3-dB loss

One neper (Np) is 8.686 decibels

Reflectometer is used to measure SWR

214-056 twin lead which is commonly used for TV lead-in has
characteristics impedance of 300 ohm

A coaxial cable is a good example of a bounded medium

dNp is known as one-tenth of a neper

The input impedance of a quarterwave short-circuited transmission line at

its resonant frequency is infinite or an open circuit

The ratio of the largest rms value to the smallest rms value of the voltage
in the line is called VSWR

The characteristic impedance of a transmission line does not depend upon

its length

A power difference of -3 dB means a loss of one half of the power

Low attenuation is an advantage of the balance transmission line

Waveguides are used mainly for microwave transmission because no

generators are powerful enough to excite them

The ratio of the smallest to the largest rms current value is called ISWR

A ten times power change in transmission system is equivalent to 10 dB

Parallel-wire line type transmission line is employed where balanced

properties are required

To be properly matched the ratio of a maximum voltage along a

transmission line should be equal to 1
Absorption coefficient – the ratio between the energy absorbed by a
surface to the total energy received by the surface

When the diameter of the conductors of a 2 wire transmission line is held

constant, the effect of decreasing the distance between the conductors
is decrease the impedance

The higher the gauge number of a conductor the higher the resistance

or the smaller the diameter

λ/4 transformer – a short length of transmission line used to

reduce/eliminate standing wave in the main transmission line

Reflectance – ratio of reflected power to incident power

The SWR when a transmission line is terminated in a short circuit
is infinite
Summary of Important Acoustics Review Notes
Sound level meter – an instrument designed to measure a frequency-
weighted value of the sound pressure level

Noy – a unit of noisiness related to the perceived noise level

Noise rating curves – an agreed set of empirical curves relating octave-

band sound pressure level to the center frequency of the octave bands.

Natural frequency – the frequency of a free vibration

Flanking transmission – the transmission of sound from one room to

an adjacent room, via common walls, floors or ceilings

Hearing level – a measure of threshold of hearing, expressed in decibels

relative to a specified standard of normal hearing

330 m/s – velocity of sound in air

Speaker is a device that converts current variations into sound

waves

Carbon type of microphone operates on the principle that the electrical

resistance of carbon granules varies as the pressure on the granules vary

Bass response is bypassing high audio frequencies

Pure tone of sound used as standard on testing is 1000 Hz

Echo is early reflection of sound

Dolby – noise reduction system used for film sound in movie

Sound intensity is the sound energy per unit area at right angles to the
propagation direction per unit time

Phon is the unit of loudness level of a sound

Sound intensity is the average rate of transmission of sound energy in a

given direction through a cross-section area of 1 sq. m. at right angles to
the direction

Mel is the unit of pitch

Decibel – a measure of the intensity of sound in comparison to another

sound intensity

Sound wave has two main characteristics which are pitch and loudness
Dynamic type of microphone operated by electromagnetic induction that
generates an output signal voltage

Supersonic – speed that is faster than speed of sound

Sound waves travel in water at a 5000 ft/sec speed

Wavelength – crest-to-crest distance along the direction of wave travel

Sound intensity level is 10 log I/Iref

Sound pressure level is 20 log P/Pref

The most important specification of loudspeakers and microphones

is frequency response

Fundamental – lowest frequency produced by a musical instrument

Diffraction – tendency of a sound energy to spread

When waves bend away from straight lines of travel, it is

called refraction

Reverberation time – required time for any sound to decay to 60 dB

The intensity needed to produce an audible sound varies with frequency

Ultrasonic – sound that vibrates at frequency too high for the human ear
to hear (over 20 kHz)
Crystal microphone will be damaged if exposed to high temperature
above 52°C

Spider – a thin springy sheet of bakelite or metal that permits the voice
coil in a dynamic loudspeaker to move back and forth along the core of its
magnet

One hundred twenty μbars of pressure variation is equal to 115.56

dBSPL

Proximity effect is a microphone characteristic that results in a boost in

bass frequencies for close microphone spacing

20 Hz to 20 kHz is the audio frequency range

10 Hz to 20 kHz is the bass frequency range

5,000 Hz to 10 kHz – high frequency range of audio signals

65 is the dB SPL of a voice paging in an office

90 – 100 is the dBdb SPL of an auditorium with contemporary music

80 – 85 is the church db SPL with speech reinforcement only

Intensity can also be called as loudness

The loudness of a sound depends upon the energy of motion imparted

to vibrating molecules of the medium transmitting the sound

Loudness is affected by the distance between the listener and the source
of the sound and its intensity varies inversely with the square of this
distance

If the distance between the listener and the source of the sound is
doubled, the intensity is reduced to ¼

If the distance between the listener and the source of the sound is
decreased to ½ the original amount, the intensity of the sound would be 4
times as great
At a sensation level of 40dB, 1000 Hz tone is 1000 mels

If the sound waves are converted to electrical waves by a microphone,

the frequency of the electric current will be 25 to 8000 Hz

For a music lover concert “A” is 440 Hz. If a musical note one octave
higher 0were played, it would be double that frequency
In a 220 Hz, if a note was played one octave lower it would be 110 Hz
Much of music generally referred to in octaves

Distortion is an undesired change in wave form as the signal passes

through a device

Distortion enhances intelligibility when an exciter is added

Exciters – a class of signal processors

Hall construction and internal finishes affect the final sound

quality significantly

Positioning a loudspeaker near a wall can dramatically alter its frequency

response in two distinct ways namely hump and notch
The acoustics of most auditoria are very different when the room is full
compared to the empty condition

A microphone transducer converts acoustical energy

All microphone have two basic components namely, diaphragm and

generating element

When the average absorption is greater than 0.2, Norris-Eyring formula

is used to compute the actual reverberation time

At room temperature, the velocity of sound in meters/seconds is 341.8

m/s

The ratio of frequencies is termed as interval

6 dB is the increase in sound pressure level in dB, if the pressure is

doubled

Pitch – a term which is subjective but dependent mainly on frequency

and also affected by intensity

Masking – an effect that occurs in the ear where a louder sound can
reduce or even stop the nerve voltage generated by a weaker sound

For computation of ideal reverberation time, Stephen and Bate is

applicable

The loudness of sound is a subjective effect which is a function of the ear

and brain
Reverberation time – defined as the time taken for the intensity of
sound energy in the room to drop to one millionth of its initial value

Sound intensity is the sound energy per unit area at right angles of the
propagation direction, per unit time

Phon – the unit of loudness level

Flutter echo – consists of a rapid succession of noticeable echoes

W.C Sabine – laid the foundations of acoustic theory of buildings

Sound – an aural sensation by pressure variation in the air which are

always produced by some source of vibrations
10-12 W/m2 is considered to be as the threshold of hearing

The average absorption for a person is 4.7 units

Frequency – the number of vibration or pressure fluctuations per second

Sound intensity – defined as the average rate of transmission of sound
energy in a given direction through a cross-sectional area of 1 m^2 at
right angles to the direction

The minimum sound intensity that can be heard is termed as threshold

of hearing

Mel – the unit of pitch

3 dB is the increase in sound pressure level in dB, if the intensity is

doubled

The velocity of sound is considered to be constant at 330 m/s for the

purpose of building acoustics

Summary of Important Modulation Review Notes

50 dB is the maximum sideband suppression value using filter system

Modulation index determines the number of sideband components in

FM

H3E transmit only one sideband

Baseband frequency produces sidebands on FM

Spectrum analyzer displays the carrier and the sidebands amplitude

with frequency to frequency
Mixer is also known as converter

A3H emission transmit the lower sideband and half of the upper sideband

An FM receive signal vary in frequency with modulation

The process of impressing intelligence on the carrier is called modulation

Spectrum analyzer is an electronic instrument used to show both the

carrier and the sidebands of a modulated signal in the frequency domain

Amplitude is varied at the carrier by the intelligence during modulation

in an AM system

The difference between the RF carrier and the modulating signal

frequencies is called the LSB

Buffer stage in a radio transmitter isolates the oscillator from the load

The frequency of the unmodulated carrier in FM system is center

frequency

The ratio of maximum deviation to the maximum modulating frequency is

called deviation ratio

A carrier signal has a frequency of 20 kHz and above

In a FM system, if modulation index is doubled by halving the modulating
frequency, there will be no effect on the maximum deviation

Armstrong system is considered as an indirect method of generating FM

To generate an SSB or DSB signal one must use a circuit known

as balanced modulator

Crystal radio receiver is the first radio receiver

An interfering signal with a frequency equal to the received signal plus

twice the IF is called image frequency

A3E – double sideband full carrier emission type

R3E – single sideband reduced carrier emission type

J3E – a single sideband suppressed carrier emission type

B8E – independent sideband emission type

C3F – vestigial sideband emission type

H3E – single sideband full carrier emission type

G3E – phase modulation emission type

Better fidelity is not an advantage of SSB over AM

The advantage of a high level modulated AM transmitter is higher value

of operating power

The advantage of a low-level modulated AM transmitter is less audio

power required

Interference to other radio services is the bad effect caused by

overmodulation in AM transmission

Selectivity of a radio receiver refers to its ability to reject an unwanted

signal

F3E emission is frequency modulation

AM transmission power increase with modulation

Capture effect locks the FM receiver to a stronger signal

The highest percentage of modulation for AM is 100%

In FM, the Carson’s Rule states that the bandwidth is equal to twice the
sum of the modulating frequency and frequency deviation

The carrier swing of an FM transmitter when modulated by 75% is 112.5

kHz

Frequency modulation – the modulation system inherently more resistant

to noise

Subcarriers that are arranged so that the channels occupying adjacent

frequency bands with some frequency space between them is known
as guard bands

Modulation of an RF carrier results in multiple channels, smaller

antennas, and directional propagation

Modulation is a process which occurs in the transmitter

Demodulation is a process which occurs in the receiver

Buffer amplifier part of the transmitter that protects the crystal
oscillator
from “pulling”

The amplitude of a sine wave which is modulated by a musical program

will be complex, contain fundamental frequencies, and contain
harmonic frequencies

The result of the gain level being too high for signals entering the
modulator is distortion and splatter

Amplitude modulation causes the amount of transmitter power

to increase

When the amplitude of the modulating voltage is increased for AM, the
antenna current will increase

A second modulating tone having the same amplitude but a different

frequency is added to the first at the input to the modulator. The
modulation index will be increased by a factor of sqr(2)

Unwanted sidebands in SSB equipment can be suppressed by phasing

method and filter method

Envelope detection is concerned with the process of rectification

Diagonal clipping in envelope detection will result in distortion

Product detection requires the process of heterodyning

A sine wave which is coherent with carrier has identical frequency and

phase angle

Frequency modulation and phase modulation are collectively referred to

as angle modulation

In FM the change in carrier frequency is proportional to amplitude of the

modulating signal

A louder sound, when generating the modulating waveform for FM, will
cause a greater frequency deviation

Varactor diode – a device whose capacitance is deliberately made to be

a function of the applied voltage

A reactance modulator is one method of obtaining direct FM

VCO – a device, now available in IC form, is useful for direct FM and as
one element in the phase-locked loop

Multiplication is a frequency change process, whereby the phase

deviation and frequency deviation are multiplied by some fixed constant

Foster-Seeley discriminator – a circuit that has the function of

demodulating the frequency-modulated signal

The ratio detector is superior to the slope detector because it is less

sensitive to noise spikes and interference causing AM

One implementation of a pulse-averaging discriminator is a triggered

multivibrator

Two different signals can be coherent if they have the same frequency

A quadrature detector requires that the inputs are coherent

In a phase-locked loop, the VCO is the abbreviation for Voltage-

controlled oscillator

LSB and USB – the output of a balanced modulator

If the modulation index of an AM wave is changed from 0 to 1, the

transmitted power is increased by 50%

RF carrier is not a baseband signal of modulation

If the unmodulated level peak carrier amplitude is doubled in an AM

signal, the percent modulation is 100
Balanced modulator circuit when inserted in the equipment suppressed
the carrier

The carrier of a 100% modulated AM wave is suppressed, the percentage

power saving is 66.66%

If the modulation index of an AM wave is doubled, the antenna current is

also doubled, the AM system being used is J3E
100% modulation in AM means a corresponding increase in total power
by 50%

A single-tone amplitude modulated wave has 3 components

A carrier signal has constant peak amplitude

The modulating system is frequency modulation if the modulating
frequency is doubled, the modulation index is halved, and the modulating
voltage remains constant

The modulation index of an FM signal if its modulating frequency is

doubled is one-half the original index

A3E – standard way of designating AM

Discriminator  is the circuit used to detect frequency modulated signal

Baseband is an information signal that is sent directly without

modulating any carrier

Both frequency and phase modulation utilize angle modulation

Bandwidth – it is the width of frequencies within the spectrum occupied

by signal and used by the signal for conveying information

H3E transmit only one sideband

Continuous modulation is a kind of modulation in which the modulated

wave is always present.

Pulse modulation – a type of modulation in which no signal is present

between pulses

Coefficient of modulation is the amount of amplitude change present in

an AM waveform

Carrier shift is a form of amplitude distortion introduced when the

positive and negative alternations in the AM modulated signals are not
equal
The advantage of phase modulation over direct FM frequency modulation
is that the oscillator is crystal-controlled

If the spectrum is shifted in frequency with no other changes, this is

known as frequency translation

Balanced modulator – a device which is capable of causing frequency

translation

If the frequency of each component in a signal spectrum is increased by

the same fixed amount, this is known as frequency translation and up
conversion

Any device to be used as a frequency multiplier must be nonlinear

Push-push – a particular amplifier circuit used for frequency doubling

Frequency division is useful in the implementation of a frequency

synthesizer

Balanced modulator can be used as a phase detector

A particular frequency synthesizer contains only a single crystal. This

synthesizer is known as indirect

A recognizable feature of a CW transmitter is keyed transmitter, power

amplification, and frequency generation

The term “pulling” refers to the change of the crystal oscillator

frequency by loading

When frequency modulation is achieved by initial phase modulation, this

is called indirect FM

A disadvantage of direct FM is the need for AFC

Direct FM can be achieved by a reactance tube modulator and a

varactor diode

A receiver in which all RF amplifier stages require manual tuning to the

desired RF is called TRF

It is often necessary to precede the demodulator by amplifier stages in a

receiver because of weak antenna signals

A serious disadvantage of the TRF receiver is the bandwidth variations

over the tuning range

Modulator is not part of a superheterodyne receiver

R-F amplifier element will not be found in every superheterodyne

receiver
Mixer element of a superheterodyne receiver must be nonlinear

The change of the modulated carrier frequency from the original RF to the

I-F of the superheterodyne receiver is known as frequency translation

The key to achieving receiver sensitivity is the reduction of internal

noise
In comparing the S/N ratio for the input to the receiver with the S/N ratio
for the output, the latter is smaller

Noise figure – the characteristic of a receiver that specifies the self-

generated noise

The ratio of the superheterodyne receiver response at the desired carrier

frequency to that at the image frequency is called the image rejection
ratio

The core of an IF transformer usually contains powered iron

Shape factor is a measure of skirt steepness

AGC is the function which tends to maintain the sound volume level of a
voice receiver nearly constant for a large signal strength range

Squelch – the function which tends to silence the receiver in the absence
of transmitter carrier

Noise blanker device is incorporated in a communications receiver to

reduce impulse noise

If the input to a detector stage is an amplitude-modulated (A3E) IF signal

then the output from the stage is the audio voice information

In a capacitive type, reactance-tube modulator connected across an

oscillator tune circuit, a more negative voltage on the grid of the
reactance tube will cause an increase of the oscillator frequency

The limiting condition for sensitivity in a communications receiver is the

noise floor of the receiver

When a communications receiver is tuned to a strong signal, the AGC bias

is measured and found to be zero. The fault cannot be caused by
an open circuit in the AGC’s filter capacitor

Cross-modulation interference – the term used to refer to the

condition where the signals from a very strong station are superimposed
on other signals being received

The limiter stage of an FM receiver limits the amplitude of the IF

signal to the required level

Motorboating (low-frequency oscillations) in an amplifier can be stopped

by connecting a capacitor between the B+ and lead ground
Crossmodulation – an effect in which, the modulation of an unwanted
signal is transferred to the desired carrier

Leads should be kept as short as possible in radio circuit so that stray

coupling is minimized

4 voice transmissions can be packed into a given frequency band for

amplitude-compandored single-sideband systems over conventional FM-
phone systems

Neutralization of an RF amplifier stage can be necessary in order

to prevent the generation of spurious oscillations

The ability of a communications receiver to perform well in the presence

of strong signals outside the band of interest is indicated by blocking
dynamic range

RF amplifier, mixer, IF amplifier, and AF amplifier are stages that are

common to both AM and FM receivers

Filter ringing occurs during CW reception if too narrow a filter bandwidth

is used in the IF stage of a receiver

IF amplifier stage mainly determines a communication receiver’s

sensitivity

The main advantage of FM over AM is better signal-to-noise-ratio

Low-level modulation – an amplitude modulation created in an amplifier

before the final RF stage

Receiver desensitizing can be reduced by ensuring good RF shielding

between the transmitter

In a narrow-band FM system, the deviation ratio is commonly one and the

highest audio frequency is generally limited to 3,000 Hz

A3C – a type of emission is produced when an amplitude modulated

transmitter is modulated by a facsimile signal

The noise generated which primarily determines the signal to noise ratio
in a VHF (150 MHz) marine band receiver is in the receiver front end
Cross-modulation in a receiver can be reduced by installing a filter at
the receiver

F3E is the emission designation for FM telephony

The cause of receiver desensitizing is the presence of a strong signal
on a nearby frequency

In a phase-modulated signal (indirect FM), the frequency deviation is

directly proportional to the carrier amplitude only

An RF stage precedes the mixer stage in a superheat receiver. One

advantage of including this RF stage is letter rejection ratio

Bandwidth and noise figure are two factors that determine the

sensitivity of a receiver

An undesirable effect of using too-wide a filter bandwidth in the IF section

of a receiver is that the undesired signals will reach the audio stage

FM receiver – a system containing a limiter stage, a discriminator, and a

de-emphasis circuit

The limiter stage of an FM receiver prevents any amplitude

modulation of the IF signal

High selectivity occurs when the degree of coupling between a receiver’s

RF stage is loose

A carrier is phase modulated by a test tone. If the amplitude and the

frequency of the tone are both doubled, the amount of deviation
is multiplied by four

2.4 kHz is the degree of selectivity desirable in the IF circuitry of a

single-sideband receiver

The component most apt to break down in the radio circuit is the resistor

The base in an RF amplifier is grounded in order to avoid the

requirement of neutralizing the stage

The AM detector performs two basic functions in the receiver. It rectifies

and filters

A varactor diode can be used in direct FM modulator circuit, AFC

circuit in a direct FM transmitter and in phase-modulator circuit
Receiver interference is not reduced by including an insulating
enclosure around the receiver

Television is the emission C3F

Limiter stage in an FM receiver is responsible for drastically reducing the
effect of static noise during the reception of a signal

The letter “SSSC” stand for single sideband, suppressed carrier

For many types of voices, the ratio of PEP-to-average power during a

modulation peak in a single-sideband phone signal is approximately 2.5
to 1

In most mixers, the oscillator frequency is higher than the carrier

frequency of the input signal.

Features of a transmitter’s buffer stage include improvement in

frequency stability of the oscillator

A3F – type of emission produced when an amplitude modulated

transmitter is modulated by a television signal

A pi network is a network consisting of one inductor and two

capacitors

A G3E FM-phone signals is produced with a reactance modulator on

the oscillator

Installing resistive spark plugs is a way of eliminating auto

interference to radio reception

The carrier in an AM transmitter is the transmitter’s output signal

when the modulation is present

Final IF amplifier, which also acts as a limiter stage, feeds the

discriminator of an
FM receiver

In an FM receiver, the discriminator stage has the IF signal as input and

the audio signal as output

Capture effect – the loudest signal received is the only demodulated

signal

A double-sideband phone signal can be generated by modulating the

plate voltage of a class-C amplifier

Pre-emphasis is used in FM transmitters to improve the signal-to-noise

ratio of high modulating frequencies
The result of cross-modulation is that the modulation of an unwanted
signal is heard on the desired signal
FM receiver contains de-emphasis circuit

Television is emission F3F

F3C emission is produced when a frequency modulated transmitter is

modulated by a facsimile signal

Two AM transmitting antennas are close tighter. As a result the two

modulated signals are mixed in the final RF stage of both transmitters.

The resultant effect on the other station is intermodulation

interference

Desensitizing – the term used to refer to the reduction of receiver gain

caused by the signal of a nearby station transmitter in the same
frequency band

Bandwidth of emission and occupied bandwidth  is the bandwidth

occupied by the carrier, both sidebands and harmonics

A class-C RF amplifier is collector amplitude modulated and its average dc

level collector current does not change. This means a normal condition

Amplitude of the modulating signal determines the percentage

modulation of an
FM transmitter

Deviation ratio of an FM transmitter is the ratio of the maximum

frequency swing to the highest modulating frequency

The main purpose of the beat frequency oscillator (BFO) is to generate an

output, whose frequency differs from the IF by 1 kHz

Normally, a linear class B RF power amplifier operates with a bias

approximately equal to projected cut-off

The purpose why an RF amplifier is operated under linear class-B

conditions (as opposed to class-C) is to amplify an AM signal

Cross-modulation interference – the term used to refer to the

condition where the signal from a very strong station are superimposed
on other signal being received

Peak negative voltage is the amplitude of the maximum negative

excursion of a signal as viewed on an oscilloscope
FM and double sideband AM – type of emission that suffer most from
selective fading

In an FM-phone signal, percentage of modulation is the ratio between

the actual frequency deviation to the maximum frequency deviation

Capture effect is used to refer to the reception blockage of one FM-

phone signal by another FM-phone signal

A receiver selectivity of 10 kHz in the IF circuitry is optimum for double-

sideband AM type of signal

If the envelope of modulation is constant in amplitude this means zero-

modulation

Amplitude modulation is the same as linear mixing

The negative half of the AM wave is supplied by the tuned circuit in a

diode modulator

Having the carrier vary a resistance can produce AM

Amplitude modulators that vary the carrier amplitude with the modulating
signal by passing it through an attenuator network is the principle
of variable resistance

PIN diode is used to produce AM at very high frequencies

Demodulator circuit recovers the original modulating information from

an AM signal

Envelope detector is the most commonly used amplitude demodulator

Balanced modulator circuit generates the upper and lower sidebands

and suppresses the carrier

Lattice modulator is a widely used balanced modulator

In a diode ring modulator, the diode act like switches

The output of a balanced modulator is DSB

The principal circuit in the popular 1496/1596 IC balanced modulator is

a differential amplifier

The most commonly used filter in SSB generators uses crystals

In the phasing method of SSB generation, one sideband is canceled out
due to phase shifting

A balanced modulator used to demodulate a SSB signal is called

a product detector

Frequency translation is done with a circuit called a mixer

Mixing for frequency conversion is the same as linear summing

Lower complexity and cost is not a major disadvantage of FM over AM

The primary disadvantage of FM is its excessive use of spectrum

space

Noise is primarily high-frequency spikes

The receiver circuit that rids FM of noise is the limiter

The Am signals generated at a low level may only be amplified by Class

C  amplifier

SSB means Single sideband with suppressed carrier

Filter – a circuit used to select the desired output from a mixer

DSB is the output of a balanced modulator

The acronym SSSC refer to Single sideband, suppressed carrier

Demodulation process occurs in the receiver

BFO is usually used to demodulate SSB or CW signal

Diode detector is the most widely used amplitude modulator

Lattice modulator is the most widely used balanced modulator

Summary of Important Noise Review Notes

Jitter is a non-continuous noise of irregular pulses or spikes of short
duration with high amplitudes

Shannon-Hartley theorem sets a limit on the maximum capacity of a

channel with a given noise level
Quantizing noise occurs in PCM

Noise always affects the signal in a communications system at

the channel

Noise is the random and unpredictable electric signals from natural

causes, both internal and external to the system

Gaussian noise/White noise/Thermal noise – Noise from random

acoustic or electric noise that has equal energy per cycle over a specified
total frequency band

The approximation of the quantized signal causes a quantization

noise in PCM system

Limiter – a particular circuit that rids FM of noise

290 K is the reference noise temperature

Noise – unwanted radio signal on assigned frequency

Noise factor is the reliable measurement for comparing amplifier noise

characteristics

White noise is measured on a circuit when it is correctly terminated but

does not have any traffic

CCITT G. 151 standard recommends crosstalk limits

CCITT Rec. G. 172  standard is utilized in the intermodulation noise rates

on
PCM audio channels

800 Hz is the reference frequency of CCITT phosphometric noise

measurement

290 K – reference temperature used in noise analysis

Atmospheric noise is produced by lightning discharge in thunderstorms

Man-made noise is usually from transmission over power lines and

by ground wave

Nif stands for Noise improvement factor

Industrial noise frequency is between 15 to 160 MHz

External noise fields are measured in terms of peak values

Precipitation static – form of interference caused by rain or dust storms

Thermal noise is an electric noise produced by thermal agitation of

electrons in conductor and semiconductor

Crosstalk is the interference coming from other communications channels

-90 dBm is the reference noise level

pWp is the unit of noise power of psophometer

Solar flare – a large emission of hydrogen from the sun that affects
communications

Atmospheric noise is known as static noise

290 K – standard design reference for environmental noise temperature

C + 273 – absolute temperature in Kelvin

If bandwidth is doubled, the signal power is not changed

Galaxies and internal combustion engines are sources of noise

bearing on electronic communications

De-emphasis in the receiver in effect attenuates modulating signal

components and noise in highfrequency range

Atmospheric noise or static is not a great problem at frequencies above

30 MHz

Is the proper procedure for suppressing electrical noise in a mobile station

is to apply shielding and filtering where necessary

The noise generated that primarily determines the signal-to-noise ratio in

a VHF (150 MHz) marine-band receiver is in the receiver front end

The difference between signal strength at a given point and a reference

level is level

Interfering effect of noise, C message weighted, is dBrnc

F1A weighting refers to F1A handset

Power is definite amount of energy per time period

Reference noise is a noise that creates the same interfering effect
as a 1000 Hz, -90 dBm tone, a noise than creates zero dBrn in a
voice channel

A practical dBrn measurement will almost always in a positive number

-85 dBm is the reference level for noise measurement, F1A weighted

-90 dBm is the reference tone level for dBm

-85 dBm is the reference tone level for dBa

Atmospheric noise becomes less severe at frequencies above 30 MHz

The value of the resistor creating thermal noise is doubled. The noise
power generated is therefore unchanged

Input noise voltage is not a useful quantity for comparing the noise
performance of receivers

Most internal noise comes from thermal agitation

Thermal agitation is not a source of external noise

Noise can be reduced by narrowing the bandwidth

Noise at the input to a receiver can be as high as several microvolts

Mixer circuit contributes most of the noise in a receiver

The transistor with the lowest noise figure in the microwave region is
a MESFET

Transmit-time noise becomes of great importance at high frequencies

The solar cycle repeats the period of great electrical disturbance

approximately every 11 years

The square of the thermal noise voltage generated by a resistor is

proportional to its resistance, its temperature and the bandwidth
over which it is measured

Quantizing noise – noise occurring in the presence of signal resulting

from a mismatch between the exact value of an analog signal and the
closest available quantizing step in a digital coder
Impulse noise – Noise consisting of irregular pulses of short duration
and relatively high amplitude

Crosstalk – noise the occurs via capacitive or inductive coupling in a cable

Sources of impulse noise induced in communication channels: Erroneous

digital coding bit caused by an error on a transmission facility,
transients due to relay operation and crosstalk from dc signaling
systems

Crosstalk due to incomplete suppression of sidebands or to

intermodulation of two or more frequency-multiplexed channels which are
unintelligible is classified as miscellaneous noise

Psophometer is a device that measures the internal open circuit voltage

of an equivalent noise generator having an impedance of 600 ohm and
delivering noise power to a 600 ohm load

Cosmic noise – external noise originating outside the solar system

Solar noise – a noise whose source is within the solar system

Noise density – the total noise power present in a 1-Hz bandwidth

Lightning is the primary cause of atmospheric noise

Space noise – noise coming from the sun and stars

The major cause of atmospheric or static noise is thunderstorms

MESFET is a low noise transistor commonly used at microwave
frequencies

Summary of Important Radiation and Wave

Propagation Review Notes
Field strength is the amount of voltage induced in a wave by an
electromagnetic wave

An electromagnetic wave consists of both electric and magnetic fields

D is the lowest layer of the ionosphere

James Clerk Maxwell profounded electromagnetic radiation theory

The D, E and F layers are known as Kennely-Heaviside layers

Band – different grouping of the electromagnetic spectrum

90° is the relation in degrees of the electric and magnetic fields in an

electromagnetic wave

A changing electric field gives rise to a magnetic field

Frequencies in the UHF range propagate by means of space waves

In electromagnetic waves, polarization is due to the transverse nature

of the waves
Electromagnetic waves are refracted when they pass into a medium of
different dielectric constants

Ionosphere is the highest layer of the atmosphere

F2 is the thickest layer of the ionosphere

K factor – Effective earth radius to true earth radius ratio

Reflection-multipath – fading due to interference between direct and

reflected rays

D layer reflects very low frequency waves and absorbs medium

frequency waves

E layer is used for high-frequency daytime propagation

Critical frequency is the highest frequency that can be sent straight

upward and be returned to earth

High frequency range is from 3 to 30 MHz

Medium frequency range is from 0.3 to 3 MHz

In tropospheric scatter propagation, the attenuation is dependent

on scatter angle

If the transmitter power remains constant, an increase in the frequency of

the sky wave will lengthen the skip distance

The unit of electric field strength is volts per meter

Polarization refers to the direction of the electric field vector space

Circularly polarized – a TEM wave whose polarization rotates

300 x 10^6 m/s – velocity of light in free spaces

Radiowave that is far from its sources is called plane wave

Light goes from medium A to medium B at angle of incidence of 40°. The

angle of refraction is 30°. The speed of light in B is less than that in A

In a vacuum the speed of an electromagnetic wave is a universal

constant

The depth of an object submerged in a transparent liquid always seems

less than its actual depth

Wavefront – a fixed point in an electromagnetic wave

VHF ship station transmitters must have the capability of reducing carrier
power to 1 W

Most of the effects an electromagnetic wave produces when it interacts

with matter are due to its electric field

A mobile receiver experiences “dead” areas of reception as a result

of shading of the RF signal by hills and trees

When the electric field is perpendicular to the surface of the

earth, vertical is the polarization of the TEM wave

When the magnetic field is perpendicular to the surface of the

earth, horizontal is the polarization of the TEM wave

When the magnetic field is parallel to the surface of the earth, vertical is

the polarization of the TEM wave

The two interrelated fields considered to make up an electromagnetic

wave are an electric field and a magnetic field

The bandwidth of the transmitted signal affect selective fading because it

is more pronounced at wide bandwidths

Spread spectrum communication – a wide bandwidth communications

system in which the RF carrier varies according to some predetermined
sequence

A changing magnetic field gives rise to electric field

When a space-wave signal passes over a mountain ridge, a small part of

the signal is diffracted down the far side of the mountain. This
phenomenon is called knife-edge diffraction
The index of refraction of a material medium is greater than 1

Electromagnetic waves travel in free space approximately 300 million

meters per second

Vertical polarization – electric field that lies in a plane perpendicular to

the earth’s surface
Horizontal polarization – electric field that lies in a plane parallel to the
earth’s surface

Fading applies to troposcatter propagation

VLF waves are used for some types of service because they are very
reliable

High-frequency waves are affected by the solar cycle

Distances near the skip distance should be used for sky-wave
propagation to prevent sky-wave and upper ray interference

A ship-to-ship communications system is plagued by fading. The best

solution seems to be the use of frequency diversity

A range of microwave frequencies more easily passed by the atmosphere

than are the other is called a window

Frequencies in the UHF range normally propagate by means of space

waves

Tropospheric scatter is used with frequencies in the UHF range

The ground wave eventually disappears as one moves away from the
transmitter, because of tilting

In electromagnetic waves, polarization means the physical orientation

of electric field in space

As electromagnetic waves travel in free space, attenuation happens

The absorption of a radio waves by the atmosphere depends on their

frequency

Diffraction of electromagnetic waves may occur around the edge of a

sharp obstacle

In an electromagnetic wave the electric field is perpendicular to both

the magnetic field and the wave direction
The highest frequencies are found in x-rays

Electromagnetic waves transport energy

The ionosphere is a region of ionized gas in the upper atmosphere. The

ionosphere is responsible for long-distance radio communications

Blue – light of which has the shortest wavelength

The quality in sound that corresponds to color in light is pitch

All real images can appear on a screen

When a beam of light enters on medium from another, a quality that

never changes is its frequency

Relative to the angle of incidence, the angle of refraction is smaller or is

larger
A light ray enters one medium from another along the normal. The angle
of refraction is dependent on the indexes of refraction of the two
media

E layer aids MF surface-wave propagation a little and reflects some HF

waves in daytime

Dispersion is the term used to describe the splitting of white light into

its component colors in refraction

The depth of an objects submerged in a transparent liquid always seems

less than its actual depth

Total internal reflection can occur when light passes from one medium to
another that has a lower index of refraction

When a light ray approaches a glass-air interface from the glass side at
the critical angle, the angle of refraction is 90°

The brightness of light source is called its luminous intensity, whose unit
is candela

Luminous efficiency is least for a low-wattage light bulb

The minimum illumination recommended for reading is 8000 lx

The solid angle subtended by a hemisphere about its center is 2π sr

Microwave signals propagate by way of the direct wave

The ionosphere causes radio signals to be refracted

Groundwave communications is most effective in 300 kHz to 3

MHz frequency range

The ionosphere has its greatest effect on signals in 3 to 30

MHz frequency range

The type of radio wave responsible for long-distance communication by

multiple skips is the sky wave

Line-of-sight communications is not a factor in HF frequency range

A microwave-transmitting antenna is 550 ft. high. The receiving antenna

is 200 ft high. The minimum transmission distance is 53.3 mi

To increase the transmission distance of UHF signal, increase antenna

height should be done
Inverse Square Law – states that power density is inversely
proportional to the distance from its source

Sky wave gets in contact with the ionosphere and reflected by it

F2 is the highest layer in the ionosphere

E is the next lowest layer in the ionosphere

Ultraviolet radiation is the primary cause of ionization in the

atmosphere

F2 layers does not disappear at night

ELF, VLF and MF use surface wave propagation

The ability of the ionosphere to reflect a radio wave back to the earth is
determined by operating frequency, ion density and angle of
incidence

MUF – highest frequency that can be used for skywave propagation

between two given points on earth

Skip distance – the shortest distance measured along the earth’s

surface that a skywave is returned to earth

Fading – fluctuations in the signal strength at the receiver

Space diversity – two or more antennas are used separated by several
wavelengths

Frequency diversity – two or more receivers are used using a single

antenna

Diversity is not a cause of fading

Solar flares – the gigantic emission of hydrogen from the sun

SIDs – Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance

Troposcatter propagation – a means of beyond the line of sight

propagation of UHF signals

Troposcatter – two directional antennas are pointed so that their beams

intersect in the troposhere

Ducting – super refraction

Duct – a layer of warm air trapped above cooler air

Electric field corresponds to voltage

Shadow zone – absence of reception

Huygen’s principle – each point on a spherical waveform maybe a

source of a secondary spherical wavefront

Ducting occurs in Troposphere

E region is most ionized at midday

Transequatorial propagation is best during afternoon or early evening

Very high and ultra high frequencies is most affected by knife-edge

refraction

F2 layer has an average height of 225 km at night

Summary of Important Antennas Review Notes

The polarization of a discone antenna is vertical

When speaking of antenna, bay is a section which would be a complete

antenna by itself
VHF and UHF range of frequencies are most omnidirectional horizontally
polarized antennas used

If the current ratios of the two or more elements must be held 5% and
the phase angle to 3°, the antenna is called a critical phased array

Antenna – a device that converts high frequency current into

electromagnetic wave

Rhombic antenna – non-resonant antenna

Gain of a half-wave dipole antenna over isotropic 2.15 dB

Null – very low signal strength in antenna

The gain of the Hertzian dipole over isotropic antenna 1.76 dB

Beamwidth is the measurement of unilateral antenna properties of

directivity

In testing transmitter to prevent interfering with other

stations, dummy type of antenna must be used

The best solution to fading is space diversity

Entropy is the amount of uncertainly in a system of symbols

If an antenna has a gain of 30 dB, it increases the output of the

transmitter by 1000 times

Top loading is used in an antenna in order to increase its effective

height

A horizontal antenna is horizontally polarized

All elements in a beam collinear antenna are in line

FM broadcasting does not use vertical polarization antenna

Lightning rods must be mounted a top structure not less than 30

cm above the highest point

Antenna array is an antenna with a number of half-wave antenna on it

Marconi antenna radiates an omnidirectional pattern in the horizontal

plane with vertical polarization
Parabolic dish antenna – an antenna with very high gain and very
narrow bandwidth

The direction of the electric field vector determines antenna

polarization

Azimuth is the horizontal pointing angle of an antenna

The estimated medium wind loading in the Philippines for antenna tower
design is 200 kph

Discone radiation pattern is omnidirectional

Notch antenna is an open-ended slot antenna

Rhombic antenna is properly terminated

The radiation characteristic of a dipole antenna is bidirectional

The theoretical gain of Hertzian dipole is 1.76 dB

Isotropic – an antenna with unity gain

You can increase the gain of an antenna by focusing the radiated

energy in one desired direction

Elementary doublet – an antenna which is one-tenth wavelength long

The minimum number of turns a helix antenna must have is 3
The gain of isotropic antenna is 1

Parasitic element improves antenna directivity

The antenna radiates horizontally polarized waves when the transmitter

antenna is horizontally installed

Front-to-back ratio – comparing the signal strength arriving at the

driven element from the desired direction to the signal strength reaching
the driver from the opposite direction

Gain of an antenna is a measure of how the antenna concentrates its

radiated power in a given direction

End effect – shortening effect of an antenna that makes it appear as if it

were 5% longer

Low-pass filter – harmonic suppressor connected to an antenna

A simple half-wavelength antenna radiates the strongest signal at right
angles to its axis

The current maximum in a Marconi antenna is found at the base of the

antenna

If an antenna is too short for the wavelength being used, the effective
length can be increased by adding inductance in series

Dummy antenna is used for testing and adjusting a transmitter for

proper modulation, amplifier operation and frequency accuracy

It is possible to lower the resonant frequency of Hertz dipole antenna by

connecting an inductor in series with the antenna

A vertical antenna which is a quarter-wavelength long receive

signals in the horizontal plane equally well from all direction

If the length of a Hertz dipole is decreased its resonant frequency will

be increased

A one-quarter wavelength shunt-fed vertical Marconi antenna must have

a vertical receiving antenna for the best reception

A shunt-fed quarter-wavelength Marconi antenna has zero DC

resistance to ground

The parasitic element of an antenna system will increase its directivity

and give
the antenna unidirectional properties
If the length of an antenna is changed from 2.5 meters to 2.8 meters, its
resonant frequency will decrease

The effect of adding a capacitor in series with an antenna is that the

antenna’s resonant frequency will increase

The electrical field strength of a standard broadcast station vary with the
distance from the antenna by the field strength varies inversely as
the distance from the antenna

Stacking element in a transmitting antenna system increases the field

strength at the receiving antenna and increases the directivity of
the transmitter antenna

A vertical loop antenna has a bidirectional radiation pattern in the

horizontal plane
In order to get maximum radiation to all the surrounding points in the
horizontal plane, the antenna used is a vertical quarter-wavelength
rod

If the antenna current is doubled, the field strength at a particular

position is doubled

The rhombic antenna is primarily used for sky wave propagation

Isotropic antenna radiates equally in all directions

Actual height of antennas should be at least quarter wavelength

Resonant antenna is not properly terminated

Broadcast array is an antenna array which is highly directional at right

angles to the plane of the array

The directivity pattern of an isotropic radiator is a sphere

An isotropic radiator is a hypothetical, omnidirectional antenna

The purpose of stacking elements on an antenna sharper directional

pattern, increased gain, and improved bandpass

The advantage of using top loading in a shortened HF vertical antenna

is improved radiation efficiency

The voltage nodes in a half-wave antenna is at the feed point

Isotropic radiator – a theoretical reference antenna that provides a

comparison for antenna measurements

In horizontal-dipole antenna, the polarization is in the horizontal

direction
Increasing the electrical length of an antenna means adding an
inductor in series

Stacking antennas at various angles results in a more omnidirectional

reception

Driven element – the element fed by the transmission line

Antenna bandwidth – the frequency range over which an antenna

can be expected to operate satisfactorily

To lengthen an antenna electrically, add a coil

The usual electrical length of a driven element in an HF beam antenna
is ½ wavelength

The bandwidth of an antenna increases as it is shortened through the

use of loading coils

To electrically decrease the length of an antenna, add a capacitor in

series

Strong interference from one particular station can be eliminated by the

use of wave traps in the antenna circuitry

It is useful to refer to an isotropic radiator when comparing the gains

of directional antennas

A disadvantage of using a trap antenna is it will radiate harmonics

The input terminal impedance at the center of a folded dipole antenna

is 300 ohm

When a capacitor is connected in series with a Marconi antenna

the antenna resonant frequency increases

The current nodes in a half-wave antenna is at the ends

For a shortened vertical antenna, loading coil should be placed near the

center of the vertical radiator to minimize losses and produce the
most effective performance

The effect of adding parasitic elements of a Hertz dipole is to increase

the antenna’s power gain

Stacking antenna elements increases sensitivity to weak signals

In the case of Marconi antenna, the actual length of the radiating element
is one-quarter wavelength
The antenna efficiency of an HF grounded vertical antenna can be made
comparable to that of a half-wave antenna by installing a good ground
radial system

An antenna “efficiency” is computed by using Efficiency = (radiation

resistance / total resistance) x 100%

Increasing the resonant frequency of an end-fed Marconi antenna can be

done by adding a capacitor in series and reducing the physical
length
Factor that determines the radiation resistance of an antenna: the
location of the antenna with respect to nearby objects

Beamwidth is the angle between the half-power radiation points

Directivity gain is the ratio of the maximum radiation intensity to the

average radiation intensity

Good grounding is important for vertical antennas

An ungrounded antenna near the ground acts as antenna array

Log-periodic is very useful as a multiband HF receiving antenna

Horn antennas is best excited from a waveguide

The following reasons for using metal counterpoise with antenna

are impossibility of a good ground connection, provision of an
earth for the antenna and rockiness of the ground itself

Protection of personnel working underneath is not a reason for

using metal counterpoise with antennas

Reason for the use of an antenna coupler: to make the antenna look
resistive, to provide the output amplifier with the correct load
impedance and to discriminate against harmonics

To prevent reradiation of the local oscillator is not a reason for the

use of an antenna coupler

Marconi antenna is not a wideband

Adding C in series makes an antenna physically long but electrically

short

When antennas are closed to the ground, vertical polarized polarization

is ideal

Long wire is an antenna made up of a number of full wavelengths

Electromagnetic – any energy which radiates in the form or radio
waves, infrared waves, light waves, x-rays, etc

Diplexer is an antenna coupling unit

Vertical polarization is employed in AM broadcasting

Horizontal polarization is employed in FM broadcasting

Dipole antenna is not grounded at one end

Yagi antenna does not use the ground

Summary of Important Wire and Wireless

Communication Review Notes
10 to 100 μW – typical speech power

The maximum intelligibility for voice frequency is located between 1000

and 3000 Hz

The maximum voice energy is located between 250 and 500 Hz

Volume unit meter – a device used to measure speech volume

By definition, for a sine wave 0 dBm = 0 V.U

Presently, 300 to 3400 Hz is the “standard” frequency bandwidth for

voice transmission

AWG # 19 is commonly used wire for subscriber loop design

The resistance limit for No.2 Crossbar Exchange (US) is 1300 Ω

AWG # 26 has typical loss of 0.51 dB/1000 ft

4 kHz is the standard voice channel spacing

Reflectometer is used to measure SWR

Singing – an undesired self-sustained oscillation in a system,

generally caused by excessive positive feedback

IF stage increases the selectivity of the circuit in an AM receiver

The sensitivity of radio receiver amplify weak signal and produce a

desirable intelligence at the output speaker
Full-duplex transmission means two-way simultaneous transmission

Multi drop line – a line or circuit interconnecting several stations

A passive attenuator is an electronic device which reduce signal strength

by a specified amount in dB
Roaming – the signal quality of the cells is constantly monitored by the
base station, when the quality of the calls drops below a certain specified
level, the base request the MTSO to try and find a better cell site.

MIN – a digital identification associated with a cellular system

Facsimile transmit a standard page of 25 seconds

Electrolytic recording – a kind of recording is used in facsimile

Skewing – a type of distortion a facsimile produces when it becomes out

of synchronization

Acoustic coupler – a device that converts electric signal signals into
audio signals, enabling data to be transmitted over the public
telephone network via a conventional telephone handset

Crosstalk causes a herringbone pattern in facsimile

The capture effect in an FM receiver causes a stronger signal to

dominate over a weaker signal on the same frequency

Hybrid circuit – a device that converts a 2-wire circuit to a 4-wire circuit

Decision theory is deciding between a set of hypotheses when given a

collection of imperfect measurement

Jaynes maximum entropy principle of a data reduction says that when

reducing
a set of data into the form of a underlying mode, one should be
maximally non-committal with respect to missing data

Estimation is selecting the best value of a parameter from a continuum

of possible values when given a collection of imperfect measurements

Discrete channel – combination of modulator, channel, and detector

The frequency band of DECT is 1.88 – 1.90 GHz

Each DECT system can support 12 simultaneous calls

A DECT radio transceiver can assess 120 simultaneous calls at any given

time

The AGC voltage of a radio receiver is always DC, but may have either
polarity
Concentrator – a switching system that lets a large number of
telephone or data processing subscribers use a lesser number of
transmission lines or a narrower bandwidth

If you find that an SAW filter output is 6 dB down from the input of a
receiver during test, this is normal

A triple conversion superheterodyne receiver, diode mixer stages

are operated in the nonlinear region

Leased line – a permanent circuit for private use within a

communication network

If two FM signals of different strengths are received on the same

frequency only the stronger will appear in the AF output

Cellular mobile system was first operated in 1983

TACS is a cellular system with 1000 channels

Supervisory Audio Tone (SAT) has 6000 Hz frequency

GSM uses GMSK digital modulation technique

The power output of Personal Communications System (PCS) is 10 mW

RG-58 cable has a loss of about 3 dB at cellular frequencies up to 15 feet

length

Pilot carrier signals – the signals designed to keep the receivers and
transmitters aligned

When a line and a load are match, the reflection coefficient is zero

When line is terminated in an open circuit load, the reflection coefficient

is unity

The telephone set is powered by the central office on the ring side at -42
to -52 Vdc

The telephone voice band frequency is from 300 to 3400 Hz

Green wire is used to transmit the signal

The corresponding frequencies for digit 7 in the touch tone telephone

is 852 & 1209 Hz
The physical connection between the telephone set and the switching
equipment is called the subscriber loop
The local loop of a telephone system is a two-wire or four-wire
communication circuit between the customer’s premise and the
central office

Dial long lines, voice repeater, and loop range extender are used in long
loop design

A two-wire circuit is a circuit usually in the subscriber loop,

between the telephone set and the local central office

1 mW is equal to 90 dBm

First selector responds to the request of a subscriber by sending a dial

tone

Section – the other name of Class 2 office in the North American

Switching Plan

A cell in the cellular telephone system means small area

MTSO is the linking point between cell phone and regular telephone

The typical power output of a cellular phone is 3 W

When a single cell is subdivided into smaller cells the process is

called cell splitting

The first cell shape is a circle

In order to provide 100% coverage without overlap, cellular telephone

system can use hexagon cell shape, triangle, or rectangular

The beamwidth of the reflector of the receiving antenna in the base

station is 60 degrees

A cellular phone operates on full duplex

Cellular phone transmit in the band from 825 to 845 MHz

Cell phone receives in the band from 870 to 890 MHz

The frequency separation between the transmit and the receive

channels 45 MHz

For channel 1, transmit/receive frequency is 825.015/870.015 MHz

The number of transmit/receive channels in the cellular system is 666

The transmission range of cellular telephony is generally about 80 km

Large service area is not an advantage of a cellular telephone system

When the message is transferred from one cell site transmitter to another
cell site transmitter as the caller crosses a boundary hand off process
take place

The sensitivity of a cellular receiver is 50 dB

The frequency deviation of the cellular telephone system is +-12 kHz

Hailing channel is otherwise known as calling channel

Erlang is equal to the number of simultaneous calls originated

during a specific hourly period

All of the cell base stations are linked together by MTSO which serves as
the central office and management node for the group

Cell site – provides interface between the mobile telephone switching

office and the mobile units

A phone call over the cellular network actually requires full duplex

channels

Volume – a method of expressing the amplitudes of complex non-

periodic signals such as speech

Echo is a signal returned to the talker after making one or more round
trips between the talker and the listener

Echo suppressor is a voice operated device that inserts a high loss in

the opposite direction of transmission of the talking party

Double spotting is picking up of the same station at two nearby points

on the receiver dial

Crosstalk – when one channel picks up the signal carried by another

channel

TPS type of connector arrangement wherein a customer may move to

another location and still retain the same telephone number
An advantage of sidetone is that is assures the customer that the
telephone is working
Half-duplex – radio communications between points using a single share
frequency

TDM – the transmission of information from multiple sources occurring on

the same facility but not at the same time

When human voice and music are transmitted, the type of communication
employed is known as radiotelephony

Printed documents to be transmitted by fax are converted into a

baseband electric signal by the process of scanning

Charge couple device is the most commonly used light sensor in a

modern fax machine

In FM fax, the frequencies for black and white are 1500 and 2300
Hz respectively

Group 2 fax uses vestigial sideband AM

The most widely used fax standard is Group 3

Group 3 fax uses QAM modulation

Most fax printers are of thermal type

Facsimile standards are set by the CCITT

Satellite weather photos are commonly transmitted by radio fax

The transmission speed of group 4 fax is 56 kbits/s

Mobile telephone switching office is the master control center for

cellular telephone system

Each cell site contain a repeater

Trunk – a telephone line connecting two central offices

Cellular telephones use full-duplex type of operation

The maximum frequency deviation of an FM cellular transmitter is 12 kHz

The output power of a cellular radio is controlled by the MTSO

When the signal from a mobile cellular unit drops below a certain
level, the unit is “handed off” to a closer cell

In a cellular radio, the duplexer is a pair of sharp bandpass filters

On a telephone system, the loop is open during on-hook condition

For every button pressed on a touch-tone telephone, two audio-

frequency tones are transmitted to the C.O.

Erlang B is the traffic model about blocked calls clear condition specified
blocking probability

A touch-tone telephone generates 8 audible tone frequencies

935 – 960 MHz – the base-to-mobile frequency assignment of a GSM

system

A voice-grade channel is suitable for transmission of signals with a

frequency ranging from 300 to 3400 Hz

The bandwidth of cellular CDMA system is 1.23 MHz

A communication link is a channel or circuit intended to connect

other channels or circuits

Poisson – block calls held condition specified the held probability at a

time period equal to an average holding time

Echo – a wave which has been reflected or otherwise returned

with sufficient magnitude and delay for it to be perceptible in
some manner as a wave distinct from that directly transmitted

The system used by Personal Communication Network (PCN) is modified

GSM

Termination refers to load connected to the output end of a

transmission line

The multiple access used by Digital European Cordless Telephone (DECT)

is TDMA

Erlang C – blocked calls delay condition specified delay probability

GFSK – the modulation technique used by DECT

A four-wire circuit is used between serving central offices for long-
distance connections, with one pair being used for each direction
of transmission

Cellular CDMA system uses BPSK modulation

PABX means Private Automatic Branch Exchange

The voted cellular digital standard at TIA is Digital AMPS

The number for channels for Band A and for Band B in Digital AMPS
is 416

The mobile-to-base frequency assignment for GSM system is 890 – 915

MHz

The range of a cellular CDMA system is 13 miles

In a cellular system, radio capacity is used to measure the spectrum

efficiency

Singing echo is completely out of control

Loop extender increase the battery voltage on a loop and extends its

signaling range

Under ordinary circumstances, the CCITT recommends that the number of

circuits in tandem must not exceed 12

The system capacity of AMPS is 100,000

NAM means Numeric Assignment Module

Summary of Important Digital and Data

Communication Review Notes
Redundancy means the symbol are to be repeated

Optical fiber transmission media is not suitable to CSMA operation

Transducer is a device used to convert a time varying electrical quantity

to an appropriate form

The bandwidth of U600 mastergroup is 2520 kHz

Hybrid data – refers to the combined digitally encoded signals
transmitted with FDM signals as one composite baseband signal

L carrier systems – transmit frequency-division-multiplexed voice band

signals over a coaxial cable for distances up to 4000 miles

Level 5 of Japanese PCM multiplex hierarchy has a channel capacity

of 5760 VB channels

The line data rate (in Mbps) for level 4 of CEPT 30 + 2 PCM multiplex
hierarchy is 139.264
The guardband between supergroup 18 and supergroup D25 is 56 kHz
Supergroup 17 has a carrier frequency (in kHz) of 2108

A radio channel is composed of 1800 VB channels

The guardband between supergroup 1 and supergroup 2 is 12 kHz

CCITT’s supermastergroup has 900 voice band channels

The transparency mechanism used with SDLC is called zero-bit

insertion

2B + D – defines the composition of an ISDN basic access line

Synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) – a digital network where voice,

video, text and data are multiplexed into a single network for processing
and are transmitted prior to use

T-1 carrier service has 1.544 Mbps digital bit rate

Non-ISDN equivalent can be connected to ISDN line by the use

of terminal adapters

The baseband frequency of standard FDM basic supergroup is 312 to 552

kHz

The transmission signal coding for T1 carrier is Bipolar

The primary purpose of the data modem is to interface digital terminal

equipment to analog communications channel

Data terminal equipment (DTE) – the line control unit (LCU) operates
on the data in digital form

32 H – SYN character of EBCDIC code

Bit or clock synchronization ensures that the transmitter and receiver
agree on prescribed time slot for the occurrence of a bit
2^n >= m + n + 1 – used to determine the number of Hamming bits in
the
Hamming code

Data means digital information

Network layer determines which network configuration is most

appropriate
Ethernet is a baseband system using CSMA/CD operating at 10 Mbps

Channel accessing – mechanism used by a station to gain access to

local area network

TDM multiplexing scheme is used by baseband transmission

Use of coaxial cables in interconnecting networks is limited to an overall

length of 1500 m

Topology or architecture identifies how the stations are interconnected

in a
network

Local Area Network is a data communications network designed to

provide
two-way communications between a large variety of data communications
terminal equipment within a relatively small geographic area

Start/stop mode is the mode of transmission in public data network in

which
data are transferred from source to the network then to the destination in
an asynchronous data format

A seven-bit character can represent one of 128 possibilities

Channel capacity is defined to be the maximum rate at which

information
can be transmitted through a channel
Source coding – circuit that performs the inverse mapping and delivers
to
the user destination, a reproduction of the original digital source output

PSK digital modulation technique used in modems

Emile Baudot developed the fixed-length binary code for telegraphy

Alex Reeves – inventor of pulse-code modulation for the digital encoding
of
the speech signals

In 1950’s, computers and terminals start communicating with each other

over long distance

PRNET – store-and-forward multiple-access network

Huffman code – a source code whose average world length approaches

the
fundamental limit set by the entropy of a discrete memoryless source

DCA promulgate communications-related military standards (MIL-STD)

P2 is the class of probability in error detection techniques that is known

as
residual error rate

RS 232 is normally an interface between DTE and DCE. The signal rate 20
kbps

TMS – digital switching concepts that can handle more channels

The most significant advantage of modular switch than time-and-space

switch is flexible size

The biggest disadvantage of PCM systems is the larger bandwidth

required

The reason why companding is employed in PCM systems is to protect

small
signals in PCM from quantizing distortion

Folding frequency – the highest frequency that can be processed at a

sampling rate (fs) without aliasing

The overlapping of the original spectrum and the first translated

component is known as aliasing

Full duplex – transmission sent in both directions simultaneously

Multiplexing in a time division multiplexer occurs based upon the

position of
data within a frame

Multiplexing – a technique that enables more than one data source
to share the use of a
common line

One of the reasons whey FDM is being replaced by TDM is because noise

is
amplified with voice when an FDM system is used

In pulse modulation the carrier is a periodic train of pulses

The process that uses the orthogonality of sines and cosines that makes
possible to transmit and receive to different signals simultaneously on the
same carrier frequency is Quadrature multiplexing

Pulse code modulation technique is a digital transmission system

Bandwidth utilization is not an advantage of digital transmission

Dynamic range is the ratio of the largest possible magnitude to the

smallest
possible magnitude that can be decoded by the DAC

Companding – a process where the higher amplitude analog signals are

compressed prior to transmission then expanded at the receiver

Delta Modulation (DM) uses a single bit PCM code to achieve a digital

transmission of analog signal

The line speed of Bell System T1 carrier system is 1.544 Mbps

T2 lines carry 96 channels

A super group has 60 channels

The output frequency at the channel combiner of channel 7 is 80 – 84

kHz

The carrier frequency of the supergroup D25 is 2652 kHz

Data in video is not a hybrid data

Baudot Code was the first fixed-length 5-bit character code

CCITT V.26 modem has a modulation rate of 1200 bauds

A smart modem accepts commands from the terminal via RS232

interface

An advantage of PTM over PAM is much better noise immunity

ISO adapted the seven-layer OSI model in 1983

Amplitude shift keying is also known as ON/OFF keying

FSK modulation system is used in telephony

FSK – modulation used by asynchronous data

PCM systems require large bandwidth

Shanon-Hartley theorem sets the limit on the maximum capacity of a

channel
with a given noise level

Quantizing noise is present in PCM system

Quantizing noise is the difference between the original and

reconstructed
signal

The reason why companding is employed in PCM system is to protect

small
signals in PCM from quantizing distortion

FDM – band of frequencies in a transmission medium allotted to each

communication channel on a continuous time basis

ARQ – error control used in high frequency radio data transmission

Sampling, quantizing and coding are the steps to follow to produce a

PCM
signal

Network topology identifies how the difference stations in a multipoint

system are interconnected

Baseband – a transmission where data are inputted directly on the cable

Broadband – a transmission where data are inputted inside the carrier

wave

Polling – a transmission system for a multidrop network

CSMA/CD – before attempting to transmit data, each station has to listen

to the channel
Synchronous modems cost more than asynchronous modems
because they
must contain clock recovery circuits

When one station is designated as master and the rest of the stations are
considered slaves, massage handling is polling

Master – the computer that initiates information transfer

Message switching – a store and forward switching

LAN is used to connect computers in the same building or in same area

WAN – two or more LAN linked together over a wide geographical area

OSI system allows different types of network to be linked together

OSI consist of 7 layers of interconnection

Session layer determines if the user can send or receive based on

whether
they can send and receive simultaneously or alternately

A bridge that interconnects LAN having identical protocols at the physical

and data link layers

A router interconnects LAN having identical protocols at the physical data

link and network layers

A gateway interconnects LAN that have totally different protocols and

format

Parallel data – all bits in a character can be sent/received

simultaneously

Serial data – the bits in a character which are sent/received one at a

time

DTE – a system that performs parallel-to-serial and serial-to-parallel

conversion of a data link

EIA stands for Electronic Industry Association

An acoustic modem converts a computer digital signal into audio tones

Echoplex mode of transmission achieves less than full-duplex but more

than half-duplex
Line protocol – rules governing the transmission of digital information

Codes must be agreed upon in advance between sender and

receiver

The standard ASCII has 132 characters including 32 control

characters

The Baudot code requires shift characters to provide sufficient

combinations

The corrections and accuracy of the transmitted message content

is determined by the sender and the receiver

Framing is concerned with the boundaries between characters

Asynchronous transmission is less efficient but simpler

Digital transmission provides a higher level of signal quality than analog

transmission because repeaters regenerate digital pulses and
remove distortion

Digital to analog converter in synchronous modems send signals to

the equalizer

Binary codes are transformed in modem into Gray code

Synchronous modems cost more than asynchronous modem

because they
must contain clock recovery circuits

The best type of data communications test equipment is a protocol

analyzer

The data rate of the ISDN Basic access B channel is 64 kbps

The data rate of the ISDN Basic access D channel is 16 kbps

Baudot code uses 5 bits per symbol

3 bits are there to present 8 combinations

Intelligent terminal can be programmed to perform new functions

EBCDIC character code is used without parity bit

Modem is used when the host computer and the terminal are in separate
locations

Front end processor is a data communications hardware that assists

the host
computer in handling input and output tasks

ASCII means terminals using asynchronous transmission in ASCII

Bit – a unit of information used in data communications

Transmission of binary signals requires more bandwidth than analog

The modulation rate of the CCITT V.26 modem is 1200 bauds

The digital-to-analog converter in a synchronous modem sends signal to

the equalizer

Unknown – the number of bits that are zeros in each symbol when one is
transmitting odd parity coded symbols

FSK – a digital modulation technique that results in two different

frequencies representing binary 1 and 0

The input to the Digital-to-Analog Converter of a PCM decoder circuit is  a

series of bits

The output of the DAC at a PCM decoder circuit is a parallel output of

binary-
coded digits

Serial printer prints one character at a time

Delta modulation is a 1-bit differential PCM system

Delta modulation – alternative way of digitizing analog signals

One dit is equal to 3.32 bits

Information theory was developed by Shannon

A quadratic signaling has 4 possible states

Bit is the smallest unit of information in binary transmission system

Physical layer is the lowest layer in the ISO protocol hierarchy

64 kbps is the basic speed rate of digital system

Protocol – a formal set of conventions governing the formatting and

relative timing of message exchange between two communications
system

Null modem – a device that connects 2 data terminal equipment (DTE)

directly by emulating the physical connections of a data communications
equipment (DCE)

Impact printer strikes a ribbon against the paper to produce

character image

Modem is referred to as data communications equipment

Common channel signaling – a signaling method relating to a

multiplicity of
circuits is conveyed over a single channel by labeled messages

Ring – a data highway in LAN, this type of topology allows workstations

to
be connected to a common line where all messages pass stations on the
way to their destination

A packet format has an error detecting code at the end of packet

framing

X.75 – it is a protocol used to connect the other packet switching network

Novel Netware is a network operating system within several buildings in

compound

FSK – used by Bell 103/113 series for full duplex, 2 transmission speed of
0 to 300 bps

Channel capacity is directly proportional to bandwidth

Quantizing level does not affect noise in a channel

Bisync is a character oriented protocol

STX character signifies the start of the test for Bisync

In synchronous data the clock pulse is used to time the sending and

receiving of the characters
All bits in a character are sent and received in one at a time in serial
port

Bridge can only interconnect LANs having identical protocols at

the physical
and data link layers

OSI stands for Open System Interconnection

ISO stands for International Standardization Organization

Message switching is store and forward network

Packet switching is hold and forward network

Polling is an invitation by the primary to a secondary equipment

to transmit a message

Bit rate is the rate of change at the input of the modulator

Morse code – a code that uses three unequal length symbols, dot, dash
and
space to encode a character

BAUDOT – A 5-bit character code

EBCDIC – an 8-bit character code

Modem – an equipment that interfaces the data terminal equipment to

the
analog transmission line

Protocol – set of rules governing the orderly exchange of data

information

Public data network (PDN) – a communication network designed for

transferring data from one point to another

Half-duplex – radio communications between points using a single share

frequency

RS232C interface had 25 numbers of pins

A modem is sometimes referred to as Data Communication

Equipment
Adaptive equalizers – provide post equalization to the received analog
signal

The receive equalizer in a synchronous modem is called an adaptive

equalizer

Compromise equalizer settings typically affect amplitude delay

Training sequence (a bit pattern used to synchronize the receive modem)

accomplishes activate RLSD

When asynchronous data are used with synchronous modems this is

called isochronous transmission

H factor is defined as a figure of merit used to express the degree of

modulation achieved in an FSK modulator

Low-band channel in the 103 modem occupies a passband from 300 to

1650
Hz

Low speed modems generally have bit rates of 2400 bps

Medium speed modems have bit rates of 2400 – 4800 bps

High speed modems have bit rates of 9600 bps

Line conditioning – a means of improving the quality of a private-line

circuit
by adding amplifiers and equalizers to it

A voice-grade circuit using the PTN has an ideal passband from 0 to 4

kHz

The digital-to-analog converter in a synchronous modem is called an

adaptive equalizer

The minimum-quality circuit available using the PTN is called basic voice

channel (VC)

Direct distance dialing (DDD) network is commonly called dial-up

network

The line control unit (LCU) operates on the data when it is in digital form
and is therefore called data terminal equipment (DTE)
With asynchronous data, each character is framed between a start and
a stop
bit

With synchronous data, rather than frame each character independently

with
start and stop bits, a unique synchronizing character called a SYN
character is transmitted at the beginning of each message

A logic 0 is used for the start bit

All stop bits are logic 1

Bit or clock synchronization ensures that the transmitter and receiver

agree
on a prescribed time slot for the occurrence of a bit

Characters that must be transmitted other than data are called overhead

In the United States, the most common CRC code is CRC – 16

Parallel transmission is also called parallel-by-bit and serial-by-

character

Data means digital information

Go-ahead sequence 01111111
Flag field are used to achieve character synchronization in SDLC

DISC – a command that places a secondary station in the normal

disconnect mode

Asynchronous – character oriented protocol

Network layer determines which network configuration is most

appropriate

ISO 7809 – a standard that combines previous standards 6159 (E)

(unbalanced) and 6256 (E) (balanced) and outlines the class of operation
necessary to establish the link-level protocol

Ethernet is a baseband system using CSMA/CD operating at 10 Mbps

Manchester – a type of digital encoding technique used to detect

collision in
CSMA/CD
With CSMA/CD, a station monitors the line to determine if the line is busy

Channel accessing describes the mechanism used by a station to gain

access
to local area network

Broadband uses FDM

TDM – a typical multiplexing scheme used by baseband transmission

Baseband transmission uses the connecting medium as a single-

channel
device

Broadband transmission uses the connecting medium as a multi-

channel
device

The use of coaxial cables in interconnecting networks is limited to an

overall length of approximately 1500 m

Topology or architecture identifies how the stations are interconnected

in a
network

Local Area Network – a data communications network that is designed

to
provide two-way communications between a large variety of data
communications terminal equipment within a relatively small geographic
area

2B1Q encoding – the type of encoding used in the transmission of data

on
an ISDN line between a customer’s premises and a carrier’s central office

Start/stop mode – a mode of transmission in public data network in

which
data are transferred from source to the network to the destination in an
asynchronous data format

IEEE 802.3 standard is CSMA/CD

IEEE 802.4 standard is Token passing for bus topology

IEEE 802.5 standard is Token passing for ring topology

The data rate of the ISDN Basic access B channel is 64 kbps
The data rate of the ISDN basic access D channel is 16 kbps

2B + D equation defines the composition of an ISDN Basic access line

The number of channels on which different operations can occur

simultaneously on one ISDN Basic access line is 3

Digital telephones and integrated voice-data workstations are examples

of TE type of ISDN equipment

X.25 standard have 3 OSI layers covered

Physical layer – an Open System Interconnection (OSI) layer which has

the
responsibility for the physical transportation of the bits of data from one
end of a point-to-point link to the other

Handshaking – a technique involving signaling by both ends of a link to

ensure correct data transfer

XON/XOFF is a method of flow control

V.14 – a recommendation which allows a synchronous modem to be used

to transmit asynchronous characters, without error control

The scrambler in a synchronous modem is found in the modular section

V.24 – A CCITT recommendation which gives the definition for the

interchange circuits between DTE’s and DCE’s

Binary codes are sometimes transformed in modems into Gray code

A Western Electric 2911 modem operates with a carrier frequency

of 1800
Hz

Flag – a special bit pattern used to denote the start and end of a data
link
layer frame

A bipolar violation occurs when two successive pulses have the

same polarity and are
separated by a zero level

Flow control – the process of starting and stopping the terminal

output to avoid loss of
characters by the receiving device

Buffering refers to temporarily storing data to allow for small

variations in device
speeds

The reason why many cables have RS-232 connectors with some wires
crossed is because asynchronous modems reverse the direction of
transmitted and
received data from the standard

RS-232, RS-530, RS-449, V.21 and V.24 are examples of standards for
interfaces between terminals and modems

Request To Send (RTS) / Clear To Send (CTS) is the way the DTE
indicates that
is ready to transmit data, or the way the DCE indicates that it is
ready to accept data

Extended command sets supported by modern modems use different

commands to control many advance modem features

A smart modem accepts commands from the terminal via the RS-

232 interface

Communications protocols always have a set of symbols

The Baudot code uses 5 bits per symbol

ZMODEM protocol adjusts its block size based on the line error rate

DEREP-RB is not a common DNA repeater

Unknown is the number of bits that are zeros when transmitting odd-
parity
coded symbols

X.200 – standard for the 7-layer model for Open System Interconnection

Application-independent interfaces option is a characteristic of a LAN

Twin lead is not a common LAN medium

Cable TV system is not a local area network (LAN)

V-series – CCITT standard concentrating on data communications over

the
telephone network
Fiber optic transmission cannot be provided in a broadband LAN

PBX – a small telephone switching system that can be used as a LAN

Digital PBX – a LAN architecture that can be expanded to the greatest

total
system bandwidth

Bus is considered as the fastest LAN topology

Data communications refers to the transmission of computer data

Protocol is a procedure or rule that defines how data is to be transmitted

XMODEM is a popular PC protocol

ASCII is the most widely used data communications code

The ASCII code has 7 bits

Both analog and digital method are used in data communications

Telephone is not a primarily a type of data communications

Mark and space refer respectively to binary 1 and binary 0

A modem converts both analog signals to digital and digital signals

to analog

I.120 – an I-series recommendation which describe what an ISDN is

Slow speed modems use FSK digital modulation method

When the data signal is transmitted directly over the medium, this is
called baseband transmission

Broadband is the technique of using modulation and FDM to transmit

multiple data channels of a common medium

Noise cause bit errors in data transmission

The other name for parity is VRC

QAM is the combination of ASK and QPSK

I-series – a CCITT standard that refers to various aspects of Integrated

Service Digital Network (ISDN)

XNOR is not a part of a QAM modulator

Redundancy is not a commonly used method of error detection

Block check character (BCC) is produced by a longitudinal redundancy

check
(LRC)

Balanced modulators is the basic modulator / demodulator circuit in

PSK

The main reason why serial transmission is preferred over parallel

transmission is because it requires only a single channel

30 stations per segment – limitation of 10base-2 network

Optical fiber transmission media is not readily suitable to CSMA

operation

Entropy refers to the measurement of an uncertainty

Logical is not an important characteristic of the physical layer

The bit rate of B-channel is 64 kbps

V.26bis – defines a 2400-bps, PSK, half-duplex modem operating at

1200
baud

V.100 – describe the interconnection techniques between PDNs and

PSTNs

Summary of Important Microwave Communications

Review Notes
Attenuation is the progressive decrease of signal strength with
increasing
distance

If K-factor is greater than 1, the array beam is bent towards the earth

The antenna separations (in meters) required for optimum operation of a

space diversity system can be calculated from: S = 3λR/L
Rainfall is an important factor for fading of radio waves at frequencies
above 10 GHz

Theoretically electromagnetic radiation field strength varies in inverse

proportion to the square of the distance, but when atmospheric
attenuation effects and the absorption of the terrain are taken into
account the attenuation can be as high as the inverse sixth power of the
distance

Slow fading – an attenuation that occurs over many different

wavelengths
of the carrier

Slow fading is not due to multipath

Large reflector causes multipath or frequency-selective fading

In microwave transmission using digital radio, delayed

spreading causes most
intersymbol interference

SONAR – a shipboard equipment which measures the distance between

the ship’s bottom and the ocean floor

The cavity resonator is equivalent to an LC resonant circuit

The input signal of a traveling-wave tube is inserted at the cathode end

of the
helix

Coupling into and out of a traveling-wave tube can be accompanied by

a waveguide match, cavity match and direct coax-helix match

A high-power microwave pulse of the order of megawatts can be

generated by a magnetron

A traveling-wave tube (TWT) amplifies by virtue of the absorption of

energy by
the signal from an electron stream

The purpose of the electromagnetic field which surrounds a traveling-

wave tube is to keep the electrons form spreading out

Tunnel diode and klystron tube are used as an oscillator device in the

SHF band
Microwave frequencies are normally regarded as those in the range of 1
to
100 GHz

The highest frequency which a conventional vacuum-tube oscillator can

generate is not limited by the degree of emission from the cathode

As the electron beam moves through a klystron’s intercavity drift space

the velocity modulation at the input cavity creates density
modulation at the output cavity

The frequency of the oscillation generated by a magnetron, is mainly

determined by the dimension of each cavity resonator

If the instantaneous RF potentials on the two sides of a magnetron cavity

are of opposite polarity, the operation is in the π mode

The Gunn diode oscillator depends on the formation of charge

domain

Circular ferrite device can be used instead of duplexer to isolate a

microwave transmitter and receiver when both are connected to the same
antenna

To achieve good bearing resolution when using a pulsed-radar set, an

important requirement is a narrow, antenna-beam width in the
horizontal plane

When used in conjunction with a radar set, the purpose of an echo box is
to provide an artificial target which may be used to tune the radar
receiver

In a radar-set receiver, the usual mixer stage is a silicon crystal

Klystron oscillators are most often used in the frequency range of 3000
to
30000 MHz

Oscillations of a klystron tube are maintained by bunches of electrons

passing
the cavity grids

Ferrite emitter allows microwave to pass in only one direction

In an SHF pulsed radar set, a reflex klystron can be used as a local

oscillator
A PPI cathode-ray tube as used on a radar set indicates both the
range and
azimuth of a target

The resonant frequency of a cavity resonator depends upon its physical

dimensions

The maximum usable range of the usual radar set (on any particular
range setting) is determined by the interval between transmitted
pulses

A reflex klystron is oscillating at the frequency of its resonant cavity. If

the reflector voltage is made slightly less negative, the frequency will
decrease

The coarse frequency adjustment of a reflex klystron is accomplished

by adjusting the flexible wall of the resonant cavity

In a pulsed radar set, the STC circuit is used to reduce interference

from the
effects of sea return

In a pulsed radar set, the function of the duplexer is to allow the

transmitter
and the receiver to operate from a common antenna

The aquadag coating on the inside of a PPI tube is used as a second

anode
and to prevent the build-up of secondary field

If the duration of the radar transmitted pulse, on a particular range of

operation is increased, the required bandwidth of the receiver’s IF
amplifiers may be decreased

The main frequency determining element of a klystron is its resonant

cavity

A thin layer of dirt and grime covers the reflecting surface of the parabolic
dish of a radar set. The practical effect on the performance of the radar
will have no noticeable effect

Isolator permits a microwave signals to travel in one direction with

virtually
no loss, but severely attenuates any signal attempting to travel in the
reverse direction

It is possible to increase the maximum range of a radar equipment

by lower the pulse frequency, raising the peak power of the
transmitter, and narrowing the
beam width and increasing the pulse duration

When it is desired that short-range targets be clearly seen on a pulsed-

radar set, it is important that the receiver and display system have the
shortest possible time

Magnetron is used as a high-power microwave oscillator

Modern loran navigational system operates at loran C: 100 kHz

Circulator ferrite device can be used instead of a duplexer to isolate a

microwave transmitter and receiver when both are connected to the same
antenna

The pulse frequency is equal to duty cycle/pulse width

In a radar set, a blocking oscillator can be used to produce a trigger

pulse for
the transmitter

The intensity of the echoes (target definition) on a PPI display is

determined by the pulse frequency and antenna rotation rate

A duplexer circuit allows a transmitter and a receiver to operate from the

same antenna with virtually no interaction. This circuit may be replaced
by a circulator

156.76 MHz and 156.8 MHz frequencies are used by a class-C

Emergency
Position-Indicating Radio Beacon

The repetition rate of a pulsed radar system indicates the frequencies of

the
duty cycle

The radar set, sensitivity-time control circuit can reduce sea-return

response

Isolator is a ferrite device that buffers a microwave source from the

effects
of a varying load, and thereby prevents the formation of standing waves

Pulsed radar sets are primarily used to find the target’s range and
bearing
Radio frequency is mainly concerned in the design of an antenna
system for
pulsed radar set

In a radar set receivers, an ac AFC system may be used to maintain the

desired klystron frequency

The input signal is introduced into the traveling-wave tube at

the cathode
end of the helix

The display on the PPI scope of a radar set will have greater intensity
at lower antenna rotation speeds and higher pulse repetition

The operating frequency of loran C lies within the LF band

The PPI tubes have an aquadag coating on the inside of the tube. The
purpose of this coating is to act as the second anode

A traveling-wave tube is used at frequencies in the order of 8000 MHz

The main benefit of using microwave is more spectrum space for

signals

Radio communications are regulated in the Philippines by the NTC

Mobile radio is not a common microwave application

Coaxial cable is not widely used for long microwave transmission lines
because of its high loss

Stripline and microstrip transmission lines are usually made with PCBs

The most common cross section of a waveguide is a rectangle

Signal propagation in a waveguide is by electric and magnetic fields

When the electric field in a waveguide is perpendicular to the direction of

wave propagation, the mode is said to be transverse electric

The dominant mode in most rectangular waveguide is TE1,2

A magnetic field is introduced into waveguide by a probe

A half-wavelength, close section of a waveguide that acts as a parallel

resonant circuit is known as cavity resonator
Decreasing the volume of a cavity causes its resonant frequency
to decrease

Hot carrier is a popular microwave mixer diode

Varactor and step-recovery diodes are widely used in frequency

multiplier

Gunn diode is a popular microwave oscillator

Tunnel diode does not ordinarily operate with reverse bias

Low-power Gunn diodes are replacing reflex klystrons

Cathode-ray tube is not a microwave tube

In a klystron amplifier, velocity modulation of the electron beam is

produced by the catcher cavity

A reflex klystron is used as an oscillator

For proper operation, a magnetron must be accompanies by

a permanent
magnet

The operating frequency of klystrons and magnetrons is set by the cavity

resonators

A magnetron is used only as an oscillator

A common application for magnetron is in radar

In a TWT, the electron beam is density-modulated by a helix

The main advantage of a TWT over a klystron for microwave amplification

is wider bandwidth

High-power TWTs are replacing Klystrons

Horn – the most widely used microwave antenna

MTBF is a measure of reliability expressed as the average number of

hours between successive failures

Baseband repeater – an active microwave radio repeater that can

provide
drops and inserts
If the correction factor k equals 4/3 of the earth’s curvature, the
microwave beam would have a curvature that is more than that of the
earth

The optimum clearance from an obstacle in a microwave system is

accepted as 0.6 of the first Fresnel zone radius

The microwave beam curves the same than that of the earth when the
value of the correction factor k equals infinity

The ability of a radar to determine the bearing to a target depends upon

the antenna directivity

The Doppler effect allows speed of a target to be measured

The Doppler effect is a change in frequency produced by relative motion

between the radar set and a target

The most widely used radar transmitter component is a magnetron

Low-power radar transmitters and receivers use Gunn diode

Spark gap in a duplexer protects the receiver from the higher

transmitter
output

Most radar antennas use a horn and parabolic reflector

The most common radar display is the PPI

A radar antenna using multiple dipoles or slot antennas in a matrix with

variable phase shifters is called a phased array

10 GHz is a typical radar operating frequency

A microwave system requires the use of repeaters when the distances

involve
are greater

Waveguides are transmission line which convey electromagnetic waves

in
highest frequencies

A microwave band of 10.9 to 36 GHz is considered as K-band

92.4 + 20 log F + 20 log D – a microwave communications system
space loss
calculation formula

A waveguide is also a high pass filter

Frequency diversity – a method of diversity reception where the signal

is
transmitted on two different frequencies over the same path

Litz wire – a wire used to reduce the skin effect

Space diversity transmission means transmitting and receiving on two or

more antennas operating on the same frequencies

Frequency diversity – the best system configuration to overcome

multipath
fading of microwave system over the water

When the value of k increases, the effective result is flattening of the

equivalent curvature

A traveling wave tube consists of electron gun, helix and collector

Advantage of periscope antenna in microwave: shorten waveguide

length

The cut-off frequency of a waveguide is the lowest frequency the

waveguide
operates

When the clearance above the obstruction is equal to the radii of even
Fresnel zones at the point of reflection, the RSL is decreased

The wavelength of a wave in a waveguide is greater than in free space

Water causes more attenuation particularly on 183 GHz frequency

Oxygen cause excessive attenuation at 60 GHz frequency

Terrestrial is a microwave link between the down-town terminal and

another out of town terminal

Attenuator is used in the traveling wave tube to prevent oscillation

Space diversity is a method of diversity reception applied to reflective

path
to reduce fading

K X 4000 miles is the effective earth’s radius used in communications

design

IF bandwidth of a radar system is inversely proportional to pulse width

EADI stands for Electronic Altitude and Director Indicator

DME aircraft navigational system determines the time to station (TTS) or

time to go (TTG)

A radio altimeter operate at 43500 MHz frequency

Terrestrial Flight Telephone System allows passengers to make

telephone calls,
send faxes, and computer data shop and play computer games, etc

ADF stands for Automatic Direction Finder

RF carrier of the middle marker is modulated at 1300 Hz

The major advantage of using a helix traveling wave tube is its wide

bandwidth

RADAR stands for Radio Detection and Ranging

Summary of Important Satellite Communications

Review Notes
Sputnik 1 is the first active satellite

Early Bird is the first commercial satellite

Moon is the first passive satellite transponder

Telstar 1 is the first satellite to receive and transmit simultaneously

A helical antenna is used for satellite tracking because of circular

polarization

Repeaters inside communication satellites are known as transponders

Privacy is considered as the unsolved problem in satellite system

Nonsynchronous satellite is a satellite that rotates around the earth in
a low-
altitude elliptical or circular pattern

Footprint is the geographical representation of a satellite antenna

radiation
pattern

Spot beam – the smallest beam of a satellite antenna radiation pattern

Global beam – a satellite beam that covers almost 42.4% of the earth’s
surface

The frequency range of C-band is 3.4 to 6.425 GHz

Downlink – a satellite signal transmitted from a satellite transponder to

earth’s station

Satellite dish collects very weak signals from a broadcast satellite

Orthomode transducer is a device that detects both vertically and

horizontally
polarized signals simultaneously

LNA  detects the satellite signal relayed from the feed and converts it to
an
electric current, amplifies and lower its frequency

Path loss is a loss of power of a satellite downlink signal due to earth’s

atmosphere

Perigee – point on the satellite orbit closest to the earth

Footprint – the earth covered by a satellite radio beam

The local oscillator (mixer) frequency of the satellite with an uplink

frequency in GHz band is 2225 MHz

Gallium Arsenide solar panel array are used in some advance

satellites

Satellite engine uses ion propulsion system

Lithium – a satellite battery that has more power but lighter

Hydrogen battery used by older satellites

VSAT was made available in 1979

VSAT first operate at C-band

The first Philippine Mabuhay satellite have 30 channels

The first Philippine Agila 1 will have 36 transponders

The Philippine Government request 6 satellite orbital slots

105.5° East – the location of AsiaSat 1

AsiaSat 1 covers 38 countries in Asia

The owner of AsiaSat is China Great Wall Industry Corporation

200 dB is the approximate path loss from satellite-to-earth station

INTELSAT stands for International Telecommunications Satellite

14/11 GHz – the frequency of Ku band for satellite communications

A satellite cross-link means Satellite-to-satellite link

Earth station uses Cassegrain antenna

0.5 s is the delay time for satellite transmissions from earth transmitter
to
earth receiver

500 MHz – the bandwidth of C-band satellite frequency band in U.S.

The most common device used as an LNA is tunnel diode

The radiation pattern of earth coverage antennas have a beamwidth of

approximately 17°

A mobile satellite array usually has 14 elements

Radial divider is responsible in activating and deactivating adjacent

antenna
elements in a mobile satellite array

Most mobile satellite array uses quarter-wavelength transformer in

transforming 50 ohm to 150 ohm impedance

Shunt – the switching from one element to the other element in a typical
mobile satellite array

FDMA – a method of multiple accessing where a given RF channel

bandwidth is divided into smaller frequency band

0.5 s is the delay time for satellite transmissions from earth transmitter
to
earth receiver

As the height of a satellite orbits gets lower, the speed of the

satellite increases

The main function of a communication satellite is as a repeater

The key electronic component in a communications satellite is

the transponder

A circular orbit around the equator with a 24-h period is called

a geostationary orbit

A satellite stays in orbit because the gravitational force and

centrifugal force are
balanced

The height of a satellite in a synchronous equatorial orbit is about 22,300

mi

Most satellite operate in 3 GHz to 30 GHz

The main power sources for a satellite are solar cells

The maximum height of an elliptical orbit is called the Apogee

Batteries are used to power all satellite subsystems during eclipse

periods

The satellite subsystem that monitors and controls the satellite is

the telemetry, tracking and command subsystem

Spin is the basic technique used to stabilize a satellite

The jet thrusters are usually fired to maintain altitude

Most commercial satellite activity occurs in C and Ku band

Multiple earth stations share a satellite on the same frequency

by frequency
reuse

The typical bandwidth of a satellite band is about 500 MHz

Modulator is not usually a part of a transponder

The satellite communications channels in a transponder are defined by

the bandpass filter

The HPAs in most satellite are TWTs

The physical location of a satellite is determined by its latitude and

longitude

The receive GCE system in an earth station performs demodulation and

demultiplexing

Magnetron is not used in earth stations

The common up-converter and down-converter IF is 70 MHz

FM modulation is used on voice and video signals

QPSk modulation is normally used with digital data

Speed is not a typical output from a GPS receiver

Passive satellite – a satellite which simply reflects the signal without

further
amplification

Essentially a satellite transponder is a radio repeater in the sky

Geostationary – satellite that orbits in a circular pattern with an angular

velocity equal to that of the earth

Domsat – satellite that provide services within a single country

The round-trip propagation delay between two earth stations through a

geosynchronous satellite is 500 to 600 ms

Uplink signal – the signal path from earth station satellite

Communication satellite – designed to receive a signal from a

transmitting
station on the ground an retransmit it to a receiving station located
elsewhere
Downlink signal – the signal path from satellite to earth-based receiver

A satellite position is measured by its elevation angle with respect to the

horizon

The azimuth angle measures the satellite position clockwise from the

direction of true north

Arthur Clarke incidentally propose the geostationary scheme or orbit of

the
satellite in 1940s

The control routine necessary to keep the satellite in position is referred

to as station keeping

Satellite altitude – refers to the satellite orientation with respect to the

earth

The first Intelsat satellite that was launched in 1965 was named Early
Bird
1

Syncom 1 – the first satellite launched for a geosynchronous orbit but
unfortunately lost during orbit injection

Communication is the most common application of satellite

Descending pass for a satellite means a pass from North to South

Geostationary stationary satellites are located 0°  latitude with respect to

the
equator

Summary of Important Fiber Optics Review Notes

Christian Huygens founded the wave theory of light

Bockham and Kao proposed the use of a clad glass fiber as a dielectric

waveguide

Theodore Maiman developed the first laser

Infrared – the band of light wavelengths that are too long to be seen by
the human eye
Ultraviolet – the band of light wavelengths that are too short to be seen
by
the human eye

Blue color has the shortest wavelength of light

Laser generates a light beam at a specific visible frequency

Photoresist materials is sensitive to light

The core of an optical fiber has a higher refractive index than the
cladding

Modes is the different angle of entry of light into an optical fiber when
the
diameter of the core is many times the wavelength of the light
transmitted

The loss in signal power as light travels down a fiber is

called attenuation

The bandwidth of optical fiber is 900 THz

If a mirror is used to reflect light, the reflected light angle is the same as
the incident angle

Mode is a specific path the light takes in an optical fiber, corresponding

to
a certain angle and number of reflection

Spectral width is the width of the range of wavelengths emitted by the

light
source

Quantum theory states that light wave behaves as if it is consists of

many
tiny particles

Fiber optic cables operate at frequencies near 800 THz

When a beam of light enters one medium from

another, frequency quantity
will not change

Dispersion is used to describe the splitting of white light into its

component colors
Luminance efficiency is minimum for a low wattage light bulb

An object farther from a converging lens than its focal point always has
an inverted image

An object nearer to a converging lens than its focal point always has
a virtual image

The real image formed by a spherical mirror is larger relative to its object

The wavelength of light has no role in polarization

Longitudinal waves do not exhibit polarization

Modal dispersion is caused by the difference in the propagation times of

light
rays that take different path down a fiber

The average insertion loss of fusion splice in fiber optics is 0.09 dB

The insertion loss of connector-type splices for a single mode fiber optics
is 0.38 dB

The lifetime of LEDs is about 200,000 hours

The lifetime of ILDs is about 50,000 hours

Photodiodes used as fiber optic detectors are reversed bias

Step-index multimode type of fiber has the highest modal dispersion

Laser light is coherent and stimulated emission

Fiber optics – a dielectric waveguide for the propagation of

electromagnetic
energy at light frequencies

LED is a non-coherent light source for optical communications system

Semiconductor type of laser is the simplest to modulate directly by

changing
its excitation

Argon-ion laser emits light in the visible range, 400 to 700 nm

The proper measurement of average power emitted by a pulsed laser

is pulsed energy times repetition rate
Atmospheric absorption does not harm laser efficiency

Doppler shift of moving atoms and molecules contributes to the

broadening of
laser emission bandwidth

The first laser emitted pulses of 694-nm red light

Molten is the stage of the sand becoming a silicon

LED is used as an optical transmitter in the Fiber Optical Communications

APD is used as an optical receiver in fiber optics communications

Then inner portion of the fiber cable is called core

Semiconductor laser is the simplest to modulate directly by changing its

excitation

Consumer TV is not a common application of fiber-optic cable

Total internal reflection takes place if the light ray strikes the interface at
a greater than angle to the critical angle

The operation of a fiber optic cable is based on the principle of reflection

Single-mode graded-index is not a common type of fiber-optic cable

Cable attenuation is usually expressed in terms of dB/km

The upper pulse rate and information-carrying capacity of a cable is

limited by modal dispersion

The core of a fiber-optic cable is made of glass

The core of a fiber optic is surrounded by cladding

The speed of light in a plastic compared to the speed of light in air

is slower

The main benefit of light-wave communications over microwaves or any

other communications media is wider bandwidth

X-ray is not part of the optical spectrum

The wavelength of visible light extends from 400 to 750 nm

The speed of light is 300,000,000 m/s

Refraction is the bending of light waves

The ratio of the speed of light in air to the speed of light in another
substance is called the index of refraction

A popular light wavelength in fiber-optic cable is 1.3 μm

Single-mode step-index type of fiber-optic cable is the most widely

used

Single-mode step-index type fiber-optic cable is best for very high

speed data

Single mode step-index type fiber-optic cable has the least modal

dispersion

Reflection is not a factor in cable light loss

Laser is preferred for high-speed data in a fiber-optic system

Most fiber-optic light sources emit light in infrared spectrum

Both LEDs and ILDs operate correctly with forward bias

Single-frequency light is called monochromatic

Laser light is very bright because it is coherent

Photovoltaic diode is NOT a common light detector

Avalanche photodiode is the fastest light sensor

Photodiodes operate properly with reverse bias

An important requirement for successful transmission system using

light: Powerful, reliable light source

Interference filter is used to block light from a laser and let other light
through

Monochromatic and in-phase is a light that can be coherent

Coherence of laser light is important for holography

The ultrapure glass used to manufacture optical fibers is
approximately 99.9999% pure

In fiber optics, PCS stands for Plastic-clad-silica

Longitudinal modes has no fixed limit, dependent on bandwidth and

mode spacing

Infrared absorption is the result of photons of light that are absorbed

by the
atoms of the glass core molecules

In fiber optics, SCS stands for Silica-clad-silica

Helium laser was developed by A. Javen at Bell Laboratory in 1960

Spectral response of light detector determines the range of system

length
that can be achieved for a given wavelength

Dark current in light detectors is caused by thermally generated

carriers in the
diode

Ampere/watt is the unit of responsitivity

Dispersion is not a characteristic of light detectors

The typical wavelength of light emitted from epitaxially grown LEDs

is 940
nm

SONET stands for Synchronous Optical Network

Bend loss is an attenuation increase caused by bends radiating

from the side of the
fiber

Infrared range of fiber optics is about 700 – 1200 nm

Higher losses is a disadvantage for plastic fiber optics

OTDR stands for Optical Time Domain Reflectometer

Under normal condition, a single fiber should not be used for a two-way
communication mainly because of noise
A single mode optical fiber has a core diameter of 0.01 nm

A step-index multimode optical fiber has a core diameter of 0.02 nm

The graded-index multimode optical fiber has a core diameter of 0.05 nm

Stepped index operation is not a possible cause of optical fiber loss

Refractive index – the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum and the
speed
of light in the material used

Splicing fiber means both fusion and butt

Optoisolator – an IC that represents a short distance one-way optical

communications system

When light strikes a flat polished end of a fiber, it produces a loss of 4%

When light strikes a flat polished end of a fiber, the fiber loss produced
can be reduced by antireflection coating

In fiber optics, higher-order mode refers to cladding boundary at high

angle

Refraction is not a cause of light attenuation in fiber optics

Visible-light LEDs are not used for fiber optics because it has high
losses

Optical cable testers are used for light power out of a fiber

A function of an optical isolator cancels reflected waves

An increase in light intensity produces fast optic switching due

to amplification of optical signal

Light traveling in air optical fiber follows Snell’s law

Optical fibers for telecommunications are typically about 5 mils thick and

consists of a glass core, a glass cladding of lower index of refraction, and
a protective coating

Material dispersion is caused by the wavelength dependence of the

index of
refraction
The dominant loss mechanisms in silica fiber are absorption and
Rayleigh
scattering

The bandwidth of a fiber is limited by dispersion

Fiber bandwidth is generally specified as the product of the bandwidth

and
distance

The quantum efficiency of a detector is the fraction of incident photons

that
produce a photoelectron or electron-hole pair

In solid-state optical detectors, the excited charge is transported in the

solid by holes and electrons

PMT is not a solid-state optical detector

Optical detectors are square-law devices because they respond

to intensity rather than amplitude

The photocurrent is equal to the number of electrons emitted per

second
times the electron charge

PMT optical detector is used when high sensitivity and bandwidth are

required

The average loss in fiber splice is about 0.15 dB

White color is not found in the visible light wave spectrum

The frequency limit of an optical fiber is about 40 GHz

The mechanical splice attenuation loss is 0.1 dB or less

Polymer jacket is applied to protect core and cladding of the fiber

The energy of the photon is directly proportional to the Planck’s

constant

Refractive index of glass – 1.5

Refractive index of diamond – 2.0

The unit of light wavelength is Angstroms

The power loss of the fusion splice is about 0.01 dB or less

Optical power meter is used to test a fiber optics splice

Beam-splitting coupler – a coupler which consists of a series of lenses

and a
partly reflective surface

Diffuse reflection – Reflections in many directions

Lithium Niobate – commonly used electro-optic crystal for polarization

modulation

Intensity modulation and polarization modulation are the most

widely used in
optical systems