UNGUIDED

MEDIA
Pailan College of Management and Technology
Name- Anirban Guha
Sem- 4th
Roll No.- 29701219011
Sub- Computer Networking
CONTENTS

1.Introduction

2.Electromagnetic wave and Antenna

3.Types of Unguided Transmission Media

i. Radio Waves

ii. Micro Waves

iii. Infrared Waves

4. Difference Between Radio, Micro and Infrared

Waves
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 INTRODUCTION
Unguided medium transport electromagnetic waves without
using a physical conductor. This type of communication is
often referred to as wireless communication. Signals are
normally broadcast through free space and thus are available
to anyone who has a device capable of receiving them.
The figure shows the part of the electromagnetic spectrum,
ranging from 3 kHz to 900 THz, used for wireless
communication.

20XX PRESENTATION TITLE 3

ELECTROMAGNETIC
WAVE & ANTENNA
The electromagnetic wave is nothing but the moving electrons
that propagates information from one point to the another
through the air or even in a vacuum. An antenna is an
electronic conductor that has the ability to transmit these
electromagnetic waves and it can even receive these waves.
The unguided media propagates electromagnetic wave from
source to destination in three methods:

• Ground propagation
• Sky propagation 
• Line-of-sight propagation 
Ground Propagati on
In the ground propagation, the
electromagnetic wave is
propagated close to the
atmosphere i.e. between
ionosphere and earth surface.
These electromagnetic waves are
the low-frequency wave that is
transmitted in all direction and
the wave follows the curvature
of the earth as can be see in the
image below.
The distance travel by the
electromagnetic wave in the
ground propagation depends on
the power of the propagated
signal. More is power in signal
longer the distance it travels.
 Sky Propagati on Line of Sight Propagati on
In sky propagation, the
In the line of sight propagation, the
electromagnetic wave with a higher
electromagnetic wave with very high
frequency is radiated up in the
frequency is transmitted in the ‘straight-
ionosphere from the source
line’ direction from the transmitter
transmitter antenna which gets
antenna to the receiver antenna.
reflected back to the earth surface. In
skywave propagation, the
electromagnetic wave travels a longer
distance and it can be received
thousands of kilometers away from
the transmitter.
In this way, the electromagnetic wave
does not get affected by the curvature of
the earth because the transmitter and
receiver antenna are either tall or close
enough to maintain the line of sight.
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 TYPES OF UNGUIDED TRANSMISSION MEDIA
We can divide wireless transmission into three broad groups:

1.Radio waves
2.Micro waves
3.Infrared waves

1. Radio Waves
• Radio waves are the electromagnetic waves that are transmitted in all the directions of free space.
• Radio waves are omnidirectional, i.e., the signals are propagated in all the directions.
• The range in frequencies of radio waves is from 3Khz to 1 khz.
• In the case of radio waves, the sending and receiving antenna are not aligned, i.e., the wave sent by the sending antenna
can be received by any receiving antenna.
• An example of the radio wave is FM radio.

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 Applications Of Radio waves:

• A Radio wave is useful for multicasting when there is one sender and many receivers.
• An FM radio, television, cordless phones are examples of a radio wave.

Advantages and Disadvantages Of Radio transmission:

• Radio waves are easy to generate and penetrate buildings also can travel long distances.
• Radio waves cover a large area and can penetrate the buildings. By this, an AM radio can
receive signals inside a building.
• This can also be disadvantageous because we cannot isolate a communication just inside or
outside a building. Cause of this, governments strictly legislate the use of radio transmitters

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2. Micro Waves
Micro Waves includes a line of sight transmission that is the sending and receiving antennas that need to be
properly aligned with each other. The distance is directly proportional to the height of the antenna which is
covered by the signal. In mobile phone communication and television distribution, these are majorly used.

Applications Of Micro waves

Due to the unidirectional properties of Micro Waves, they are very useful when unicast
(one-to-one) communication is needed between the sender and the receiver. Cellular
phones, satellite networks, and wireless LANs are using Micro Waves

Microwave Transmission 8
Two types of Microwave Transmission are as follows,
i. Terrestrial Microwave
ii. Satellite Microwave

Terrestrial Microwave Transmission

• Terrestrial Microwave transmission is a technology that transmits the focused beam of a radio signal from
one ground-based microwave transmission antenna to another.
• Microwaves are the electromagnetic waves having the frequency in the range from 1GHz to 1000 GHz.
• Microwaves are unidirectional as the sending and receiving antenna is to be aligned, i.e., the waves sent by
the sending antenna are narrowly focused.
• In this case, antennas are mounted on the towers to send a beam to another antenna which is km away.
• It works on the line of sight transmission, i.e., the antennas mounted on the towers are the direct sight of each
other.

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Characteristics of Microwave:
• Frequency range: The frequency range of terrestrial microwave is from 4-6 GHz to 21-23 GHz.
• Bandwidth: It supports the bandwidth from 1 to 10 Mbps.
• Short distance: It is inexpensive for short distance.
• Long distance: It is expensive as it requires a higher tower for a longer distance.
• Attenuation: Attenuation means loss of signal. It is affected by environmental conditions and antenna size.

Advantages Of Microwave:
• Microwave transmission is cheaper than using cables.
• It is free from land acquisition as it does not require any land for the installation of cables.
• Microwave transmission provides an easy communication in terrains as the installation of cable in terrain is quite a difficult task.
• Communication over oceans can be achieved by using microwave transmission.

Disadvantages of Microwave transmission:

• Eavesdropping: An eavesdropping creates insecure communication. Any malicious user can catch the signal in the air by using its own
antenna
• Out of phase signal: A signal can be moved out of phase by using microwave transmission.
• Susceptible to weather condition: A microwave transmission is susceptible to weather condition. This means that any environmental
change such as rain, wind can distort the signal.
• Bandwidth limited: Allocation of bandwidth is limited in the case of microwave transmission.

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Satellite Microwave Communication

This is a microwave relay station which is placed in outer space. The satellites are launched either by rockets or space shuttles carry
them.
These are positioned 36000 Km above the equator with an orbit speed that exactly matches the rotation speed of the earth. As the satellite
is positioned in a geo-synchronous orbit, it is stationery relative to earth and always stays over the same point on the ground. This is
usually done to allow ground stations to aim antenna at a fixed point in the sky.

How does a Satellite work?

The satellite receives the signal that is transmitted from the earth station, and it amplifies these signals. It
is retransmitted the amplified signal to another earth station.
Satellite transmission is much like the line-of-sight transmission in which one of the stations is a satellite
orbiting the earth. The principle is the same as the terrestrial microwave. Signals still travel in straight
lines in satellite transmission.

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Features of Satellite Microwave:
• Bandwidth capacity depends on the frequency used.
• Satellite microwave deployment for orbiting satellite is difficult.

Advantages of Satellite Microwave

• High-quality communication available to undeveloped parts of the world without requiring a huge investment in the
ground-based infrastructure.
• It is used in a variety of applications such as radio/TV signal broadcasting, weather forecasting, radio/TV signal
broadcasting, mobile communication and mobile, and wireless communication applications.
• The coverage area of a terrestrial microwave is less than the terrestrial microwave.

Disadvantages Of Satellite Microwave Communication:

•Satellite designing and development requires more time and higher cost.
•The Satellite needs to be monitored and controlled on regular periods so that it remains in orbit.
•The life of the satellite is about 12-15 years. Due to this reason, another launch of the satellite has to be planned before it
becomes non-functional.

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 3. Infrared Waves

•An infrared transmission is a wireless technology used for

communication over short ranges.
•The frequency of the infrared in the range from 300 GHz to 400
THz.
•It is used for short-range communication such as data transfer
between two cell phones, TV remote operation, data transfer
between a computer and cell phone resides in the same closed
area.

20XX PRESENTATION TITLE 13

 Applications of Infrared Waves:
• The infrared band, almost 400 THz, has an excellent potential for
data transmission. Such a wide bandwidth can be used to transmit
digital data with a very high data rate.
• The Infrared Data Association(IrDA), an association for
sponsoring the use of infrared waves, has established standards for
using these signals for communication between devices such as
keyboards, mouse, PCs and printers.
• Infrared signals can be used for short-range communication in a
closed area using line-of-sight propagation

20XX PRESENTATION TITLE 14

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RADIO WAVE,
MICROWAVE AND INFRARED WAVES : 

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THANK YOU

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