3.

3
Electromagnetic Spectrum
Part 2
Communication with artificial satellites is mainly by microwaves:
• some satellite phones use low orbit artificial satellites
• some satellite phones and direct broadcast satellite television use
geostationary satellites
Communication With Waves
Communication System
• Mobile phones (cell phones) and wireless internet use microwaves
because microwaves can penetrate some walls and only require a short
aerial for transmission and reception

• Bluetooth uses radio waves because radio waves pass through walls but
the signal is weakened on doing so

• Optical fibres (visible light or infrared) are used for cable television and
high-speed broadband because glass is transparent to visible light and
some infrared; visible light and short wavelength infrared can carry high
rates of data
 Analogue and digital signals
Communication signals may be analogue or digital.

Analogue signals vary continuous values in time. The

information is transmitted using waves with varying
frequencies and amplitudes.

Digital signals has fixed values. For example, it can have

two values of 1 and 0. The information is transmitted as
‘on’ and ‘off’ pulses. The ‘on’ pulses have a value of 1
and the ‘off’ pulses have a value of 0
Examples of analogue and digital systems
ANALOGUE DIGITAL
 Analogue and digital signals

• Sound can be converted into electrical signals by a microphone. The

converted signal are analogue signals. These analogue signals can be
encoded and transmitted by radio waves or through a telephone line.
However, the analogue sound signals can be also further converted into
digital signals before transmission.

• When you speak into a mobile phones, your continuous sound signals are
converted into digital signals. The phone encodes these signals and
transmits the signals as microwaves.
 Advantages of using digital signals
1. Sound transmitted digitally have higher quality
Interference causes a hissing noise with analogue radio. This does not happen with digital
signals because regenerator circuits are used to clean ‘noisy’ pulses. So a digital signal has a
higher quality than an analogue one.

Regenerator
‘Noisy’ pulse in ‘Clean’ pulse out

2. More data can be transmitted and the rate of data transmission is increased
Digital pulses can be made very short so more pulses can be carried each second. Different
signals can be sent together by a process called multiplexing.
• Thank you