Microwave Fundamentals

 Radio Propagation
 Terminologies.
 Polarization.
 Microwave Frequency Bands.
 Free space Loss.
 Antenna .
 Fresnel Zone
 Modulation Technologies (QAM).
 SDH,PDH,E1
 Radio Propagation

Radio Wave Propagation & Its Characteristics

i) Definition of Microwave :
Microwaves in a descriptive term used to
identify electromagnetic waves in the frequency
spectrum ranging approx from 30MHZ to
300GHz. Since the wavelength is small the
phase varies rapidly with distance, thus a signal
reaching to a point from two different routes
may cause constructive or destructive
 interference. Moreover these frequencies
contain two energies (Electric and Magnetic) so
also known as ELECTROMAGNATIC WAVES.
Propagations of this waves happens in such a
way that direction of propagation, Electric field
and Magnetic field always remains
perpendicular to each other. Microwaves
frequencies characteristics are very much
similar to light. The same is shown in the
figure:
 E

H
P
Depending on the topography and the
meteorological conditions, radio waves
propagate In different ways causing attenuation
to the original wave. Following propagation
mechanisms come into play:
ii) Reflection :When electromagnetic waves incide on
a surface they may be reflected depending on
the smoothness of the surface. When the surface
is smooth and its size is greater than the
wavelength of the wave then it is Reflected.
 i r Where i = incident angle
r = reflected
angle
Glazy Surface
iii) Refraction :
Bending of waves when passing through one media
to other media of different refractive index is
called REFRACTION. Radio waves travel with
different velocities in different medium
depending on their dielectric constants. The
dielectric constant of the atmosphere decrease
with altitude. Thus the waves travel slower in the
lower part of atmosphere where dielectric
constant is greater and faster in the upper part
where dielectric constant is lower thus
refracting the beam downwards.
 RI1 Medium
1
Where RI1 = Refractive index of medium
1
RI2 RI2 = Refractive index of medium
2
Medium
2
RI1 < RI2
v) Scattering :
When Electromagnetic waves incide on a rough
surface having rough edges whose dimension is
less than the wavelength of the wave, it is
scattered in different directions. Scattering is a
phenomenon which causes vector distribution of
energy.

vi) Absorption : At frequencies above 10 GHz the

propagation of radio waves through the
atmosphere of the earth is strongly affected by
the resonant absorption of electromagnetic
energy by molecular water vapour and oxygen.
The amount of water vapour in the atmosphere
strongly varies from place to place according to the
local meteorological conditions.
vii) Attenuation :
As the EM waves travels it losses its energy, this
is due to attenuation. Attenuation is due to
presence of other field (Magnetic or Electric),
Due to fog, Due to Rain etc.
P1 P2
Attenuation = 10 log (P2/P1) db
Rain Attenuation : Scattering and absorption of
the radio wave by raindrops causes attenuation.
Although all frequencies are subject to these
effects, rain attenuation is of practical
importance for frequencies above 10 GHz. Due to
the random behavior of the rain events the same
is not included as a contribution to the Link
Budget calculation.
viii) Fading :
Fading is defined as any time varying of phase,
polarization, and/ or level of a received signal.
The most basic propagation mechanism involved
in Fading are reflection, refraction, diffraction,
scattering, attenuation and guiding(ducting).
i. Multi path Fading :
It is a common type of fading encountered in LOS
radio links. This type of fading results due to the
interference between direct rays and component
of ground reflected wave & partial reflection
from atmosphere.
ii. Fading due to Earth Bulge :
iii. Duct & Layer fading : Atmospheric ducts
consisting of super refractive and a sub
refractive layer or vice versa.
iv. Surface duct fading on over water path : It is a
combination of multi path fading due to water
body and fading due to atmospheric duct.
 Effective Earth
Effective Earth

Multi path fading Atmospheric duct

Effective Earth
Water Body

Fading due to earth bulge Surface duct

 Trunk Radio Characteristics

 Long distance
 Therefore lower frequencies
 Therefore subject to Multipath fading
 Diversity route compensation
 Lower frequencies less effected by rain
 K-Value is a common used value to indicate ray
bending with respect to the physical radius of
the earth
 For a normal atmosphere K value equals 4/3
 Wave Propagation in A
With Atmosphere
No Atmosphere

 The highest index of refraction is near the

surface of the earth, the waves are bent
towards the ground
 Multipath

 Multipath propagation occurs when

there are more then one ray reaching
the receiver
 Multipath transmission is the main
cause of fading
 Direct beam

Delayed beam
 Diffraction

 Radio path between transmitter and receiver obstructed

by surface with sharp irregular edges
 Waves bends around the obstacle, even when line of
sight does not exist
K Factor on Earth
 Rain Fading
 Rain Outage due to water absorption
 Increases with frequency
 Depends on amount of water in path
 Rain rate (mm/hr)
 Depends on rain region
 How often does that mm/hr occur
 Rain falls as flattened droplet
 V better than H
 Polarization

i) Electromagnetic Waves & Fields

Energy in EM waves is in form of Electric
and Magnetic field. Energy of any MW
wave is vector sum of its all-electrical
and magnetic components. The concept
can be better understood from the
following diagrams
 E1 H13
E16 E2 H12 H14

E15 E3 H11 H15

E14 E4 H10 H16

E5 H1
E13 H9

E6 H2
E12 H8

E7 H3
E11 H7

E10 H6
E8 H4
E9 H5
ii) Polarization ( H, V & Circular):
When EM wave contains E and H energies in all
direction that is know as circularly Polarized as
shown in the last figure.
When EM waves has got only electrical component
perpendicular to Horizon of earth, is known as
Vertical Polarized wave.
When EM waves has got electrical component
parallel to Horizon of earth, known as
Horizontally polarized wave.
Vertically polarized wave travels longer distance as
compare to horizontally polarized wave.
 E H

H E

P=V P=H

Earth
Microwave Frequency
Band
i) Microwave Frequency Bands as per
ITU Radio Regulation :
Radio Waves are defined by Radio
Regulations of the International
telecommunication Union. The radio
spectrum allocated for Microwave
are UHF,SHF and EHF as mentioned
below in the table:
 Metric
Corresponding Abbreviations for
Band Number Symbol Frequency Range Metric Subdivision the band
4 VLF 3 to 30 kHz Myriametric waves B. Mam
5 LF 30 to 300 kHz Kilometric waves B. km
6 MF 300 to 3000 kHz Hectometric waves B. hm
7 HF 3 to 30 MHz Decametric waves B. dam
8 VHF 30 to 300 MHz Metric waves B. m
9 UHF 300 to 3000 MHz Decimetric waves B. dm
10 SHF 3 to 30 GHz Centimetric waves B. cm
11 EHF 30 to 300 GHz Milimetric waves B. mm
12 300 to 3000 GHz Decimilimetric waves
ii) Microwave Frequency Band used in Practical
Systems :
2, 6 and 7 GHz Frequency Bands are used for
Intercity Backbone routes.
Nominal Hop Distances 25 – 40 Km
15,18 and 23 GHz Frequency Bands are used for
Access Network
Nominal Hop Distance 1 – 10 Km.
Government will allocate spot Frequency. Index
of Radios will be decided by Spot frequency.
Channel No will be calculated using allocated
spot frequency.
To obtain the same applications have to be
forwarded to the following government bodies :
iii) SACFA (Standing Advisory Committee for
Frequency Allocation)
It is a government Wing which allocates frequency
and also gives tower ht clearance. Before
allocation Of frequency it checks not to cause
interference to existing users.
Before giving tower height clearance it checks that
it should not cause obstruction to exiting MW
link, should not be in funnel zone of Aircraft
etc.
iv) WPC (Wireless Planning Committee) - It is a
government wing which takes charges from
operator for use of MW frequency pair.
Charges are based on the and width used
and annual gross revenue.
v) Frequency & Bandwidth :
a) Introduction :
The implementation of digital LOS radio links has
accelerated due to transition of telephone
network to an all digital network. The digital
network is based on a PCM waveform, which
when compared to analog FDM is wasteful of
bandwidth. A nominal 4-kHz voice channel on
an FDM baseband system occupies about 4-
kHz of bandwidth. On an FDM/FM radio link,
by rough estimation we can say it occupies
about 16 kHz.
In conventional PCM baseband system, allowing 1
bit per Hz of bandwidth, a 4-KHz voice channel
roughly requires 64kHz (64 kbps) of bandwidth.
This is derived using Nyqvist sampling rate of
8000 / sec (4000 Hz x 2) and each sample is
assigned an 8-bit code word, thus 8000 x 8 bits
per second or 64 kbps. Thus it is essential to
select modulation techniques that are bandwidth
conservative
 b) Modulation techniques used :
The digital modulation schemes such as FSK,
QPSk, 8-ary PSK, 4-QAM, 8 –QAM and 16-QAM
etc. are most commonly used. For example the
table shows comparison of Analog and digital
modulation techniques:

600 channel FM Analog 16 QAM Digital

Bandwidth 10 MHz 10 MHz
Voice Channel Capacity 600 384
Max Data Capacity 11.52Mbps 25 Mbps
E1 capacity 10 12
System Gain 110.4 dB 111.5 dB
c) Bandwidth Requirement :
As per the no. of channel requirements the
bandwidth of the system can be decided. For
example for 4mbps I.e. 60 nos of 64 kbps
channels I.e. 4 Mbps , bandwidth of 3.5MHz is
required and so on as mentioned below:
7 MHz for 8 Mbps, 14 MHz for 16 Mbps and so on
 Terminologies

i.Azimuth and Importance of North direction

It is angle of antenna direction w.r.t. north in clockwise direction. This
is also known as bearing.

ii.AMSL
Above mean sea level. An antenna at AMSL 20m
means it is 20meter higher than the mean sea level.
iii.db, dBm
db=it is logarithmic ratio
db = 10 log P1/P2.

3db loss of power is power reduced to half.

dbm is the logarithmic ratio of power w.r.t 1.
miliwatt
1 mW power in dbm is =10 log 1mW/1mW =
10 log 0 = 0dbm
1 W power in dbm is = 10 log 10W/1mW
=30dbm
iv) Antenna Gain and Beam width
Beam width of an antenna is the angle in which antenna radiates
energy.
Antenna Gain is measured w.r.t. isotropic antenna. An isotropic
antenna radiates power in all direction. In practical system the energy
needs to be radiated in the desired direction in desired beam width.
Thus the total energy confined in the smaller aperture. Unit of antenna
gain is dBi.

Antenna Gain = 17.6 + 20 * log10 (f *d) dBi

Where d= Antennae Diameter in Meter and f= Frequency in GHz

Beam width
 v) AGC
AGC stands for Automatic Gain Control. Media between two
antennae in MW system is variable thus the path loss.
MW system is designed in such a way that it can add or
reduces the gain to compensate the variation in path loss.
This mechanism is known as AGC system.
vi) Spot frequency

MW system transmits information after modulation on carrier

frequency from one point to another. The carrier frequency is
known as spot frequency. We need to set a spot frequency in
MW system (also known as channel number).
i. Diversity
ii.It is used to improve system performance. There
are two types of diversity used.
1. Space Diversity
2. Frequency Diversity

F1

F2

Space Diversity Frequency Diversity

 Free Space
Propagation
i. Free Space Propagation :
As described earlier characteristics of Microwave is
very much similar to light waves.
Velocity of Microwaves is same as velocity of light
waves. Velocity of the light (C) is 3x 108 meter
per second. Also we know that C = F * 
(F=frequency and  = wavelength).
As the EM wave travels in free space it looses energy.
Free Space transmission loss is the least possible
loss between a transmitter and a receiver. The
same can be defined by the formula:
P loss = 32.4 + 20 log f *d
where f is Frequency in MHz and d is Distance in KM
vi) Antenna Design for Microwave Systems :
a) Introduction :
Antennas form the link between the guided waves and
the free space part of a radio or microwave system.
The guided parts are cables or waveguides to and
from the transmitter and receiver.
b) Purpose of Antennas :The purpose of a
transmitting antenna is to efficiently transform the
current in a circuit or waveguide into radiated radio
or microwave energy. The purpose of a receiving
antenna is to efficiently accept the radiated energy
and convert it to guided form for detection and
processing by a receiver
c) Types of Antenna :
Antennas for radio and microwave system falls
into two broad categories depending on the
degree to which the radiation is confined.
Microwave and satellite communications use
pencil beam antennas where the radiation is
confined to one narrow beam of energy,
whereas Mobile communications and
broadcasting use Omni directional pattern in
the horizontal plane and toroidal pattern in
the vertical plane
 At microwave frequencies the most common type of
pencil beam antenna is a medium to large size
reflector antenna. This consists of a reflector, or,
mirror which collimates the signal from a feed horn
at the focus of the reflector. These are aperture
antennas because the basic radiating element is an
Aperture.

`
Reflector Antenna
& Feed Horn Pencil Beam
Toroidal Beam
 Fresnel Zone

A family of ellipsoids that can be constructed

between a transmitter and a receiver by joining all
the various ways of the destructives electromagnetic
waves, in reference to the direct line of transmission.
The circles indicate the geometric place of
all the waves that passed the way: d'1+d'2

Transmitter Receiver

d1 d2
Modulations Technologies
 Introduction

Examples for modulation techniques:

Quadrate Phase Shift Keying (QPSK)
Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)
Quadrate Amplitude Modulation (QAM)
Etc.
 Modulation Techniques - Basic Techniques
Data bits modulate (modify) a carrier signal
Basic modulation techniques carrier
• Amplitude message(t) transmitted
modulator
• Frequency signal

• Phase

data bits
0 1 0 0 1

unmodulated
carrier

Amplitude Modulation
(AM)

Frequency Modulation
(FSK)

(Differential) Phase
Modulation (DPSK)
Data bits are represented over the transmission
channel by SYMBOLS
Symbol rate is expressed in Baud

Modulation Techniques - Qaudrature Amplitude

Modulation (QAM)

QAM is a modulation modifying the phase and the

amplitude of the carrier signal
QAM symbols are represented by the carrier signal
being transmitted with specific phase / amplitude
(dictated by the message), for finite periods of
time.
 Polar Coordinates
• Symbol presentation
 Amplitude – distance from origin
 Phase – Angle from positive x axis
• Symbol Generation
 For the generation of such symbols, there is a
need for an oscillator able to modify its phase
based on the symbol that has to be
transmitted  not a very trivial topic.
• Symbol reception
 To identify the symbol, the receiver needs a
reference carrier, in phase with the carrier
used by the transmitter (coherent
demodulation).
 2 Mbps Signal

1. Construction of 2Mbps signal

i. Voice frequency
ii. Sampling
iii. Quantization
iv. Digitization
v. 64 kbps signal Multiplexing.
vi. PDH
vii. SDH
 Voice Frequency

Energy

Frequency in Hz

0 300 3400 4000

 Sampling

Voltage

Time

Voltage

Time
 Quantization

Before Quantization After Quantization

Fixed
256no’s
Voltage
levels

Time
 Each sample will be
represented by 8 bits

0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1
 64 kbps Multiplexing

0
1
2
3
4 Mult
iplex
er
1 2 3 4 5 27 28 29 30 31

25
2Mbps stream
26
27
28
29
30
31
 PDH

2Mbps stream

1
2 2/8
3 Multiplexer
4

2
3 8 / 32
8Mbps stream 4 Multiplexer

2
32 / 140
32 Mbps stream 3 140 Mbps stream
Multiplexer
4

M=Multiplexer
 SDH

2Mbps stream
1
2Mbps stream
2
1
20 2
STM-1 STM-1
21 ADM

20
21

2Mbps stream
 PDH- Plesiochronous Digital
Hierarchy

Level Rate(Mb/s) E1
0 0.064 -
1 2.048 1
2 8.448 4
3 34.368 16
4 139.264 64
SDH-Synchronous digital Hierarchy

Level Rate(Mb/s) E1
STM-1 155.52 63
STM-4 622.08 252
STM-8 1244.16 504
STM-16 2488.32 1008
STM-64 ~10GHz 4032
 Space Diversity

Space diversity with IF combining is available in the

frequencies from L6 to 11GHz. It can be used in
combination with all other configurations. The figure
below shows a 1+1 Frequency Diversity or HSB system.
 1+1 SD Microwave Link Link
Site A Site B

TX/RX TX/RX
IDU ‘A’ SD RX SD RX IDU ‘A’
STM-1
HSB SW Branchin Branchin HSB SW
STM-1
N x E1
Manageme g g N x E1
Manageme
nt
IDU ‘B’ SD BR SD BR IDU ‘B’
nt

Coaxial
TX/RX TX/RX Coaxial
Cable SD RX SD RX Cable