Communication Systems

Communication means sending of massage (information) from one place and

receiving it at the other places by means of some mean (e.g., by cables or
electromagnetic waves).

Some Definitions:
(i) Transducer: Any device that converts one form of energy into another can be
termed as a transducer. In electronic communication systems, we usually come across
devices that have either their inputs or outputs in the electrical form. An electrical
transducer may be defined as a device that converts some physical variable (pressure,
displacement, force, temperature, etc) into corresponding variations in the electrical
signal as output.
(ii) Signal: Information converted in electrical form and suitable for transmission is
called a signal. Signals can be either analog or digital.

Analog signals are continuous variations of voltage or current. They are essentially
single-valued functions of time. Sine wave is a fundamental analog signal. All other
analog signals can be fully understood in terms of their sine wave components. Sound
and picture signals in TV are analog in nature. Digital signals are those which can take
only discrete stepwise values. Binary system that is extensively used in digital
electronics employs just two levels of a signal. ‘0’ corresponds to a low level and ‘1’
corresponds to a high level of voltage/current. There are several coding schemes useful
for digital communication. They employ suitable combinations of number systems such
as the binary coded decimal (BCD). American Standard Code for Information
Interchange (ASCII) is a universally popular digital code to represent numbers, letters
and certain characters.

(iii) Noise: Noise refers to the unwanted signals that tend to disturb the
transmission and processing of message signals in a communication system. The
source generating the noise may be located inside or outside the system.

(iv) Transmitter: A transmitter processes the incoming message signal so as to

make it suitable for transmission through a channel and subsequent reception.

(v) Receiver: A receiver extracts the desired message signals from the received
signals at the channel output.

(vi) Attenuation: Loss of strength of a signal while propagating through a medium

(vii) Amplification: It is the process of increasing the amplitude (and consequently

the strength) of a signal using an electronic circuit called the amplifier.
Amplification is necessary to compensate for the attenuation of the signal in
communication systems.

(viii) Range: It is the largest distance between a source and a destination up to

which the signal is received with sufficient strength.
(ix) Bandwidth: Bandwidth refers to the frequency range over which equipment
operates or the portion of the spectrum occupied by the signal.

(x) Modulation: At the transmitter, information contained in the low frequency

message signal is superimposed on a high frequency wave, which acts as a carrier
of the information. This process is known as modulation. There are 3 types of
modulation, AM, FM and PM.

(xi) Demodulation: The process of retrieval of information from the carrier wave at
the receiver is termed demodulation.

(xii) Repeater: A repeater is a combination of a receiver and a transmitter. A repeater

picks up the signal from the transmitter, amplifies and retransmits it to the
receiver sometimes with a change in carrier frequency. Repeaters are used to extend the
range of a communication system.

Element of Communication System (3 elements)

(i) Transmitter: The transmitter converts the message (or information) signal into a
suitable signal which may be passed on to a suitable medium called transmission channel.
The signal processing for transmission usually involves modulation and coding.

(ii) Channel: It is the medium that carries the message in the form of a suitable signal
from one place to another. It may be a pair of wires, a co-axial cable, a radio wave or a
laser beam. Every channel involves loss of energy during transmission. That is why signal
power goes on decreasing with increasing distance.

(iii) Receiver: Receiver converts the suitable signal prepared by transmitter into actual
message (or information). Receiver operations include amplification of signal to
compensate for the transmission loss, demodulation and decoding to reverse the signal
processing performed by the transmitter.

Band Width of Signals (Speech, TV and Digital Data)

In a communication system the information may be in the form of voice, music, picture
or digital data. Each of these signals has different frequency ranges.

(i) Speech Signals: The audible frequency range is 20 Hz to 20 kHz. For speech signals
the adequate frequency range is 300 Hz to 3100 Hz. Therefore, speech signals have a
band width of (3100 – 300 = 2800 Hz). This is appropriate band width used in telephonic
communication.
 For music signals the band width of 20 kHz is required
because musical instruments produce sound of high
frequencies.
(ii) T.V. Signals: The video signals for transmission of
pictures require a band width of about 4.2 MHz. A T.V.
signal contains both audio (speech and music) and
video (pictures) signals and requires a bandwidth
about 6 MHz.
(iii) Digital Data: There are 2 types of signals: Analog
and Digital. Analog signals are usually in the form of
sine waves, while digital signals are in the form of
rectangular waves.

Band Width of Transmission Medium ( 3 types )

The transmission channels are of

(i) Wires: The widely used wire medium is a co-axial cable. The band width of co-axial
cables is about 750 MHz. Such cables are usually operated below 18 GHz.
(ii) Free Space: The free space transmission medium communicates radiowaves over a
wide range of frequencies : from a few hundred kHz to a few GHz. This frequency range
is further subdivided for allocation of various services as given in following table.
(iii) Optical Fibre: An optical fibre has frequency range 1 THz to 100 THz (microwaves
and ultraviolet). It offers a transmission band width more than 100 GHz.
Nature of Broadcast Frequency Band
Amplitude Modulated Broadcast 540–1600 kHz
FM Radio 88–108 MHz
Very High Frequency (VHF) T.V. 47–230 MHz
Ultra High Frequency (UHF) T.V. 470–960 MHz
Cellular Mobile 840–935 MHz
Satellite Communication 5.925 – 6.425 GHz (Uplink)
3.7–4.2 GHz (Downlink)

Propagation of Electromagnetic Waves

Space Communication: Space communication uses antennas and satellites. The
electromagnetic waves can be transmitted through three processes,

(i) Ground Wave Propagation: These are waves radiated by antenna and travel parallel
to earth's surface. As they pass over the surface of earth, energy is absorbed by earth's
atmosphere; therefore they die out after travelling a short distance. Hence ground wave
propagation can be sustained only at low frequencies 500 Hz – 1500 kHz.

(ii) Space Wave Propagation: A transmitter of required height is erected on earth

surface and the range is calculated as = √2𝑅ℎ 𝑇 . It is also called as LoS ( Line of Sight )
type of communication.
(iii) Sky Waves: These are waves radiated by antenna at large angles, travel upward,
then reach the receiving antenna after suffering reflection from ionosphere. The
refractive index of ionised layers depends on frequency and is given by:

Satellite Communication:
For satellite communication, microwaves of wavelength 1cm to 3cm are sent to satellite
which reflects them to receiving antenna. The height of communication satellite from
earth's surface is 35800 km. Three communication satellites are required to cover the
entire globe of earth.

Need of modulation
1. Size of Receiver Antenna: The size of receiver antenna for low frequency
transmission is about 15 km which is impossible. Therefore we must make
transmission at higher frequencies in MHz etc,
2. Power radiated by Transmitter Antenna: The power radiated by the antenna is
inversely proportional to the wavelength of transmitted signals. Thus it is more for
MHz signals rather than kHz signals.
3. Mixing of Signals: Due to small channel bandwidth in kHz range, not many
channels can be accommodated and overlapping of signals takes place, but in MHz
range of channel bandwidth many channel can be spaciously accommodated.

Types of Modulation :
Modulation is of three types depending upon which parameter of carrier waves is
changed by superimposing the message signals on them e.g.,
Amplitude modulation(AM), Frequency modulation(FM), Phase modulation(PM)
Production and Detection of A.M. Wave
 Production:
In amplitude modulation, the amplitude of modulated wave varies according to the
instantaneous value of the message signal. A simple circuit for achieving this is shown:

It is simply a common emitter amplifier for carrier wave. The modulating

signal is applied on the base; so that base biasing voltage is not constant
but is the sum of a d.c. voltage and modulating signal As the amplitude
output has the same form as the input; therefore the output voltage will represent a
modulated wave varying in amplitude in accordance with the biasing modulating voltage;
thus giving amplitude-modulated wave.

Block Diagram of AM Modulator

Block Diagram of AM Transmitter

Detection of AM waves:
The process of recovery of audio-signal from the modulated wave is known as
demodulation or detection.
Need of demodulation. When the radio frequency modulated waves, radiated from the
transmitting antenna and after travelling through space, are received by receiving aerial,
they induce very weak radio frequency currents and voltages in them. These high
frequency currents cause no effect on audio frequency detectors like headphones or
loudspeakers because sound devices are unable to respond to such high frequencies due
to large inertia of their vibrating discs or diaphragms. These modulated waves can not
produce any direct effect on human ear because the frequency of modulated waves is
much greater than the audible frequency range (20 – 20,000 Hz). Therefore the audio
signal must be separated from the carrier.

Demodulation of AM Wave
The demodulation of AM wave involves two operations:
(i) Rectification of modulated wave.
(ii) Elimination of RF component of the modulated wave.

Diode Detector for AM Wave

As a linear detector: Figure represents the circuit diagram of most widely used diode
detector employed for detection of amplitude modulated signals.
The diode detector is called the linear detector because its output is proportional to the
voltage of the input signal.
Circuit Operation:

Of the various radio frequency voltages induced in receiver aerial, the tuned circuit
selects only those of desired frequency due to electromagnetic induction between coils
L and L1. This signal is applied on the junction diode. This junction diode rectifies it. The
result of this rectifying action is that the output of the diode consists of positive half
cycles of modulated wave as shown.
The rectified modulated wave contains radio frequency (RF) wave and the audio
frequency (AF) signal. The rectified modulated wave is passed on to low pass filter RC.
The RF wave bypasses through capacitor C, because it offers low reactance to RF signals
and high reactance to AF signals. The dc component of remaining signal is shunted
through resistance R, because dc signal cannot pass through blocking capacitor The
capacitor allows the low frequency signal to pass through. Thus audio frequency
signal appears across output terminals which is passed across the terminals of a
suitable sound detector to hear the original sound.

Block Diagram of Receiver:

Block Diagram of Detector:

.....................................................All The Best.......................................................

Darshan Lal
9413577562