Electromagnetic Spectrum

The electromagnetic (EM) spectrum is the range of all types of EM radiation. Radiation is energy that travels and spreads out as it goes the visible light that comes from a lamp in your house and the radio waves that come from a radio station are two types of electromagnetic radiation. The other types of EM radiation that make up the electromagnetic spectrum are microwaves, infrared light, ultraviolet light, Xrays and gamma-rays.

Figure 7-1

Electromagnetic Spectrum

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Electromagnetic Spectrum
902 928 Mhz 2.4 2.4835 Ghz 5.725 5.785 Ghz

LF
30kHz 10km 300kHz 1km

MF
3MHz

HF
30MHz 10m

VHF
300MHz 1m

UHF
3GHz

SHF
30GHz 1cm

EHF
300GHz 100mm

100m

10cm

X rays

infrared visible UV
1 kHz 1 MHz 1 GHz 1 THz 1 PHz

Gamma rays
1 EHz

Propagation characteristics are different in each frequency band

Licensed and Unlicensed bands

Transmission Impairment

With any communications system, the signal that is received may differ from the signal that is transmitted, due to various transmission impairments.

Transmission Impairment

Attenuation Delay distortion Noise

Attenuation

Attenuation means loss of energy.

Attenuation
Signals must be sufficiently strong so that the receiver will be able to detect and interpret them. They should maintain a sufficient high level to make them distinguishable from noise. Too strong signals can overload the circuitry of the transmitter and result in distortion. They should take into account that attenuation increases with the frequency.

Attenuation

Bel deciBel

Pin = 100mW, Pout = 10mW, attenuation =10 dB

Delay Distortion

Delay distortion is due to velocity of propagation that varies with frequency. Thus, various frequency components of a signal arrive at the receiver at different times. Critical in particular for digital data, because signal components of bit positions spill into other bit positions, and so limiting the allowed rate of transmission.

Noise

Noise

Signal

signal + noise

Several types of noise such as thermal noise, induced noise, crosstalk and impulse noise may corrupt the signal.

Noise
Thermal noise is the random motion of electrons in a wire that creates an extra signal not originally sent by the transmitter. Induced noise comes from sources such as motors and appliances. These devices acts as sending antenna and the transmission medium acts as receiving antenna. Crosstalk is a noise that is caused by the inductive coupling between two wires that are closed to each other. Sometime when talking on the telephone, you can hear another conversation in the background. That is cross talk. Impulse noise is irregular disturbances, such as lightning, and flawed communication elements. It is a primary source of error in digital data.

Transmission Media

Means by which a communication signal is carried from one system to another (for example twisted-pair wire, co axial cable, fiber-optic cable) and wireless links (for example satellite, microwave, radio and infrared systems.

Figure 7-2

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Figure 7-3

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Guided Transmission Media

Waves are guided along solid medium.

Figure 7-4 and 7-5

Twisted-Pair Cable

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Twisted-Pair Cable
Pair of twisted conductors Twisting reduces interference (two parallel wires constitute a simple antenna; a twisted pair does not.) Cheap medium Commonly used for communications within buildings and in telephone networks Produced in unshielded (UTP) and shielded (STP) forms, and in different performance categories. Cables may hold hundreds of pairs. Neighbor pairs typically have different twist lengths to reduce crosstalk.

Figure 7-6

Effect of Noise on Parallel Lines

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Figure 7-7

Noise on Twisted-Pair Lines

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Figure 7-8

Unshielded Twisted-Pair Cable

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Figure 7-9

UTP Connectors

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Figure 7-10

Shielded Twisted-Pair Cable

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Shielded Twisted-Pair Cable

STP has a metal foil or braided-mesh covering that encases each pair of insulated conductors. The metal casing prevents the penetration of electromagnetic noise. Shielding each pair of a twisted- pair cable can eliminate most crosstalk. Shield must be connected to the ground. Connectors used in STP & UTP are RJ 45, RJ 11 etc. STP is more expensive than UTP but less susceptible to noise.

Categories of Twisted-Pair Cables

Category 1: The basic cabling used for voice. Category 2: Suitable for voice and data up to 4 Mbps. Category 3: Required to have at least three twists per foot and can be used for data transmission of up to 10 Mbps. It is now the standard cable for most telephone systems. Category 4: Must also have at least three twists per foot and can be used for data transmission of up to 16 Mbps. Category 5: Suitable for data up to 100 Mbps

Figure 7-11 and 7-12

Coaxial Cable

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Coaxial Cable
Coaxial cable: Coaxial cable consists of 2 conductors. The inner conductor is held inside the insulator with the other conductor waves around it providing a shield, An insulating protective coating called a jacket covers the outer conductor. The outer shield protects the inner conductor from outside electrical signals. The distance between the outer conductor (Shield) and inner conductor plus the type of material used for insulating the inner conductor determine the cable properties or impedance. The excellent control of the impedance characteristics of the cable allow higher data rates to be transferred than twisted pair cable. Baseband Coaxial Cable 50-ohm cable, commonly used for digital transmission. Broadband Coaxial Cable 75-ohm cable, commonly used for analog transmission

Coaxial Cable Standards

Different coaxial cable designs are categorized by their radio government(RG) ratings. RG-8 used in thick Ethernet. RG-9 used in thick Ethernet. RG-11 used in thick Ethernet. RG-58 used in thin Ethernet. RG-59 used for TV.

Coaxial Cable Connectors

To connect co-axial cable to devices, we need coaxial connectors. The most common type of connector used today is the Bayone-NeiIl-Concelman, or BNC, connectors.

Figure 7-13

Refraction

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Figure 7-14

Critical Angle

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Figure 7-15

Reflection

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Fiber Optics
Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of light through an optical fiber. The light forms an electromagnetic carrier wave that is modulated to carry information. First developed in the 1970s, fiber-optic communication systems have revolutionized the telecommunications industry and have played a major role in the advent of the Information age. Advantages 1. Immunity to Electromagnetic Interference 2. Data Security 3. Non conductive cables 4. Eliminating Spark Hazards 5. Ease of Installation 6. High Bandwidth over long distances

Figure 7-20

Fiber Construction

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Propagation Modes in Fiber optic cable

Light propagation Meaning - Light travels along a fiber cable by a process called 'Total Internal Reflection' (TIR), this is made possible by using two types of glass which have different refractive indexes. The inner core has a high refractive index and the outer cladding has a low index. Fiber-optic cable has two propagation modesmultimode and single mode. They perform differently with respect to both attenuation and time dispersion . The single-mode fiber-optic cable provides much better performance with lower attenuation.

Multimode Fiber
Multi-mode fiber is used for communication over short distances, such as within a building or on a campus or a LAN. Typical multimode links have data rates of 10 Mbit/s to 10 Gbit/s over link lengths of up to 600 meters (300 m for 10 Gbit/s) more than sufficient for the majority of premises applications.

Categories of Multimode fiber

- Step Index Fiber

- Graded Index Fiber

Multimode Step-Index
Multimode fiber is designed to carry multiple light rays or modes concurrently, each at a slightly different reflection angle within the optical fiber core. Multimode fiber transmission is used for relatively short distances because the modes tend to disperse over longer lengths ( this is called modal dispersion ). Multimode fiber has a larger core than single mode.

Graded -Index
Multimode graded index fiber has a higher refractive index in the core that gradually reduces as it extends from the cylindrical axis outward. The core and cladding are essentially a single graded unit (fig). This corresponds to multimode propagation with a refractive index profile that is called graded index. Here the variation of the index of refraction is gradual as it extends out from the axis of the core through the core to the cladding. There is no sharp discontinuity in the indices of refraction between core and cladding.

Single Mode Fiber

A single-mode optical fiber (SMF) is an optical fiber designed to carry only a single ray of light (mode). The diagram corresponds to single-mode propagation with a refractive index profile that is called step index. The diameter of the core is fairly small relative to the cladding. Because of this, when light enters the fiberOptic cable on the left, it propagates down toward the right in just a single ray, a single mode, which is the lowest-order mode.

Unguided Transmission Media

Unguided media transport electromagnetic waves without using a physical conductor. [type of communication is often referred to as wireless communication. There are three types of Unguided Media (i) Radio waves (ii) Micro waves (iii) Infrared.

Radio Propagation
Radio propagation is the behavior of radio waves when they are transmitted, or propagated from one point on the Earth to another, or into various parts of the atmosphere . As a form of electromagnetic radiation ( like light waves ) radio waves are affected by the phenomena of reflection, refraction, diffraction, absorption, polarization and scattering.

Unguided Media Bands and their ranges

Band VLF LF MF HF VHF UHF SHF EHF Range 330 KHz 30300 KHz 300 KHz3 MHz 330 MHz 30300 MHz 300 MHz3 GHz 330 GHz 30300 GHz Propagation Ground Ground Sky Sky Sky and line-of-sight Line-of-sight Line-of-sight Line-of-sight Application Long-range radio navigation Radio beacons and navigational locators AM radio Citizens band (CB), ship/aircraft communication VHF TV, FM radio UHF TV, cellular phones, paging, satellite Satellite communication Long-range radio navigation

Radio Waves
Radio (3kHz and 1GHz) waves are omnidirectional when an antenna transmits radio waves they are propagated in all directions. This means that sending and receiving antenna do not have to he aligned. A sending antenna can send waves that can be received by any receiving antenna. Radio waves particularly those waves that propagate in sky mode, can travel long distances. This makes radio waves a good candidate for long-distance broadcasting such as AM radio. Radio waves particularly those of low and medium frequencies can penetrate walls. It is an advantage because; an AM radio can receive signals inside a building. It is the disadvantage because we cannot isolate a communication to first inside or outside a building. The radio waves band is relatively narrow just under I GHz, compared to the microwave band.

Omni directional Antenna

Microwaves
Electromagnetic waves having frequencies between I and 300 GHz are called microwaves. Microwaves are unidirectional, when an antenna transmits microwaves they can be narrowly focused. This means that the sending and receiving antennas need to be aligned. On the other hand microwaves propagation is line-of-sight. Since the towers with the mounted antennas needs to be in direct sight of each other, towers that are for apart need to he very tall, the curvature of the earth as well as other blocking obstacles do not allow two short towers to communicate using microwaves, Repeaters are often needed for long distance communication very high frequency microwaves cannot penetrate waIls. Parabolic dish antenna and horn antenna are used for this means of transmission.

Unidirectional Antenna

Figure 7-7

Terrestrial microwave

Applications
Cellular phones Satellite networks Wireless LANs

Infrared

Infrared signals with frequencies ranges from 300 GHz to 400 THz can be used for short range communication. Infrared signals, having high frequencies, cannot penetrate walls. This helps to prevent interference between one system and another. A short range communication system in one room cannot be affected by the infrared waves in another room.

Applications
There are no. of computer devices which are used to send data through infrared medium e.g. keyboard mice, PCs and printers. There are some manufacturers provide a special port called the (Infrared Data Association) IrDA port that allows a wireless keyboard to communicate with a PC.

Satellite Communication
Satellite transmission is much like line-of-sight microwave transmission in which one of the stations is a satellite orbiting the earth. The relay station in this case is the satellite. The signal has to travel a very long distance in the space and hence it gets attenuated. Therefore the satellite receives the input signal at one frequency, amplifies it and transmits it on the other frequency. The receiver hence looks only for the frequency that is coming from the satellite and will not take the unamplified signal coming from the sender which is also readily available in the surroundings. The frequency at which the signal is sent to the satellite is called the uplink frequency and the frequency at which the signal is transmitted by the satellite is called the down link frequency.

Satellite Systems

Cover very large areas Different orbit heights

GEOs (39000 Km) versus LEOs (2000 Km)

Optimized for one-way transmission

Radio and movie (SatTV) broadcasting

Most two-way systems

Expensive alternative to terrestrial system

Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO)

These satellites are in orbit 35,863 km above the earths surface along the equator. Objects in Geostationary orbit revolve around the earth at the same speed as the earth rotates. This means GEO satellites remain in the same position relative to the surface of earth.

Advantages
A GEO satellites distance from earth gives it a large coverage area, almost a fourth of the earths surface. GEO satellites have a 24 hour view of a particular area. These factors make it ideal for satellite broadcast and other multipoint applications.

GEO (cont.)

Disadvantages
A GEO satellites distance also cause it to have both a comparatively weak signal and a time delay in the signal, which is bad for point to point communication. GEO satellites, centered above the equator, have difficulty broadcasting signals to near polar regions

Geosynchronous Satellite

Satellite communication

Types of Telecommunications Media

Satellite Transmission Communication s satellites are relay stations that receive signals from one earth station and rebroadcast them to another.

Satellite Communication, cont.

Two general configuration for satellite communication are:
Point-to-point Broadcast

Point-to-Point Link via Microwave

Latency of Satellite Systems

GEO satellite systems have a high latency. Consider a transmission between two remote nodes. The sending station transmits a message to the satellite (uplink). The satellite transmits this message to the destination node (the downlink). The destination node sends an acknowledgement (ACK) to the satellite. The satellite then transmits the ACK to the sender. The total distance involved is 88,000 miles. Dividing by the speed of light, we get a total propagation delay of 470 milliseconds.

Latency of Satellite Systems The longer the latency, the less bandwidth the system can support. The bandwidth capability of satellite systems is a function of the frequency at which the satellites transmit. Four common frequencies are:
C-band 6GHz uplink and 4 Ghz downlink Ka-band 28 Ghz uplink, 18 Ghz downlink Ku-band 14 Ghz uplink, 12 Ghz downlink V-band above 30 Ghz

Applications of Satellite
Television distribution. Long-distance telephone transmission Private commercial networks The development of VSAT systems (very small aperture terminals) provide a low-cost solution for small enterprises. The biggest advantage of satellites is that they can reach geographically remote areas.

Disadvantages
expensive large propagation delay (high latency) not very secure; signals can be easily intercepted affected by atmospheric conditions

Advantages of Satellite
The advantages of satellite communication over terrestrial communication are: The coverage area of a satellite greatly exceeds that of a terrestrial system. Transmission cost of a satellite is independent of the distance from the center of the coverage area. Satellite to Satellite communication is very precise. Higher Bandwidths are available for use. Covers very large areas.