ANALOG COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

CHAPTER-1

1.1 Introduction:

“Attention, the universe! By kingdoms, right wheel! ”, this prophetic phrase is the first
telegraphic message on record. Samuel F.B. Morse sent it over a 16km line in 1838. Thus
was born a new era, the era of electrical communication. Over the next century and half,
communication engineering has advanced to the point that earthbound viewers can watch
astronauts working on space.
A communication system is the one used to transfer the information from one place
(Source) to another place (Destination). Since there are so many systems existing and its
hard to cover each and every one of them so we approach the subject from a more general
viewpoint. Recognizing that all the communication systems have the basic function of
information transfer, we’ll seek out and isolate the principles and problems of conveying
information in electrical form.
The term communication refers to sending and receiving and processing the information
by electrical means. Radio communication was made possible by the invention of triode
tube, and was stimulated by the work done during world war-II (sometimes war plays and
important role in technological development, e.g.-ARPANET) .A modern communication
system is concerned with sorting processing and storing of information.

1.2 Block Diagram of Communication System

Information TX Channel RX Destination

source .

Noise

TX- Transmitter
RX- Receiver
Fig: Block Diagram of Communication system

The information source is the one that generates the information to be transmitted. As we
are dealing with electrical communication systems, the information should be in electrical
form so the first task is to convert any information into electrical forms using transducers.
Example: the microphone in the mouthpiece of a telephone set converts the audio signals
into electrical signals.

Unless the message that comes from the information source is electrical in nature, it is
unsuitable for immediate transmission. Even then, a lot of work must be done to make
such message suitable for transmission . Example: restriction of audio frequency i.e.
filtering of the signal, compression of amplitude range. Eventually in the transmitter, the

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information modulates the high frequency carrier i.e. the information is impressed on
high frequency carrier wave and this is transmitted from the transmitter via the antenna in
radio communication and via wires in base band communication systems.

The acoustic channel (shouting) is not used in long distance communication neither was
the visual channel until the advent of laser. Later came the channels like radio, wire, fiber
optic etc. The medium through which the transmitter transmits the information towards
the destination is known as channel. The channel might be a wired media (cables), wave-
guides, or free space (radio communication). It is inevitable that the signal will be
deteriorated during the process of transmission and reception. This deterioration of the
signal is caused by the presence of Noise, Interference and Distortion. As the
deterioration of the signal cause by interference and distortion can be reduced with the
help of filters and equalizers the channel noise is of greatest concern for any
communication system designers.
Noise is unwanted energy, usually of random nature and is present in transmission
systems due to any cause. It obviously places a limitation on transmission systems. When
the noise is severe it may mask a given signal so much that the signal becomes
unintelligible and therefore useless. Noise may interfere at any point in the system but it
will have its greatest effect when the signal is weakest, this means that noise at the
channel or at the input point of the receiver is most noticeable so the channel noise is of
greatest concern to any communication system designer.

There are great varieties of receivers available in the market. The type of receiver is
chosen according to the requirements, modulation and demodulation technique used and
the frequency range. The most common is the superheterodyne/supersonic heterodyne
(means mixing of frequencies higher than the audio frequency.). The task of
demodulation and decoding is done at the receiver. The output of the receiver is fed to the
loudspeakers to produce audio signals in the case of voice communication.

1.3 Why Analog Communication Systems?

We can say that today’s world is a digital world. The digital communication systems
have advantages like increased immunity to channel noise and external interference
(main and the important point in any communication system), common format for
transmission of data and voice signals, improved security using encryption techniques
etc. However all the above-mentioned advantages are achieved at the cost of increased
channel bandwidth and increased system complexity. As most of the present broadcasting
systems and a large part of the telephony in use today are based on analog
communication system’s principle and moreover they will remain on service in future
also.

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1.4 Noise, Interference And Distortion
The transmitted signal becomes weak due to attenuation present in long distance
communication. This attenuation is undesirable as it reduces signal strength at the
receiver and the contamination of signal occurs. Although such contamination may occur
at any point on the receiver but as the signals strength is least at the input point of the
receiver and the contamination is maximum so the standard convention is to blame the
channel entirely treating the transmitter and receiver as being ideal.
Distortion is waveform perturbation caused by imperfect response of the system to the
desired signal itself. Unlike Noise and interference, distortion disappears when the signal
is turned off. If the channel has linear but distorting response, then distortion may be
corrected or at least reduced with the help of special filters called equalizers.(Sub-signals
and systems- Distortionless transmission line-linear and non linear distortion-Phase and
Amplitude distortion.)
Interference is contamination by extraneous signals from human sources, other
transmitters, power lines, machineries, switching circuits etc. Interference occurs most
often in radio communication system whose receiving antenna usually intercepts several
signals at the same time. Radio frequency interference (RFI) also appears in cable system
if the transmission wires or receiver circuitries pick up signals radiated from nearby
sources. The interference can be removed or reduced by filtering.
(To understand Noise please refer to article no 1.6)

1.5 Communication system types:

1. Simplex- one-way communication system. For e.g. radio broadcasting
systems.
2. Half Duplex- Two way but one at a time. For e.g.- Walky-talky, Telegraph.
3. Duplex- simultaneous two way communication. For e.g. Telephony.

1.6 Fundamental Limitations of Communication systems

Engineers have to face two general kinds of constraints while designing a communication
system. On the one hand he/she has to deal with the technological problems including
such diverse considerations like hardware availability, economic factors. Federal
regulations etc. These are the problems of feasibility which can be solved with the help of
theoretical results even though the result may not be perfect.. On the other hand are the
two fundamental limitations and are noise and bandwidth.
As noise is unavoidable, The answer for its inevitability comes from kinetic theory.
Before going into kinetic theory of thermodynamics, let us classify Noise. As noise is
unwanted energy of random nature and is present anywhere in the system we classify
noise as:
External noise- the various kind of noise present outside the receiver is known as external
noise. For e.g. atmospheric noise, extraterrestrial noise (solar noise, cosmic noise),
industrial noise,

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Internal noise: - internal noise is the noise produced by various active and passive
devices present in the system .For e.g. Thermal noise, Shot noise, Transit time noise etc.
Now let us see how the kinetic theory throws light on the point why noise is inevitable.
The kinetic theory shows that the temperature of a particle is a way of expressing its
internal kinetic energy. At any temperature above absolute zero, thermal energy causes
microscopic particle to exhibit random motion. Let us take the case of a resistor at a
temperature of 17degree centigrade not connected to a voltage source., we may think that
there is no voltage to measure across it. This is true if the measuring instrument is a dc
voltmeter, but is false if a very sensitive electronic voltmeter is connected across it. This
voltage is the result of random motion of electrons. Thus a resistor acts as a Noise source.
Now the point to be remembered here is that we cannot make thermal noise zero, as
absolute zero is not realizable till date.
Now let us come to the point how bandwidth places a limitation for the communication
system designer. If the bandwidth of the channel is insufficient to hold the spectrum of
the signal then this results in distortion. Suppose the signal to be transmitted has a
bandwidth of 10 KHz but if the channel has a bandwidth of 5 KHz only then the channel
will pass the signal’s frequency component up to 5KHz and after this it will start
attenuating the signal thus resulting in unintelligible signal at the receiver output.
Taking both of these limitations into consideration Hartley-Shannon in 1948 stated that
the rate of information transfer could not exceed the channel capacity.
C= B log2 (1+S/N)
Where, C= channel capacity
B= Bandwidth
S/N= Signal to Noise ratio.
The channel capacity of a channel is defined as a maximum rate of information transfer
without error through the channel.

1.7 Need Of Modulation:

The baseband signal is not suitable for transmission. So these signals are further
modified to facilitate transmission. This conversion process is called modulation where
the baseband signal is used to modify some parameters (Amplitude, frequency, phase) of
a high frequency carrier wave resulting in AM, FM, PM.

(i) Modulation for efficient transmission and reception.

For line of sight propagation the antenna used has a physical dimension of at least 1/10th
of signal’s wavelength. So unmodulated signal results in nonviable size of receiver and
transmitter antenna. For e.g. let us consider a not modulated signal of 3KHz. and let us
calculate the antenna dimension for this case. Now again let us consider the signal to be
modulated and the frequency is 3MHz. now on comparing the result we will find that the
antenna size for the first case is impractical while as the antenna dimension for the later
seems feasible.
Antenna size= 1/10th of wavelength (λ)

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 (ii) Modulation to overcome hardware limitations:

(iii) Modulation to reduce noise:

A brute force method for combating noise and interference is to increase the signal
power until it overwhelms the contaminations. But increasing the signal power is costly
and may damage the equipment.(The transatlantic cable was damaged by high signal
power). Fortunately the modulation techniques like FM and other digital carrier systems
have the valuable property of noise reduction.

(iv) Modulation for frequency assignment:

When we tune a radio or a television to a particular station we are selecting one of the
many signals present at that time. This is possible because each station uses different
frequencies and the filtering process can select the desired frequency. This frequency
assignment was possible with the help of modulation. Modulation helps to place the
signal to be transmitted at different frequencies by using different carrier frequencies by
different station. If modulation was not there then only one station can transmit or
broadcast at one particular area.

(v) Modulation for multiplexing:

Multiplexing is the process of combining several signals for simultaneous transmission

through a single channel. Frequency division multiplexing uses continuous (AM, FM,
PM) to put each signal in different frequency slot and a bank of filters separates the signal
at the receiving end. Similarly time division multiplexing uses pulse modulation to put
different signals in non-overlapping time slots.

☻End of Chapter: 1☻