ANJUMAN

Institute of Technology
and Management
Bhatkal, Karnataka, India

BASIC
ELECTRONICS
(BBEE103/BBEE203)

Mr. Shrishail Bhat

Assistant Professor
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Module 5
COMMUNICATIONS
 SYLLABUS
Communications
Introduction to Communication, Communication System, Modulation

3
 Text Book

Electronic
Communication
Systems
George Kennedy and
Bernard Davis
4th Edition
Tata McGraw-Hill
2005

4
Introduction

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 5

Introduction to Communication
• In a broad sense, the term communications refers to the sending,
receiving and processing of information by electronic means.
• Communications started with wire telegraphy in the 1840s,
developing with telephony some decades later and radio at the
beginning of 20th century.
• Radio communication was greatly improved by the work done
during World War II.
• It subsequently became even more widely used and refined
through the invention and use of the transistor, integrated circuits
and other semiconductor devices.
Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 6
Introduction to Communication
• The use of satellites and fiber optics has made communications
even more widespread, with an increasing emphasis on computer
and other data communications.
• A modern communications system is first concerned with the
sorting, processing and sometimes storing of information before its
transmission.
• The actual transmission then follows, with further processing and
the filtering of noise.
• Finally we have reception, which may include processing steps such
as decoding, storage and interpretation.
Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 7
Introduction to Communication
• In this context, forms of communications include
• Radio telephony and telegraphy
• Broadcasting
• Point-to-point and mobile communications (commercial or military)
• Computer communications
• Radar
• Radiotelemetry
• Radio aids to navigation

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 8

Communication Systems

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 9

Communication Systems
• A block diagram of a general communications system is
shown in the figure.

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 10

Information
• The main aim of a communication system is to convey a
message.
• This message originates from the information source.
• The source normally selects one message from a group of
messages.
• The set, or total number of messages, consists of individual
messages which may be distinguished from one another.
• These may be words, groups of words, code symbols or any
other prearranged units.
• The amount of information contained in any given message can
be measured in bits or in dits.
Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 11
Transmitter
• The transmitter processes the input message signal to make it
suitable for sending it over the channel.
• This operation is called modulation.
• It is a process that changes or modulates the characteristics of a
high frequency signal called the carrier in accordance with the
message signal.
• Modulation may be amplitude modulation, frequency
modulation, pulse modulation or any variation or combination
of these, depending on the requirements.

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 12

Transmitter
• Figure shows a high-level amplitude-modulated broadcast
transmitter.

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 13

Channel
• It is the physical medium or path that connects the transmitter
and receiver.
• This may be a pair of wires or free space.
• The term channel is often used to refer to the frequency range
allocated to a particular service or transmission such as a
television channel.

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 14

Noise
• Noise is an unwanted energy that gets added to the message
signal during transmission over the channel.
• It is random in nature and has its greatest effect when the
message signal is weakest.

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 15

Receiver
• The receiver processes the signal and makes an estimate of the
actual message that is transmitted.
• It performs a process called demodulation, which is the reverse
of modulation and extracts the information superimposed on
the carrier wave.
• The receiver, in addition to demodulation, also performs
amplification and filtering.

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 16

Receiver
• Figure shows the block diagram of a simple AM broadcast
receiver (superheterodyne receiver).

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 17

Modulation

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 18

Modulation
• Modulation is a process by which some characteristic or
property of a high frequency signal called the carrier is varied
in accordance with the instantaneous amplitude of the
message signal.
• The instantaneous value of the carrier is given by
𝑣𝑣𝑐𝑐 = 𝑉𝑉𝑐𝑐 sin 𝜔𝜔𝑐𝑐 𝑡𝑡 + 𝜃𝜃
where 𝑉𝑉𝑐𝑐 is the peak or maximum amplitude of the carrier
𝜔𝜔𝑐𝑐 is the angular frequency of the carrier
𝜃𝜃 is the phase angle of the carrier

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 19

Modulation
• The characteristic of the carrier wave that is modified may be
amplitude, frequency or phase angle.
• Accordingly, we have three types of modulation:
• Amplitude modulation
• Frequency modulation
• Phase modulation

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 20

Amplitude
Modulation
(AM)

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 21

Frequency
Modulation
(FM)

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 22

Phase
Modulation
(PM)

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 23

Need for Modulation
1. It reduces the height of antenna
• For the transmission of radio signals, the antenna height must be
multiple of 𝜆𝜆/4 ,where 𝜆𝜆 is the wavelength.
𝜆𝜆 = 𝑐𝑐/𝑓𝑓
• The minimum antenna height required to transmit a baseband
signal of f = 10 kHz is calculated as
𝜆𝜆 𝑐𝑐 3 × 108
𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎 ℎ𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒 = = = 3
= 7500 𝑚𝑚
4 4𝑓𝑓 4 × 10 × 10
• The antenna of this height (7.5 km) is practically impossible to
install.

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 24

Need for Modulation
• Now, let us consider a modulated signal at f = 1 MHz . The
minimum antenna height is given by,
𝜆𝜆 𝑐𝑐 3 × 108
𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀𝑀 𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎 ℎ𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒 = = = 6
= 75 𝑚𝑚
4 4𝑓𝑓 4 × 1 × 10
• This antenna can be easily installed practically.
• Thus, modulation reduces the height of the antenna.

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 25

Need for Modulation
2. Avoids mixing of signals
• If the baseband sound signals are transmitted without using the
modulation by more than one transmitter, then all the signals will
be in the same frequency range i.e. 0 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡 20 𝑘𝑘𝑘𝑘𝑘𝑘.
• Therefore, all the signals get mixed together and a receiver can
not separate them from each other.
• Hence, if each baseband sound signal is used to modulate a
different carrier then they will occupy different slots in the
frequency domain (different channels).
• Thus, modulation avoids mixing of signals.
Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 26
Need for Modulation
3. Increases the range of communication
• The frequency of baseband signal is low, and the low frequency
signals can not travel long distance when they are transmitted.
• They get heavily attenuated.
• The attenuation reduces with increase in frequency of the
transmitted signal, and they travel longer distance.
• The modulation process increases the frequency of the signal to
be transmitted.
• Therefore, it increases the range of communication.

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 27

Need for Modulation
4. Allows multiplexing of signals
• Multiplexing is a process in which two or more signals can be
transmitted over the same communication channel
simultaneously.
• This is possible only with modulation.
• Multiplexing allows the same channel to be used by many signals.
• E.g. Many TV channels can use the same frequency range,
without getting mixed with each other or different frequency
signals can be transmitted at the same time.

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 28

Need for Modulation
5. Improves quality of reception
• With frequency modulation (FM) and the digital communication
techniques such as Pulse Code Modulation (PCM), the effect of
noise is reduced to a great extent.
• This improves quality of reception

Shrishail Bhat, Dept. of ECE, AITM Bhatkal 29