COMMS1.

PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNICATIONS (LEC)

QUIZ #4 Receiver and Transmitter Theory
SCORE
Name: Student No.:

Faculty Name: Date of Examination:

Section: Schedule (Time/Day) :

Pledge of Honor

I, , a student of the FEU Institute of Technology, pledge to exercise integrity

and honesty as I take this examination. I consider it dishonest to ask for, give, or receive help in this
examination.

I pledge to do all that is in my power to live a life of dignity and credibility and to create that spirit in my
environment.

Students Signature Date

I. Provide what is asked in the question. (Write in engineering lettering)

1. Draw the block diagram of a Low-level and high level transmitter then briefly explain, in
your own words, the difference between the two.
2. Draw an AM modulator circuit and briefly enumerate the operation of the circuit. Provide
waveforms to support your answer
3. Provide a circuit that produces a double sideband suppress carrier then explain in your own
words the operation of the circuit. Provide waveforms of nodes to support your answer.
4. Explain how to produce a SSBSC. Provide the block diagram.
5. Briefly explain the advantage of using a Superheterodyne receiver over a tuned-radio
frequency receiver
6. Explain how to eliminate, if not lessen, the effect of the image frequency in a
Superheterodyne receiver. Explain briefly the operation.

II. Problem Solving

1. A certain superheterodyne receiver is designed to have a fixed Intermediate Frequency of
500 kHz.
 a. Determine the required frequency of the local oscillator to detect an incoming signal of
9 MHz.
b. Calculate and draw the image frequencies with the center frequency
c. Determine the minimum quality factor required of the bandpass filter so that the image
frequency is exactly on the 3dB attenuation point.

We all may meet our maker today, but the thing I do not want on my tombstone:
She went down without a fight. Ruth McMillan, Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

ANSWERS:

1.
Low Level Transmitter

High Level Transmitter

 Low-level and high-level transmitters, as seen on the diagrams above, have high similarity in
terms of composition. However, the main difference between the two is where the modulation
takes place. For low level transmitters, modulation takes place before modulation, right after
the buffer and before linear amplification. For the high-level transmitters, modulation takes
place before modulation and amplification is done right after the buffer and the RF Carrier
Local Oscillator is also amplified using the RF amplifier. Right after receiving amplifications
on both ends, the carrier signal receives power gain for the RF carrier signal, before
undergoing modulation to be superimposed or mixed with the baseband signal. Low-level
transmitters can produce any kind of modulation namely AM, FM or PM, but requires linear
RF power amplifiers which is costly in production and sacrifices efficiency. High level
transmitters have better efficiency but are restricted to producing AM modulation only.

2. AM Modulator Circuit
Vc =

Vm =

At Diode:
 After the tuned circuit filters modulating signal and carrier harmonics, the carrier and
sidebands are the ones remain

3. Provide a circuit that produces a double sideband suppress carrier then explain in your own
words the operation of the circuit. Provide waveforms of nodes to support your answer.
4. Explain how to produce a SSBSC. Provide the block diagram.
5. Briefly explain the advantage of using a Superheterodyne receiver over a tuned-radio
frequency receiver

) The advantages of the super heterodyne receiver are many. An obvious advantage is that by
reducing to lower frequency, lower frequency components can be used, and in general, cost is
proportional to frequency. RF gain at 40 GHz is expensive, IF gain at 1 GHz is cheap as dirt.

2) The second advantage is in the superior sensitivity that we almost take for granted. Filtering
out unwanted signals at IF is a much easier job than filtering them out at RF, because the
desired bandwidth is much higher after the signal is mixed down.

3)Further advantage in that many components can be designed for a fixed frequency (and even
shared between different receiver designs), which is easier and cheaper than designing
wideband components.

Disadvantage of tuned radio frequency receiver:

Bandwidth inconsistency & Instability

6. Explain how to eliminate, if not lessen, the effect of the image frequency in a Superheterodyne
receiver. Explain briefly the operation.

Practical receivers have a tuning stage before the converter, to greatly reduce the amplitude of image
frequency signals; additionally, broadcasting stations in the same area have their frequencies
assigned to avoid such images.
The unwanted frequency is called the image of the wanted frequency, because it is the "mirror image"

of the desired frequency reflected . A receiver with inadequate filtering at its input will pick up
signals at two different frequencies simultaneously: the desired frequency and the image frequency.
Any noise or random radio station at the image frequency can interfere with reception of the desired
signal.
Sensitivity to the image frequency can be minimised only by (1) a filter that precedes the mixer or
(2) a more complex mixer circuit [17] that suppresses the image. In most receivers this is
accomplished by a bandpass filter in the RF front end. In many tunable receivers, the bandpass
filter is tuned in tandem with the local oscillator.

II. Problem Solving

1. A certain superheterodyne receiver is designed to have a fixed Intermediate Frequency of
500 kHz.
a. Determine the required frequency of the local oscillator to detect an incoming signal of
9 MHz.
f1 = foscillator + fIF
f2 = foscillator fIF
b. Calculate and draw the image frequencies with the center frequency
fi=fs+2if
fs = signal frequency
if = intermediate frequency
1000kHz + 9Mhz = 10MHz
c. Determine the minimum quality factor required of the bandpass filter so that the image
frequency is exactly on the 3dB attenuation point.