Radio Waves

Radio waves carry music, conversations, pictures, and data invisibly through the air over millions of miles. Radios can transmit and/or receive radio waves.

Frequency of AM & FM


When you listen to AM broadcast, radio is tuning into sine waves oscillating at a frequency around 1,000,000 cycles per second. FM signals operate in range of 10,000,000 Hz. So, 90.9 on FM dial corresponds to 90,900,000 Hz = 90.9 MHz

Radio Basics


Any radio setup has two parts: Transmitter and Receiver Transmitter takes some form of message (someones voice, pictures for TV set, etc.) encodes it into a sine wave and transmits it with radio waves. Combination of encoded message on a radio wave is commonly referred to as a signal. Receiver receives radio waves and decodes messages from the sine waves. Both transmitter and receiver use antennas to radiate and capture radio waves.

Transmitter Description
Radio Transmitter Radio Waves

Combine

Antenna

Information (voice message)

Sine Wave

Transmitter generates its own sine wave using oscillators.

Receiver Description
Radio Transmitter

Antenna

Separate Information (voice message)

Sine Wave

Modulation


If you have a sine wave and a transmitter that is transmitting the sine wave into space using an antenna (more antennas later), you have a radio station. Sine wave has to be modulated in some way so that it contains information, e.g., voice message.

Basic Modulation Methods



Pulse Modulation (PM): turn sine wave on and off, and an easy way to send Morse code. Amplitude Modulation (AM): Amplitude (peak-topeak voltage) of sine wave is changed so as to contain information. AM radio stations and picture part of TV signals use amplitude modulation to encode information signal.

Example of AM
carrier = sine wave with a given frequency

Basic Modulation Methods:



Frequency Modulation (FM): Radio transmitter changes frequency of sine wave according to information signal. Frequency modulation is most popular. Used by FM radio stations, sound part of TV signal, cellular phones, cordless phones, etc.

Frequency of Signal after Modulation



Radio wave transmitted after modulating sine wave with information signal is not just a sine wave with frequency f. For example, in FM, the frequency varies around this frequency f. For example, it may increase up to f+(f and be as small as f-(f. After modulating information signal, the radio wave has some range of frequency, called the frequency band, e.g., 2(f. The bandwidth, width of frequency band, depends on the information signal (voice, data bit rate, etc.)

Summary of Modulation


By modulating a sine wave at a transmitter, information can be encoded into the radio wave. The resulting radio wave occupies a band of frequency, centered on the frequency of the sine wave. Receiver needs to demodulate the radio wave to extract the information signal.

How do we receive AM signals?



Unless you sit right next to the transmitter, you need an antenna to pick out the radio waves from the air. An AM antenna is just a wire or a metal stick that increases the amount of metal the transmitters waves interact with. Radio receiver also needs a tuner. Antenna will receive thousands of sine waves; tuner separates out the radio wave that the listener desires, e.g., the radio wave transmitted at 880 KHz.

AM Reception


Tuners operate using a principle called resonance. That is, tuners resonate at and amplify one particular frequency and ignore all other frequencies in the air. This is done using a demodulator

AM Reception


One type of a AM detector is something called an envelope detector. Simply, it determines the magnitude (amplitude) of the sine wave. An amplify magnifies this amplitude signal and then the receiver sends the output to the car radio speakers.

Frequency Modulation


 

In this the instantaneous frequency of the carrier is caused to vary by an amount proportional to the amplitude of the modulating signal. The amplitude is kept constant. More complex than AM this is because it involves minute changes in frequency FM is more immune to effects of noise FM and PM are similar

What about FM?



Difference: FM detector outputs changes in the sine wave frequency as opposed to amplitude. Specifically, FM detector converts changes in sine wave frequency into sound. Antenna, tuner, amplifier are largely the same in FM as in AM.

The theoretical bandwidth required for FM transmission is infinite

Common b/w AM & FM:



In both systems a carrier wave is modulated by an audio signal to produce a carrier and sidebands. The technique can be applied to various communication systems eg telephony and telegraphy Special techniques applied to AM can also be applied to FM Both systems use receivers based on the superheterodyne principle.

Transmitters


In an AM transmitter, provision must be made for varying the carrier amplitude whilst for FM the carrier frequency is varied. AM and FM modulators are therefore essentially different in design. FM can be produced by direct frequency modulation or by indirectly phase modulation. The FM carrier must be high usually in the VHF band as it requires large bandwidth which is not available in the lower bands.

Receivers


The FM and AM receivers are basically the same, however the FM receiver uses a limiter and a discriminator to remove AM variations and to convert frequency changes to amplitude variations respectively. As a result they (FM) have higher gain than AM. FM receivers give high fidelity reproduction due to their large audio bandwidth up to 15 kHz compared with about 8 kHz for AM receivers.

Radio Frequencies


A radio wave is an electromagnetic wave propagated by an antenna. Radio waves have different frequencies and by tuning a radio receiver to a specific frequency, you can pick up a specific signal.

Radio Frequencies
Frequency 10 kHz to 30 kHz 30 kHz to 300 kHz 300 kHz to 3 MHz 3 MHz to 30 MHz 30 MHz to 328.6 MHz 328.6 MHz to 2.9 GHz 2.9 GHz to 30 GHz 30 GHz and above Band Very Low Frequency (VLF) Low Frequency (LF) Medium Frequency (MF) High Frequency (HF) Very High Frequency (VHF) Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Super High Frequency (SHF) Extremely High Frequency (EHF)

Frequency Bands:


AM radio stations must use frequencies in 535 KHz to 1.7 MHz band. FM radio stations transmit in band of frequencies from 88 MHz to 108 MHz

Why is AM radio at a lower band than FM radio?

     

AM was invented before FM. Transmitting at higher frequencies means that electronic equipment has to be faster. Fast enough to oscillate and detect highly-changing signals. When AM radio invented electronic capabilities were fairly limited (compared to nowadays). Hence lower frequencies were allocated. Later when FM radio was developed, it was assigned unused frequencies at a higher band.

Radio Propagation: Radio Channel



There is another very important player in the wireless game: the physical environment over which radio waves travel. Radio waves can take many different paths to get from transmitter to receiver.

Transmitter

Receiver

Radio Channel


Essentially, the radio waves interact with the physical environment along each of these paths. There are typically (unless you are in free-space) many paths from the transmitter to the receiver. Each path is called a multipath.