Chapter 4- Transmission

impairments

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Introduction
•Signals travel through transmission media, which are not perfect.
• The imperfection causes signal impairment.
•This means that the signal at the beginning of the medium is not the
same as the signal at the end of the medium.
• What is sent is not what is received.
•For analog signal, these impairments cause various modifications
that degrade the signal quality.
•For digital system, a binary 1 may be changed into a binary 0 and
vice versa due to bit error.
•Three causes of impairment are attenuation, distortion, and noise.

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Attenuation
• Attenuation means loss of energy.
• When a signal, simple or complex, travels through a medium,
it loses some of its energy so that it can overcome the
resistance of the medium. That is why a wire carrying
electrical signal gets warm. Some of the electrical energy in
the signal is converted to heat.
• To compensate for this loss, amplifiers are used to amplify the
signal.

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Decibel
Attenuation and amplification are measured in decibel (dB),
which is expressed as a constant number
To show that a signal has lost or gained strength, engineers use the
concept of the decibel. The decibel (dB) measures relative strengths
of two signals or a signal at two different points.
The decibel is negative if a signal is attenuated and positive if a
signal is amplified.
 P2 
dB = 10 log10  
 P 

Where P1 and P2 are the powers of a signal points 1 and 2, respectively.

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Decibel Cont.
•Amplifiers or repeaters are inserted at intervals along the medium to
improve the received signal.

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Example

Suppose a signal travels through a transmission medium and its power is

reduced to one-half.

This means that P2 is (1/2)P1.

In this case, the attenuation (loss of power) can be calculated as

A loss of 3 dB (–3 dB) is equivalent to losing one-half the power.

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Example

A signal travels through an amplifier, and its power is increased 10

times. This means that P2 = 10P1. What is the amplification (gain of
power)?

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Example
One reason that engineers use the decibel to measure the changes in the
strength of a signal is that decibel numbers can be added (or subtracted)
when we are measuring several points (cascading) instead of just two.
A signal travels from point 1 to point 4.

In this case, the decibel value can be calculated as

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Example

Solution
We can calculate the power in the signal as

dBm

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Distortion
Distortion means changes in the form or shape of the signal.

•This is generally seen in composite signals made up with

different frequencies.

•Each signal component has its own propagation(?) speed

through a medium and, therefore, its own delay in arriving at the
final destination.

•Every components arrive at different time and they have

different phases at receiver from what they had at sender which
leads to distortion.

•The shape of the composite signal is therefore not the same.

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Distortion
•Figure below shows the effect of distortion on a composite signal.

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Noise
Noise is another
Noise is another cause
cause of impairment. Severaloftypesimpairment. Several
of noise, such as thermal noise, inducedtypes of noise,
noise, crosstalk, and impulsesuch as
noise, may
corrupt the signal.
thermal
•Thermal noise isnoise, induced
the random motion of electrons noise,
in a wire whichcrosstalk, and
creates an extra signal impulse
not originally sent by the noise,
transmitter. may
•Induced noise comes from sources such as motors and appliances. These devices act as a sending antenna, and the transmission medium
corrupt the signal.
acts as the receiving antenna.
•Crosstalk is the effect of one wire on the other. One wire acts as a sending antenna and the other as the receiving antenna.
•Impulse noise is a spike (a signal with high energy in a very short time) that comes from power lines, lightning, and so on. Figure below
shows the effect of noise on a signal.

Thermal noise is the random motion of electrons in a wire which

creates an extra signal not originally sent by the transmitter.

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Noise
Crosstalk: Data signals may also be subjected to something
Noise is another cause of impairment. Several types of noise, such as thermal noise, induced noise, crosstalk, and impulse noise, may
commonly referred to as crosstalk, which occurs when signals from
corrupt the signal.
•Thermal noise is the random motion of electrons in a wire which creates an extra signal not originally sent by the transmitter.
two cables in close proximity to one another interfere with each
•Induced noise comes from sources such as motors and appliances. These devices act as a sending antenna, and the transmission medium
acts as the receiving antenna.
•Crosstalk is the effect of one wire on the other. One wire acts as a sending antenna and the other as the receiving antenna.
other. A signal from one line is picked up by another and vice-versa.
•Impulse noise is a spike (a signal with high energy in a very short time) that comes from power lines, lightning, and so on. Figure below
shows the effect of noise on a signal.
As a result, the signals on both cables may become corrupted.

Induced noise comes from sources such as motors and appliances.

These devices act as a sending antenna, and the transmission
medium carrying the signal acts as the receiving antenna.
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Impulse Noise
Impulse noise is a signal with high energy that comes from
lightning or power lines. Impulse noise is a category of noise that
includes unwanted, almost instantaneous sharp signal.

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Impulse Noise

15
Noise
Crosstalk: Data signals may also be subjected to something
Noise is another cause of impairment. Several types of noise, such as thermal noise, induced noise, crosstalk, and impulse noise, may
corrupt the signal.
•Thermal noise is the random motion of electrons in a wire which creates an extra signal not originally sent by the transmitter.
commonly referred to as crosstalk, which occurs when signals from
•Induced noise comes from sources such as motors and appliances. These devices act as a sending antenna, and the transmission medium
acts as the receiving antenna.
two cables in close proximity to one another interfere with each
•Crosstalk is the effect of one wire on the other. One wire acts as a sending antenna and the other as the receiving antenna.
•Impulse noise is a spike (a signal with high energy in a very short time) that comes from power lines, lightning, and so on. Figure below
other. A signal from one line is picked up by another and vice-versa.
shows the effect of noise on a signal.

As a result, the signals on both cables may become corrupted.

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Noise

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Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)

In analog and digital communications, a signal-to-noise ratio, often

written S/N or SNR, is a measure of the strength of the desired
signal relative to background noise (undesired signal). S/N can be
determined by using a fixed formula that compares the signal and
noise and returns the ratio, which shows whether the noise level is
impacting the desired signal.

The ratio is typically expressed as a single numeric value in

decibels (dB). The ratio can be zero, a positive number or a
negative number. A signal-to-noise ratio over 0 dB indicates that
the signal level is greater than the noise level.

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Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)

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Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)

Example
The power of a signal is 10 mW and the power of the noise is 1 μW; what
are the values of SNR and SNRdB?
Solution

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Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)
The values of SNR and SNRdB for a noiseless channel are

We can never achieve this ratio in real life; it is an idea.

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