CHAPTER 3

PRACTICE SET

Questions
Q3-1. The period of a signal is the inverse of its frequency and vice versa: T = 1/f
and f = 1/T.

Q3-2.

a. The amplitude of a signal measures the value of the signal at any point.
b. The frequency of a signal measures how may times the signal repeats itself
in a second.
c. The phase of a signal represents the position of the signal with respect to
time 0.

Q3-3. Fourier series gives the frequency domain of a periodic signal; Fourier analy-
sis gives the frequency domain of a nonperiodic signal.

Q3-4. Attenuation and noise are two out of three causes of transmission impairment;
distortion is the third one.

Q3-5. Baseband transmission means sending a digital or an analog signal without

modulation using a low-pass channel. Broadband transmission means to mod-
ulate signal using a band-pass channel.

Q3-6. A low-pass channel has a bandwidth that starts from zero. A band-pass chan-
nel has bandwidth that can start from any frequency.

Q3-7. The Nyquist theorem defines the maximum bit rate of a noiseless channel.

Q3-8. The Shannon capacity defines the theoretical highest data rate for a noisy
channel.

Q3-9. A fiber-optic cable uses light (very high frequency). Since f is very high, the
wavelength, which is λ = c / f, is very low.

1
2

Q3-10. A signal is periodic if its frequency domain plot is discrete; a signal is nonpe-
riodic if its frequency domain plot is continuous.

Q3-11. The frequency domain of a voice signal is normally continuous because voice
is a nonperiodic signal.

Q3-12. An alarm system is normally periodic. Its frequency domain plot is therefore
discrete.

Q3-13. This is baseband transmission because no modulation is involved.

Q3-14. This is baseband transmission because no modulation is involved.

Q3-15. This is broadband transmission because it involves modulation.

Problems
P3-1.

a. T=1/f = 1 / (24 Hz) = 0.0417 s = 41.7 ms

b. T=1/f = 1 / (8 MHz) = 0.000000125 s = 0.125 ms
c. T=1/f = 1 / (140 kHz) = 7.14 × 10–6 s = 7.14 ms

P3-2.

a. f =1/T = 1 / (5 s) = 0.2 Hz
b. f =1/T = 1 / (12 μs) = 83.333 KHz
c. f =1/T = 1 / (220 ns) = 4.55 MHz

P3-3.

a. 90 degrees (π/2 radians)

b. 0 degrees (0 radians)
c. 90 degrees (π/2 radians) (Note that it is the same wave as in part a.)

P3-4. See below:

Frequency
0 20 50 100 200

Bandwidth = 200  0 = 200 Hz

 3

P3-5. We know the bandwidth is 2000. The highest frequency must be 100 + 2000 =
2100 Hz. See below:

20

5
Frequency
100 2100
Bandwidth = 2100  100 = 2000

P3-6. Each signal is a simple signal in this case. The bandwidth of a simple signal is
zero. So the bandwidth is the same for both signals.

P3-7.

a. bit rate = 1/ (bit duration) = 1 / (0.001 s) = 1000 bps = 1 Kbps

b. bit rate = 1/ (bit duration) = 1 / (2 ms) = 500 bps
c. bit rate = 1/ (bit duration) = 1 / (20 μs/10) = 1 / (2 μs) = 500 Kbps

P3-8.

a. (10 / 1000) s = 0.01 s

b. (8 / 1000) s = 0. 008 s = 8 ms
c. ((100,000 × 8) / 1000) s = 800 s

P3-9. There are 8 bits in 16 ns. Bit rate is 8 / (16 × 10−9) = 0.5 × 109 = 500 Mbps

P3-10. The signal makes 8 cycles in 4 ms. The frequency is 8 /(4 ms) = 2 kHz

P3-11. The bandwidth is 5 × 5 = 25 Hz.

P3-12. The signal is periodic, so the frequency domain is made of discrete frequen-
cies with the bandwidth of 30 − 10 = 20 kHz. See below:

Amplitude

10 volts
...
Frequency
10 30
KHz KHz
4

P3-13. The signal is nonperiodic, so the frequency domain is made of a continuous

spectrum of frequencies as shown below:

Amplitude
30 volts

10 volts 10 volts
Frequency
10 KHz 20 KHz 30 KHz

P3-14.

a. Using the first harmonic, data rate = 2 × 6 MHz = 12 Mbps

b. Using three harmonics, data rate = (2 × 6 MHz) /3 = 4 Mbps
c. Using five harmonics, data rate = (2 × 6 MHz) /5 = 2.4 Mbps

P3-15. We can calculate the attenuation as shown below:

dB = 10 log10 (90 / 100) = –0.46 dB

P3-16. We have dB = log10 (P2/P1).

– 10 = 10 log10 (P2 / 5) → log10 (P2 / 5) = −1 → (P2 / 5) = 10−1 → P2 = 0.5 W

P3-17. The total gain is 3 × 4 = 12 dB. To find how much the signal is amplified, we
can use the following formula:

12 = 10 log (P2 /P1) → log (P2 /P1) = 1.2 → P2 /P1 = 101.2 = 15.85

The signal is amplified almost 16 times.

P3-18. The bandwidth of the channel in bits is Wb and the size of the frame is N bits;
it takes t = Wb / N seconds to send out the frame. In this case we have

t = 100,000 bits / 5 Kbps = 20 s

P3-19. 480 s × 300,000 km/s = 144,000,000 km

P3-20. Each cycle moves the front of the signal λ meter ahead (definition of the
wavelength). In this case, we have

1 μm × 1000 = 1000 μm = 1 mm

P3-21. We use the Shannon capacity C = B log2 (1 + SNR)

 5

C = 4,000 log2 (1 + 1,000) ≈ 40 Kbps

P3-22. SNR is the ratio of the powers. The power is proportion to the voltage square
(P = V2/R). Therefore, we have SNR = (10)2 / (10 × 10−3)2 = 106. We then use
the Shannon capacity to calculate the maximum data rate.

C = 4,000 log2 (1 + 106) ≈ 80 Kbps

P3-23. The file contains 2,000,000 × 8 = 16,000,000 bits.

a. With a 56-Kbps channel, it takes 16,000,000/56,000 = 289 s ≈ 5 minutes.

b. With a 1-Mbps channel, it takes 16,000,000/1,000,000 = 16 s.

P3-24. To represent 1024 color levels, we need log21024 = 10 bits. The total number
of bits are, therefore,

Number of bits = 1200 × 1000 × 10 = 12,000,000 bits

P3-25. We have

SNR = (200 mW) / (10 × 2 × μW) = 10,000

SNRdB = 10 log10 SNR = 10 log1010000 = 40

P3-26. We have SNR = (signal power)/(noise power). However, power is propor-

tional to the square of voltage. This means we have

SNR = [(signal voltage)2] / [(noise voltage)2] = 202 = 400

SNRdB = 10 log10 SNR = 10 log10400 = 26

P3-27. We can approximately calculate the capacity as

a. C = B × (SNRdB /3) = 20 KHz × (40 /3) = 267 Kbps

b. C = B × (SNRdB /3) = 200 KHz × (4 /3) = 267 Kbps
c. C = B × (SNRdB /3) = 1 MHz × (20 /3) = 6.67 Mbps

P3-28.

a. The data rate is doubled (C2 = 2 × C1).

b. When the SNR is doubled, the data rate increases slightly. We can say that,
approximately, (C2 = C1 + 1).

P3-29. We can use the approximate formula

C = B × (SNRdB /3) or SNRdB = (3 × C) / B

We can say that the minimum of SNRdB is
6

SNRdB = 3 × 100 Kbps / 4 KHz = 75

This means that the minimum
SNR = 10 SNRdB/10 = 107.5 ≈ 31,622,776
P3-30. We have

transmission time = (packet length in bits)/(bandwidth) =

(8,000,000 bits) / (200,000 bps) = 40 s

P3-31. The bit duration is the inverse of the bandwidth.We have

(bit length) = (propagation speed) ´ (bit duration)

a. Bit length = (2 ×108 m) × [(1 / (1 Mbps)] = 200 m. This means a bit occu-
pies 200 meters on a transmission medium.
b. Bit length = (2 ×108 m) × [(1 / (10 Mbps)] = 20 m. This means a bit occu-
pies 20 meters on a transmission medium.
c. Bit length = (2 ×108 m) × [(1 / (100 Mbps)] = 2 m. This means a bit occu-
pies 2 meters on a transmission medium.

P3-32.

a. Number of bits = bandwidth × delay = 1 Mbps × 2 ms = 2000 bits

b. Number of bits = bandwidth × delay = 10 Mbps × 2 ms = 20,000 bits
c. Number of bits = bandwidth × delay = 100 Mbps × 2 ms = 200,000 bits

P3-33. We have Latency = Delaypr + Delayqu + Delaytr + Delaypg

Delaypr = 10 × 1 μs = 10 μs // Processing delay

Delayqu = 10 × 2 μs = 20 μs // Queuing delay
Delaytr = 5,000,000 / (5 Mbps) = 1 s // Transmission delay
Delaypg = (2000 Km) / (2 × 108) = 0.01 s // Propagation delay

This means
Latency = 10 μs + 20 μs + 1s + 0.01 s ≈ 1.01 s

The transmission time is dominant here because the packet size is huge.