MEASUREMENTS IN

COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS
DECIBELS
Friday, September 22, 2023

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SYLABUS

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 ORIGINS OF DECIBEL
1. Since the earliest days of the telephone, the need for a unit in
which to measure the transmission efficiency of telephone
facilities was recognized.
2. The introduction of cable in 1896 afforded a stable basis for a
convenient unit and the Mile of Standard Cable (MSC) came
into general use shortly thereafter.
3. 1 MSC corresponded to the loss of power over a 1 mile (approx.
1.6 km) length of standard telephone cable at a frequency of
5,000 radians per second (795.8 Hz), and roughly matched the
smallest attenuation detectable to the average listener.
4. MSC was used up to 1923 when a new unit was adopted as being
more suitable for modern telephone work.
5. The new transmission unit was termed the "decibel" at the
suggestion of the International Advisory Committee on Long
Distance Telephony.
6. bel is named in honour of Alexander Graham Bell who invented the
telephone. A decibel is one tenth of one bel, The bel is seldom used without
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the deci-prefix.
 DECIBEL DEFINITION
1. The decibel (dB) is a logarithmic
unit used to express the ratio
between two values of a physical
quantity, often power or intensity.
𝑃2
dB= 10𝑙𝑜𝑔10
𝑃1

2. When P1 is set as a reference value,

the decibel can be used to express
the absolute level of the physical
quantity, e.g pressure or power. 4
 WHY LOG SCALE?
1. In acoustics huge changes in measurable physical
parameters (e.g. pressure, power and voltage)
correspond to relatively small changes in perceived
loudness or brightness.
2. Therefore, a linear scale is impractical since the large
variation in power gives little change to the perceived
sound or light.

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CABLE ATTENUATION IN DB

Short Cables (30m)

Experience relatively low
attenuation <10dB
below 1GHz

Long Cables (300m)

Experience relatively high
attenuation > 30dB
above 100 MHz

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ADVANTAGES OF USING DECIBELS

1. Decibel models the response of

human sensory organs better by
using a log scale.
2. It is more convenient to represent
very large and small numbers.
3. Multiplication of ratios is reduced to
simple addition and subtraction.

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ACOUSTICS-SOUND PRESSURE LEVEL(SPL)

1. Pressure levels in Pascals (Pa) are taken with

respect to a reference and converted to logs.

2. The resulting Sound Pressure Levels are

expressed as:

where Pref is the threshold of hearing, i.e. 20

Micropascals for air or 1 Micropascal for water.
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TYPICAL SOUND PRESSURE LEVEL(SPL)

Threshold of Pain 135

Riveter 120

Speech 60

Leaves Rustling 20

Threshold for 0
Hearing 9
DECIBEL MEASUREMENT RELATIVE TO ONE
MILLIWATT
1. In most communication networks, absolute
power is expressed in milliwatts

2. Because the power is an alternating current

waveform and impedance can vary as a function of
frequency, it is necessary to state what frequency the
0 dBm standard is based upon. The standard
telecommunication frequency is 1004 Hz.
3. dBm measurements also require that the resistance
or impedance (load) of the circuit is stated. The
standard impedance for telephone wires is 600 10
Ohms.
 EXAMPLE 1- DECIBELS
• There are three networks in series.
• The first network has a gain of 19 dB, the
second a gain of 23 dB, the third a gain of
11 dB. The output of the third network is
+23 dBm.
• What is the input to the first network in
mW?
+23dbm
?
Gain=19dB Gain=23dB 11dB

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 SOLUTION

P1 P2 P3 𝑃4 = 23dBm
Gain=19dB Gain =23dB Gain = 11dB

𝑃4
10𝑙𝑜𝑔10 = 23
1𝑚𝑊
𝑃4
P4 𝑙𝑜𝑔10 = 2.3
10 log = 19 + 23 + 11 = 53 1𝑚𝑊
P1

𝑃4 = 102.3
199.5
10 log
P1
= 19 + 23 + 11 = 53 = 199.5 mW
 199.5 
log  = 5.3
 P1 

P1 = 10−3 mW

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 TRANSMISSION LEVEL POINT
1. The description of this power is similar to the
description of the height of a mountain In order
to measure the height of a mountain, it is
necessary to pick a reference height from which
to measure. The standard reference height is
sea level, which is arbitrarily assigned a height
of zero.
2. In a similar manner, power, at specified points in
a communication system, can be described in
terms of the power at a standard reference
point.
3. This point, which is analogous to sea level, is
called the zero Transmission Level Point,
or 0 TLP. 13
 NOISE MEASUREMENT-dBrn
1. It is often convenient to use a reference power
that is much smaller than 1 mW.

2. The reference power used in the description of

noise is –90 dBm. The notation used to describe
noise in terms of reference noise is dBrn.

3. If you know the noise level in dBm, you can

easily calculate the noise in dBrn as follows:

dBrn = dBm + 90 dB
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 EXAMPLE
• An idle-channel noise power measurement
of 21 dBrn occurs at a -7 dB Test Level
Point (TLP).
(i) Express the noise power of this
measurement in dBm
(ii) determine what power measurement
this noise would produce at another
point in the circuit that is designated as
a -2 dB TLP.
TLP1=-2dB
TLP2=-7dB

? 21dbrn 15
dBm?
 NOISE MEASUREMENTS - DBrnC
1. In order to obtain a useful measure of
the interfering effect of noise, the various
frequencies that contribute to the overall
noise are weighted based on their
relative interfering effect. This weighting
is accomplished through the use of
weighting networks, or filters.

2. Noise measurements through a C-

message weighting network are
expressed in units of dBrnC (noise above
reference noise, C-message weighting).
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