DIT 407
Lecture 3b
Communication Media
- Unguided Media -
01/25/25 DBIT 401 1
Lecture Overview
• Introduction
• Unguided/Unbounded/Wireless
• Examples of the same
01/25/25 DBIT 401 2
Introduction – Cont’d
• Unguided media transport electromagnetic
waves without using physical conductor. This
type of communication is often referred to as
wireless communication.
• Signals are normally broadcasted through free
space and thus are available to anyone who
has a device capable of receiving them.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 3
Introduction – Cont’d
• The term wireless is normally used to refer
to any type of electrical or electronic
operation which is accomplished without
the use of a "hard wired" connection.
Wireless communication is the transfer of
information over a distance without the use
of electrical conductors or "wires".
01/25/25 DBIT 401 4
Introduction – Cont’d
• The distances involved may be short (a few
meters as in television remote control) or
very long (thousands or even millions of
kilometers for radio communications).
When the context is clear the term is often
simply shortened to "wireless".
01/25/25 DBIT 401 5
Introduction – Cont’d
• The section of the electromagnetic
spectrum defined as radio
communication is divided into eight
ranges, called bands, each regulated by
government authorities.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 6
Radio Communication Band
01/25/25 DBIT 401 7
Propagation of Radio Waves
• Radio technology considers the earth as
surrounded by two layers of atmosphere: the
troposphere and the ionosphere.
• The troposphere is the portion of the atmosphere
extending outward approximately 30 miles from
the earth's surface.
• The troposphere contains what we generally
think of as air. Clouds, wind, temperature
variations, and weather in general occur in the
troposphere.
• The ionosphere is the layer of the atmosphere
above the troposphere but below space.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 8
Unguided Media
• Unguided signals can travel from the source
to destination in several ways: ground
propagation, sky propagation, and line-of-
sight propagation.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 9
Unguided Media
• In ground propagation, radio waves travel
through the lowest portion of the atmosphere,
hugging the earth. These low-frequency
signals emanate in all directions from the
transmitting antenna and follow the curvature
of the planet.
• Distance depends on the amount of power in
the signal: The greater the power, the greater
the distance.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 10
Unguided Media
• In sky propagation, higher-frequency radio
waves radiate upward into the ionosphere (the
layer of atmosphere where particles exist as
ions) where they are reflected back to earth.
• This type of transmission allows for greater
distances with lower output power.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 11
Unguided Media
• In line-of-sight propagation, very high-
frequency signals are transmitted in straight
lines directly from the antenna to antenna.
• Antennas must be bidirectional, facing each
other, and either tall enough or close enough
together not to be affected by the curvature of
the earth.
• Line-of-sight propagation is tricky because
radio transmissions cannot be completely
focussed.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 12
Propagation methods
01/25/25 DBIT 401 13
Bands
Band Range Propagation Application
VLF 3–30 KHz Ground Long-range radio navigation
Radio beacons and
LF 30–300 KHz Ground
navigational locators
MF 300 KHz–3 MHz Sky AM radio
Citizens band (CB),
HF 3–30 MHz Sky
ship/aircraft communication
Sky and VHF TV,
VHF 30–300 MHz
line-of-sight FM radio
UHF TV, cellular phones,
UHF 300 MHz–3 GHz Line-of-sight
paging, satellite
SHF 3–30 GHz Line-of-sight Satellite communication
EHF 30–300 GHz Line-of-sight Long-range radio navigation
01/25/25 DBIT 401 14
Wireless Transmission Waves
Wireless
Transmission
Radio Waves Microwave Infrared
01/25/25 DBIT 401 15
Antennas
• Electrical conductor used to radiate or collect
electromagnetic energy
• Transmission antenna
– radio frequency energy from transmitter
– converted to electromagnetic energy by antenna
– radiated into surrounding environment
• Reception antenna
– electromagnetic energy impinging on antenna
– converted to radio frequency electrical energy
– fed to receiver
• Same antenna is often used for both purposes
01/25/25 DBIT 401 16
Terrestrial Microwave
• Used for long haul telecommunications and
short point-to-point links
• Requires fewer repeaters but line of sight
• Use a parabolic dish to focus a narrow beam
onto a receiver antenna
• 1- 40 GHz frequencies
• Higher frequencies give higher data rates
• Main source of loss is attenuation
– distance, rainfall
• also interference
01/25/25 DBIT 401 17
Satellite Microwave
• Satellite is relay station
• Receives on one frequency, amplifies or repeats signal
and transmits on another frequency
– eg. uplink 5.925-6.425 GHz & downlink 3.7-4.2 GHz
• Typically requires geo-stationary orbit
– height of 35,784km
– spaced at least 3-4° apart
• Typical uses
– television
– long distance telephone
– private business networks
– global positioning
01/25/25 DBIT 401 18
Satellite Point to Point Link
01/25/25 DBIT 401 19
Satellite Broadcast Link
01/25/25 DBIT 401 20
Broadcast Radio
• Radio is 3kHz to 300GHz
• Use broadcast radio, 30MHz - 1GHz, for:
– FM radio
– UHF and VHF television
• Is omni-directional
• Still need line of sight
• Suffers from multipath interference
– reflections from land, water, other objects
01/25/25 DBIT 401 21
Infrared
• Modulate non-coherent infrared light
• End line of sight (or reflection)
• Are blocked by walls
• No licenses required
• Typical uses:
– TV remote control
– IRD port
01/25/25 DBIT 401 22
Wireless Propagation
Ground Wave
01/25/25 DBIT 401 23
Wireless Propagation
Sky Wave
01/25/25 DBIT 401 24
Wireless Propagation
Line of Sight
01/25/25 DBIT 401 25
Line of Sight Transmission
• Free space loss
– loss of signal with distance
• Atmospheric Absorption
– from water vapour and oxygen absorption
• Multipath
– multiple interfering signals from reflections
• Refraction
– bending signal away from receiver
01/25/25 DBIT 401 26
Radio Waves
• Although there is no clear-cut demarcation
between radio waves and microwaves,
electromagnetic waves ranging in frequencies
between 3 kHz and 1 GHz are normally called
radio waves.
• Waves ranging in frequencies between 1 and
300 GHz are called micro-waves.
• However, the behaviour of the waves, rather
than the frequencies, is a better criterion for
classification.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 27
Radio Waves
• Radio waves particularly those waves that
propagate in the sky mode, can travel long
distances making them good candidate for long-
distance broadcasting such as AM radio.
• Radio waves particularly those of low and
medium frequencies, can penetrate walls.
• Application:
– The omnidirectional characteristics of radio waves
make them useful for multicasting, in which there is
one sender but many receivers.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 28
Microwaves
• Electromagnetic waves having frequencies
between 1 and 300 GHz.
• They are unidirectional.
• When an antenna transmits microwave waves,
they can be narrowly focused. This means that
the sending and receiving antennas need to be
aligned.
• The advantage of unidirectional is that a pair
of antennas can be aligned without interfering
with another pair of aligned antennas.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 29
Microwaves
• Some Characteristics of microwave
propagation:
– Microwave propagation is line-of-sight.
– Very high-frequency microwaves cannot
penetrate walls – disadvantage for receivers
inside a buildings.
– The microwave band is relatively wide, almost
299 GHz. Wider subbands can be assigned and
a high data rate can be achieved.
– Use of certain portions of the band requires
permission from authorities.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 30
Microwaves
• Applications:
– Microwaves, due to their unidirectional
properties, are very useful when unicast (one-
to-one) communication is needed between the
sender and the receiver.
– They are used in cellular phones, satellite
networks, and wireless LANs.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 31
Infrared
• Infrared waves, with frequencies from 300
GHz to 400 THz (wavelengths from 1 mm to
770 nm), can be used for short-range
communication.
• They can not penetrate walls and this prevents
interference between one system and another –
a short-range communication system in one
room cannot be affected by another system in
the next room.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 32
Infrared
• Infrared signals can not be used for long-
range communications.
• Infrared waves cannot be used outside a
building because the sun’s rays contain
infrared waves that can interfere with the
communication.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 33
Bluetooth
• Bluetooth is a wireless LAN technology
designed to connect devices of different
functions such as telephones, notebooks,
computers (desktops and laptops), cameras,
printers, coffee makers, etc.
• A bluetooth LAN is an ad-hoc network, which
means that the network is formed
spontaneously; the devices, sometimes
referred to as gadgets, find each other and
make a network called a piconet.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 34
Bluetooth
• A bluetooth LAN can even be connected to the
internet if one of the gadgets has this
capability.
• By nature, a bluetooth LAN can not be large.
If there are many gadgets that try to connect
there will be chaos.
• Originally started as a project by the Ericsson
Company. Named after Harald Blaatand
(Dennish).
01/25/25 DBIT 401 35
Bluetooth
• Bluetooth technology is the implementation
of a protocol defined by the IEEE 802.15
standard. The standard defines a wireless
personal-area-network (PAN) operable in
an area the size of a room or hall.
• Bluetooth defines two types of networks:
piconet and scatternet.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 36
Bluetooth - Piconet
• A bluetooth network is called a piconet, or a small
net.
• A piconet can have up to eight (8) stations, one of
which is called the primary; the rest are called
secondaries.
• All the secondary stations synchronize their clocks
and hopping sequence with the primary.
• Note that a piconet can have only one primary station.
• The communication between the primary and the
secondary can be one-to-one or one-to-many.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 37
Bluetooth - Scatternet
• Piconets can be combined to form what is
called a scatternet.
• A secondary station in one piconet can be a
primary in another piconet. This station can
receive messages from the primary in the first
piconet (as a secondary) and, acting as a
primary, deliver them to secondaries in the
second piconet.
• A station can be a member of two piconets.
01/25/25 DBIT 401 38
Bluetooth Devices
• A bluetooth device has a built-in short-
range radio transmitter.
• The current data rate is 1 Mbps with a 2.4-
GHz bandwidth. This means that there is a
possibility of interference between the IEEE
802.11b wireless LANs and Bluetooth
LANs.
01/25/25 39
