Advantages of FM over AM

Systems
• The amplitude of FM wave remains constant. This
makes FM more immune to noise due to variations in
amplitude of FM waveform which can be eliminated in
FM receivers by amplitude limiters.
• In AM systems only one third of the total power is
carried by the side bands and two thirds wasted in the
carrier signal transmission. While in FM signal most of
the energy is carried in its sidebands. For large
modulation index carrier power becomes less while
sideband increases.
• In FM systems the power of transmitted signal
depends on the amplitude of the unmodulated carrier
signal and hence is constant. While in AM systems
transmitted power depends on the modulation index.
 Disadvantages of FM over AM
systems
• Infinite number of sidebands in an FM signal give rise
to a need of an infinite bandwidth channel to
accommodate FM signal. Reducing higher order
sidebands to accommodate FM in bandlimited
channel give rise to distortion at receiver end.
• The equipment of FM system is more complex than
AM systems, due to complex circuitry FM systems
tend to be costlier than AM ones.
• The receiving area of FM is limited to metropolitan
level, which is much smaller than AM radio stations
which use atmospheric layers for reflection of radio
waves for communication over larger distances. FM
systems uses line of sight for transmission which
limits the antenna distances at the receiver end.