Q1. What is amplitude modulation?

Ans: The process of amplitude modulation consists of varying the peak amplitude
of a sinusoidal carrier wave in proportion to the instantaneous amplitude of the
modulation signal.

Q2. What is modulation?

Ans: Modulation may be defined as the process by which some parameters of a

high frequency signal termed as carrier, is varied in accordance with the signal to
be transmitted.

Q3. What are the different types of analog modulation?

Ans: 1) Amplitude modulation 2) angle modulation.

Q4. What is the need for modulation?

Ans: Consider, for example, picture signal of a T.V camera. It has frequency
spectra of DC to 5.5MHz.such a wide band of frequency cant be propagated
through ionosphere. However, if this signal is modulated with a carrier in VHF
and UHF range, the percentage bandwidth becomes very small and the signal
become suitable for transmission through atmosphere.

Q5. What are the objectives met by modulation?

Ans: Length of antenna is shortened, signal loss is reduced, ease of radiation,

adjustment of bandwidth, shifting signal frequency of the assigned value.

Q6. What are the advantage of PAM and PWM?

Ans: PWM system gives a greater signal to noise ratio as compared to PAM but
requires a larger bandwidth to achieve this.

Q7. What is Pulse position modulation?

Ans: Pulse position modulation (PPM) is the process in which the position of a
standard pulse is varied as a function of the amplitude of the sampled signal.
Q8. What is the advantage of PPM over PWM and PAM?

Ans: The phase deviation are usually small. The noise produces a smaller
disturbing effect on the time position of the modulating pulse train and as a
result, PPM waves have a better performance with respect to signal to noise ratio
in comparison to PAM and PWM systems.

Q9. What are the applications of pulse position modulation?

Ans: It is primarily useful for optical communication systems, where there tends
to be little or no multipath interference. Narrowband RF (Radio frequency)
channels with low power and long wavelength (i.e., low frequency) are affected
primarily by flat fading, and PPM is better suited.

Q10. What is the purpose of using differential pulse position modulation?

Ans: It is possible to limit the propagation of errors to adjacent symbols, so that

an error in measuring the differential delay of one pulse will affect only two
symbols, instead of effecting all successive measurements.

Q11. What are the advantage of PPM?

Ans: One of the principle advantages of pulse position modulation is that it is an

M-ary modulation technique that can be implemented non-coherently, such that
the receiver does not need to use a phase-locked loop (PLL) to track the phase of
the carrier. This makes it a suitable candidate for optical communications
systems, where coherent phase modulation and detecting are difficult and
extremely expensive. The only other common M-ary non-coherent modulation
technique is M-ary frequency shift keying, which is the frequency domain dual to
PPM.
The other advantages of pulse position modulation are:
The amplitude is held constant thus less noise interference.
Signal and noise separation is very easy.
Due to constant pulse widths and amplitudes, transmission power for each
pulse is same.

Q12. What are the application of PPM?

Ans: PPM is employed in narrowband RF channel systems, with the position of
each pulse representing the angular position of an analogue control on the
transmitter, or possible states of binary switch. The number of pulse per frame
gives the number of controllable channels available. The advantage of using PPM
for this type of application is that the electronics required to decode the signal are
extremely simple, which leads to small, light-weight receiver/decoder units.
(Model aircraft require parts that are as lightweight as possible).

Q13. Explain the principle of PPM?

Ans: The amplitude and the width of the pulse is kept constant in this system,
while the position of each pulse, in relation to the position of a recurrent
reference pulse is varied by each instantaneous sampled value of the modulating
wave. This means that the transmitter must send synchronizing pulses to operate
timing circuits in the receiver. The PPM has the advantage of requiring constant
transmitter power output, but the disadvantage of depending on transmitter-
receiver synchronization.

Q14. What is the purpose of PPM?

Ans: PPM may be used to transmit analog information, such as continuous

speech or data.

Q15. What are the analog analogies of PAM, PPM & PWM?

Ans: PAM is similar to AM; PPM and PWM is similar to angle modulation.

Q16. What is Frequency modulation (FM)?

Ans: Frequency modulation is the process of varying the frequency of a carrier

wave in proportion to the instantaneous amplitude of the modulating signal
without any variation in the amplitude of the carrier wave.

Q17. What is PWM or Pulse length modulation or pilse duration modulation?

Ans: In PWM, the pulse amplitude is kept constant but the leading edge, trailing
edge or both may be varied as a function of the amplitude of the sampled signal
and care must be taken to ensure that the pulse dont overlap in a TDM system.
 Q18. What are the disadvantages of PWM?

Ans: PWM, in general, requires a greater average power than PAM systems. Also,
the PWM system requires a greater bandwidth than PAM.

Q19. Explain the principle of PWM?

Ans: Pulse-width modulation (PWM) of a signal or power source involves the

modulation of its duty cycle, to either convey information over a communication
channel or control the amount of power sent to a load. PWM uses a square wave
whose pulse width is modulated resulting in the variation of the average value of
the waveform is directly dependent on the duty cycle D.

Q20. Mention the applications of PWM.

Ans: PWM can be used to reduce the total amount of power delivered to a load
without losses normally incurred when a power source is limited by resistive
means. This is because the average power delivered is proportional to the
modulation duty cycle. With a sufficiently high modulation rate, passive
electronic filters can be used to smooth the pulse train and recover an average
analog waveform.

1. What are the main components needed for a

communication?
Sender, Transmission line and Receiver.

1. What is Radio communication?

Radio communication uses electrical energy to
transmit information. Radio transmitter converts
audio (sound) signals to electrical signals that are
sent over wires or through space. A radio receiver
converts the electromagnetic waves so that the
information can be found out.
1. Range of Audio Frequency?
 20Hz to 20 KHz

1. Range of Radio Frequency?

10 KHz to 1000GHz.

1. What is modulation?
Modulation is the process of changing the
characteristics of the carrier signal with respect to
that of the message signal.

1. What are the principle forms of modulation?

Amplitude Modulation(AM)
Frequency Modulation(FM)
Phase Modulation(PM)

1. What are the types of angle modulations?

FM and PM

1. What is a mixer?
An electronic circuit that combines two
frequencies.

1. What is a product detector?

It is a detector whose audio frequency output is
equal to the product of the Beat Frequency Oscillator
(BFO) and the RF input signal.

1. What is a Beat Frequency Oscillator (BFO)?

An oscillator whose output frequency is
approximately equal to the transmitters carrier
frequency.

1. What is known as Bandwidth?

Bandwidth is the frequency range, in hertz (Hz),
between the upper and lower frequency limits.

12. What is Harmonics?

Harmonics is the signals with frequencies that are
an integral multiple of the fundamental frequency.

13. What is the range of frequency in commercial
AM broadcasting?
540 KHz to 1600 KHz has a 10 KHz bandwidth.
14. Range of frequency in AM baseband?
100KHZ to 5 KHz.

15. What is baseband?

It is a band of frequencies occupied by a message
signal.

16. What you mean by frequency translate?

It is the process of displaying the frequency
contents of a signal to another place in the frequency
spectrum.

17. Modulation index?

Modulation index (m) is the ratio between the
amplitude of the message signal to the amplitude of
the unmodulated carrier signal.

18. What is percentage of modulation?

The modulation index (M) is expressed as a
percentage.(%m)

19. Transmission efficiency?

It is the ratio of the total AM power to that of the
sideband.

20. What is Splatter?

Adjacent channel interference due to over
modulation of carrier signal by abrupt peak message
signal.

21. What is the selectivity of a radio receiver?

The ability of a radio receiver to select a desired
signal frequency while rejecting all others is called
selectivity.

22. What are the main components of a RF receiver?

 RF filter, RF amplifier, mixer. Local Oscillator, IF
filter, IF amplifier and Envelope Detector.

23. What is RF stage?

It is the first input stage in which primary
selection, filtering and amplification of the input RF
signal is performed.

24. What is IF stage?

It is the section of the receiver between the
mixer and the detector. The IF stage operates at a
fixed intermediate frequency (FIF) and it is where
most of the amplification and filtering occurs.

24. What is local oscillator?

An oscillator in which a piece of electronic
equipment that is usually used as a source of
electromagnetic wave frequencies for mixing with
other frequencies that the equipment handles.

25. What is envelope detector?

A circuit containing a diode in series with an RC
network, used to perform demodulation. An envelope
detector, which demodulates an AM signal, cannot
demodulate an SSB signal

26. What is a diode detector?

A diode detector is a nonlinear charging circuit
formed by a diode in series with a parallel with RC
network.

27. What is a balance modulator?

Balance modulators translate a message signal to
two sidebands and suppress the carrier signal
frequency to produce a DSB signal.

28. What is up conversion?

The process of increasing the frequency of a
signal to a higher frequency for transmission is up
 conversion. The mixer, which is a balanced modulator,
performs the up-conversion.

29. What is the function of AGC circuit?

A circuit that maintains the output volume of a
receiver, regardless of the variations in the received
signal power.

30. What is centre frequency?

Centre frequency is the frequency of the
unmodulated FM carrier signal.
31. What is frequency deviation?
Frequency deviation the maximum frequency
change between a modulated and unmodulated carrier
signal.

32. What is discriminator?

Discriminator is a device that demodulates an FM
signal.

33. What is Quadrature?

Quadrature is the phase relationship between two
equal frequency signals that are 90 out of phase.

34. FM modulation index?

FM modulation index the ratio of frequency
deviation to the message signal frequency.

35. What is signal to noise ratio?

A signal-to-noise ratio is the ratio of the
magnitude of the signal to that of noise (often
expressed in decibels).

36. What are varactor diode and schottky diode?

Varactor diode is a diode that changes
capacitance with a change in input voltage.
Schottky diode is diodes that have a low forward
voltage drop in the range of 0.2V to 0.4V.

37. What is phase-locked loop (PLL)?

 Phase-locked loop (PLL) is a circuit that locks onto
a phase relationship between an input signal and a
VCO signal, and produces an error signal. The error
signal is fed back to control the VCO frequency so that
it equals the input frequency.

38. What is Frequency-Shift Keying (FSK)?

Frequency-Shift Keying (FSK) is shifting an analog
signals frequency between two values to represent
the binary states high and low of a digital signal. A
modem uses FSK to transmit digital signals over
analog telephone lines.

39. What is voltage controlled oscillator (VCO)?

Voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) an oscillator
that uses an input voltage to control its output
frequency.

40. What are the advantages and applications of PLL?

PLLs have high degree of noise immunity and a
narrow bandwidth.
Do not require complex coil adjustments.
PLLs are also used for Frequency-Shift Keying
(FSK) operations in digital communications.
A PLL operates by producing a voltage controlled
oscillator (VCO) frequency (f vco) that matches the RF
frequency (fi).
PLLs are used in FM and AM demodulation
because they do not require complex coil adjustments.

41. What is noise?

An unwanted signal that will disturb the
transmission or processing of signals in
communication systems. Eg. Shot noise, Thermal
noise.

42. What is shot noise?

A noise arises from the discrete nature of diodes
and transistors.
 E.g., a current pulse is generated every time an
electron is emitted by the cathode.

43. What is thermal noise?

A noise arises from the random motion of
electrons in a conductor.

44. What is white noise?

A noise is white if its PSD (Power Spectral
Density) equals constant for all frequencies.

45. What is modulation?

A process by which some characteristic of a
carrier is varied in accordance with a modulating wave
(baseband signal).
There are,
Amplitude modulation
Angle modulation (Phase modulation, Frequency
modulation).
46. What is Transmission Bandwidth?
Transmission bandwidth of an AM wave,
For positive frequencies, the highest frequency
component of the AM wave equals fc + W, and the
lowest frequency component equals fc W.
The difference between these two frequencies
defines the transmission bandwidth BT for an AM
wave.

47. Limitations of Amplitude Modulation (DSB-C)?

Waste of power in the information-less with-
carrier part.
Wasteful of power and bandwidth

48. How to generate SSB signal?

Product modulator to generate DSB-SC signal
Band-pass filter to pass only one of the
sideband and suppress the other.

49. Vestigial Sideband Modulation?

 Instead of transmitting only one sideband as SSB,
VSB modulation transmits a partially suppressed
sideband and a vestige of the other sideband.
Eg: Television Signals

50. What is Angle Modulation?

The angle of the carrier is varied in accordance
with the base band signal.
Commonly used angle modulation
Phase modulation (PM)
Frequency modulation (FM)

Q1. What is modulation?

A: Modulation is the process of varying characteristics of a periodic
waveform, called the carrier signal, with a modulating signal that typically
contains information to be transmitted.
Q2. What is amplitude modulation?
A:Amplitude Modulation is the process of varying amplitude of carrier
signal, with respect to amplitude of modulating signal
Q3. What are the different types of analog modulation?
A : There are three basic types of analog modulations.
1. AM or Amplitude Modulation
2. FM or Frequency Modulation
3. PM or Phase modulation
Q4. What si the need for modulation?
A : NEED FOR MODULATION
1) TO REDUCE THE ANTENNA HEIGHT
2) TO MULTIPLEX THE MORE NUMBER OF SIGNALS
3) TO REDUCE THE NOISE & DISTORTIONS
4) TO NARROW BANDING THE SIGNAL
5) TO REDUCE EQUIPMENT COMPLEXITY
Q5. What are the objectives met by modulation?
A:Length of antenna is shortened, signal loss is reduced, ease of
radiation, adjustment of bandwidth, shifting signal frequency of the
assigned value.
Q6. What are the advantage of PAM and PWM?
A:PAM Advantages
1)It is the base for all modulation techniques
2)Easy to modulate and demodulate
3)Transmitter and receiver circuitry is simple circuit which is easy to
construct
PWM Advantages
1)less noise interference due to constant amplitude
2)Signal can be separated very easily at demodulation and noise can
also be separated easily.
3)Synchronization between transmitter and receiver is not required
unlike pulse position modulation.
Q7. What is Pulse position modulation?
A: In pulse position modulation, the amplitude and width of the pulses
are kept constant, while the position of each pulse with reference to
position of reference pulse, is changed according to the instantaneous
sampled value of the modulating signal
Q8. What is the advantage of PPM over PWM and PAM?
A : Unlike PAM and PWM all the pulses in PPM have precisely the same
amplitude and duration.This gives a higher degree of noise immunity
than provided by PWM and especially PAM
Q9. What are the applications of pulse position modulation?
A: This method is widely used for optical communication systems such
as optic fiber and IR remote controls, where efficiency is required and
little or no external interference occurs.
Q10. What is the purpose of using differential pulse position
modulation?
A: The Differential Pulse Position Modulation is a variation of the PPM
coding, which in fact transmits data regardless of a clock. The delay
between the pulses does not take reference from the rising edge of the
clock. Instead, each delay takes reference from the falling edge of the
previous pulse.
Q11. What are the advantage of PPM?
A:>>Due to constant amplitude of PPM pulse,the
information not contained in the
amplitude.hence noise added to PPM signal
doesnot distort the information.
>>To reconstruct PPM signal from the noise
contaminated PPM signal.
Q12. Explain the principle of PPM?
A:In pulse position modulation, the amplitude and width of the pulses are
kept constant, while the position of each pulse with reference to position
of reference pulse, is changed according to the instantaneous sampled
value of the modulating signal
Q13. What is the purpose of PPM?
A:Pulse position modulation can be used for a number of purposes,
especially in RF (Radio Frequency) communications.
-For example:
pulse position modulation is used in remote-controlled aircraft, cars,
boats, and other vehicles and is responsible for conveying the controls of
a transmitter to a receiver. The position of each pulse may describe the
physical direction of an analogue controller while the number of pulses
may describe the number of possible commands that the device may
receive.
Q14. What are the analog analogies of PAM, PPM & PWM?
A:PAM is similar to AM.PPM and PWM is similar to angle modulation.
Q15. What is Frequency modulation (FM)?
A:Frequency Modulation is the process of varying frequency of a
periodic waveform, called the carrier signal, with respect to the
frequency of modulating signal that typically contains information to be
transmitted.
Q16. What is PWM or Pulse length modulation or pulse duration
modulation?
A:It is the process of modulation in which the width of the pulse train
(carrier) is varied with respect to the amplitude of the
message(modulating) signal.
Q17. What are the disadvantages of PWM?
A : Bandwidth is large compared to PAM
Q18. Mention the applications of PWM.
A: power delivery
volatage regulation
Audio effects and amplification
Q19.What are the advantages of PWM?
1)Unlike PAM,PWM has less noise because amplitude is held constant
2)Signal and noise separation is easy