Antennas,Propagation,andPathLoss.docVIP

Antennas, Propagation, and Path Loss Electrons moving in a wire generate an electromagnetic field. This field will cause electrons to move in other wires. That’s how radios work. It’s a simple concept, but the details are complicated. If we design the wires so that they are particularly good at transmitting and receiving these electromagnetic fields, then the wires are called antennas. Any time-varying current will generate electromagnetic radiation. Microprocessor clocks and the digital circuits that they drive turn all of the wires in your computer into a radio transmitter. The current flowing in power lines running your toaster and lights generates plenty of radio waves, as you’ll notice if you try to use an AM radio near them. Even the ultra-low power 32kHz crystal in a wristwatch will radiate on the order of a picoWatt to a nanoWatt. Electromagnetic waves, or radio waves, travel at the speed of light, c=~300,000km/s. The wavelength ? of a radio wave is determined by the frequency of its oscillation f by the formula c=f?? Example: What is the wavelength of AM and FM radio signals? A: The AM band extends from 500 kHz to 1,500 kHz. 500kHz corresponds to l=3x10^8m/s / 5x10^5 cycles/sec = 0.6x10^3m/cycle, and 1,500kHz is 3 times shorter, at about 200m. The FM band is from 88MHz to 107MHz. So FM signals have a wavelength of about 3x10^8m/s / 10^8 Hz = 3m Measuring Power [sidebar box] Since power in RF systems varies by many orders of magnitude, from transmitters of milliWatts to megaWatts, and receivers able to pick up signals from picoWatts to zeptoWatts, it is usually more convenient to talk about power on a log scale. For this we use Bells, abbreviated B, named for Alexander Graham Bell. One Bell is an order of magnitude in power. We almost always talk about tenths of a Bell, or a deciBell, or decibel. A Bell is a dimensionless unit, so it generally refers to a ratio of powers. Power gain [dB] = 10 * power gain [B] = 10 log P/Pref A common reference