Baseband Communication

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We use analog communication techniques for analog message signals, like music, speech, and television. Transmission and reception of analog signals using analog results in an inherently noisy received signal (assuming the channel adds noise, which it almost certainly does).

The simplest form of analog communication is baseband communication.

POINT OF INTEREST: We use analog communication techniques for analog message signals, like

music, speech, and television. Transmission and reception of analog signals using analog results in an inherently noisy received signal (assuming the channel adds noise, which it almost certainly does).

Here, the transmitted signal equals the message times a transmitter gain.

(6.27)

An example, which is somewhat out of date, is the wireline telephone system. You don't use baseband communication in wireless systems simply because low-frequency signals do not radiate well. The receiver in a baseband system can't do much more than filter the received signal to remove out-of-band noise (interference is small in wireline channels). Assuming the signal occupies a bandwidth of W Hz (the signal's spectrum extends from zero to W) , the receiver applies a lowpass filter having the same bandwidth, as shown in Figure 6.5.

Figure 6.5

 

The receiver for baseband communication systems is quite simple: a lowpass filter having the same bandwidth as the signal.  

We use the signal-to-noise ratio of the receiver's output m (t) to evaluate any analog-message com munication system. Assume that the channel introduces an attenuation α and white noise of spectral height  The filter does not affect the signal component we assume its gain is unity but does filter the noise, removing frequency components above W Hz. In the filter's output, the receiv ed signal power equals α²G²power (m) and the noise power N₀W, which gives a signal-to-noise ratio of

(6.28)

The signal power (m) will be proportional to the bandwidth W; thus, in baseband communication the signal-to-noise ratio varies only with transmitter gain and channel attenuation and noise level.