Transmission fundamentals

What you will learn:

From twisted pair and coaxial cable through to single-mode and multimode fibre, and from microwave links to satellite communications, you'll build a comprehensive understanding of how information travels across the UK's and the world's communications infrastructure.

 

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• explain the importance of achieving maximum power transfer over a transmission line.
• explain the conditions for maximum power transfer over copper cables with reference to the cable's characteristic impedance.
• describe the use of logarithmic units to express power loss, gain and level.
• explain how a balanced pair of wires provides a higher immunity to interference.
• describe the characteristics and applications of twisted pair and coaxial copper cable.
• explain the principles and characteristics of optical fibre transmission.
• give examples of the use of optical fibre cables in telecommunications systems.
• describe the various propagation modes of radio waves.
• describe the characteristics and applications of wireless communications in the various frequency bands.

 

Course prerequisites:

An understanding of the basic properties of analogue and digital signals, electrical circuit theory and the effects of signal impairments. It is recommended that the PTT courses "Analogue and digital signals" and "Signal impairments" are studied before attempting this course.

 

Approximate study time: 5 hours 

 

Delivery platform requirements:
To access the course, a computer/tablet running a browser such as Chrome, Safari, Edge etc. is required. The device should have an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024x768.