Practical Lecture: Analog Transmitters

And Receivers

Undergraduate Program
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Contents - examples
 AM Broadcasting
 Used in Short wave (SW) frequency bands (550KHz- 1650KHz) and
Medium Wave (MW) frequency bands (3MHz- 30MHz) for broadcasting.
 High power transmitters
 Uses ground wave and sky wave propagation
 FM Broadcasting
 Used in 88 – 108 MHz frequency range
 Wideband FM (75 KHz deviation)
 Stereo multiplexing

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Practical Transmitter Chain
 A real analog transmitter includes the slowing blocks
 Audio processing unit
 Modulation stage
 RF output

Speech Power
Amplifier Modulator Freq. Multipl.
filter amplifier

300 - 3400 Hz
PLL

Crystal
oscillator

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Spectrum of transmission of TV signal using VSB

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AM Broadcasting Transmitters
 Consists of
 The audio signal from the output of the microphone is sent to the speech
filter and then to pre-amplifier (Voltage amplifiers), which boosts the level
of the modulating signal.
 The RF oscillator generates the carrier signal.
 Both the modulating and the carrier signal is sent to AM modulator.
 Power amplifier is used to increase the power levels of AM wave. This
wave is finally passed to the antenna to be transmitted.
 Additional components are there depending on the communication
system.
 E.g.. : Analog TV transmitter

 Based on the transmitting power

 Low level Transmitters (< 10 KW)
 High Level Transmitters (10KW – 500 KW)

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 AM Transmitters (Cont.. )
Carrier Oscillator Frequency Multiplier
& Buffer Amplifier & Power Amplifier
Class C Power
Modulator
Amplifier

Audio Low-pass Filter & Fig 1: High Level Transmitters

Audio Power Amplifier
signal Voltage Amplifier
source

Carrier Oscillator
& Buffer Amplifier

Class C Power
Modulator
Amplifier
Audio
signal Low-pass Filter &
Fig 2: Low Level Transmitters
source Voltage Amplifier

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Stereo FM Broadcast transmitter
 A typical FM Transmitter consists of
 The audio signal from the output of the microphone is sent to the pre-amplifier,
which boosts the level of the modulating signal.
 This signal is then passed to a high pass filter, which acts as a pre-emphasis
network to filter out the noise and improve the signal-to-noise ratio.
 This signal is further passed to the FM modulator circuit.
 The oscillator circuit generates a high-frequency carrier, which is sent to the
modulator along with the modulating signal.
 Several stages of frequency multiplier are used to increase the operating
frequency.

Stereo Input

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 Stereo Encoder
 Transmitted using the outputs of left and right microphones, 𝑚𝑙 (𝑡) and
𝑚𝑟 (𝑡) placed on two different parts of the stage.
 𝑚𝑙 (𝑡) + 𝑚𝑟 (𝑡) is left unchanged and occupies the frequency band 0-1 5 kHz.
 𝑚𝑙 (𝑡) - 𝑚𝑟 (𝑡) is used to AM modulate (DSB-SC) a 38-kHz carrier that is generated
from a 19-kHz oscillator.
 A pilot tone at the frequency of 1 9 kHz is added to the signal for the purpose of
demodulating the DSB-SC AM signal.

L Channel
L+R (mono)
+ + Composite Stereo
output
Balanced
- Modulator 19 KHz
L- R Pilot signal
R Channel
Crystal Oscillator Freq divider by
+PLL (38 KHz) 0.5

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Practical Receiver Chain
 Must extract a weak buried in noise and interference.
 Typical receivers in use today are the super heterodyne
type.
 Converts an received RF signal to a fixed intermediate frequency
(IF) using a mixer.
 Enables the receiver with predictable performance, independent of
received frequency
 Improves the receiver ability to detect very weak signals and reject
unwanted signals
RF Front End
Baseband stage
IF stage
Mixer
BPF LNA x IF filter IF LPF
Demodulator
amplifier

Tuning Audio
Crystal oscillator Amplifier

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super heterodyne Receiver ….
 Block Diagram Overview
1. RF Front End
 Receives the weak over-the-air signal through the antenna.
 RF bandpass filter selects the desired channel and rejects strong adjacent
signals.
 Low-noise amplifier (LNA) boosts the signal with minimal noise added.
2. Mixer + Local Oscillator (LO) - RF-IF converter
 Mixer multiplies RF signal with LO.
 Produces sum and difference frequencies.
 IF = |RF – LO| (usually chosen by design).
 LO is tunable; IF is fixed (For AM ,this IF, will always be 455 kHz., FM : IF
= The IF is a fixed frequency of 10.7 MHz.)

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Cont…
3. IF Filter + IF Amplifier
 Sharp, high-Q filters remove all unwanted mixing products.
 IF amplifiers boost the signal to a level suitable for demodulation.
 Most of the receiver’s gain and selectivity come from here.
4. Demodulator
 For AM: Envelope detector or synchronous detector
 For FM: Discriminator or PLL FM detector
 For SSB: Product detector
5. Baseband Processing
 Audio filtering, AGC, and audio amplification.

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FM Receivers
 Amplitude limiter and De-emphasis network are included before and
after FM demodulator.
• Amplitude Limiter used to
maintain the amplitude of FM
wave as constant by removing
the unwanted peaks of the
noise signal.

• De-emphasis: attenuates
higher received frequencies by
the amount by which they were
boosted prior to transmission.
• Frequency Demodulator
(Discriminator);
• Stereo decoder: separate the
composite signal from FM
demodulator (if pilot signal is
missing it is mono)

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FM Receivers…..Stereo decoder

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Example 1
 A 30-kW FM broadcast station transmits at 100 MHz. At a suburban location 35
km away, the free‐space path loss + terrain loss results in a total loss of 138
dB.
 The receiver has:
 RF+IF noise figure = 16 dB ; RF bandwidth = 200 kHz
 Required SNR at discriminator for: Mono = 10 dB ; Stereo = 23 dB
 Tasks:
 Compute the input SNR at the FM discriminator.
 Determine whether the listener hears mono or stereo, assuming automatic
stereo switching.
 Compute the post-detection SNR using the FM improvement factor.
 Explain why stereo requires a significantly higher SNR, relating it to the L–
R subchannel bandwidth (23–53 kHz).
 Evaluate what happens if: The user is indoors; The receiver switches to mono
mode
 Suggest two engineering ways to improve reception without increasing
transmitter power (e.g., pre-emphasis, antenna choice, IF filters).

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Ex
 A commercial AM station uses a modulation index of 0.7
during normal operation and broadcasts at 1 MHz with the
power of 10KW. A listener 40 km with transmission loss
125 dB away receives a clear signal during the day. (>
20dB SNR)
a) If, at night, sky-wave fading causes the received signal power to
drop by 12 dB, What happens to the envelope detector output?
 Evaluate post detection SNR (assuming RF+IF noise figure = 16 dB
at the receiver and 𝑁0 = 10−16)
b) The station experiments with increasing the index to 1.2 to
“sound louder.”
 How does the overmodulation affect the demodulated audio?

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Example: FM Stereo vs Mono SNR – Listening Area
Calculation
 Assume the same FM broadcaster as Q1. Using your SNR formulas
and threshold effect:
 Stereo requires 23 dB SNR ; Mono requires 10 dB SNR
 Field measurements show: SNR decreases at 1.7 dB per km beyond 35
km
 Tasks:
 Determine the coverage radius for stereo.
 Determine the coverage radius for mono.
 Suggest a transmitter-side improvement (such as pilot power
adjustment) and explain the trade-offs.

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Ex
 A medium-wave AM station considers reducing carrier
power from 10 kW to 5 kW to save cost.
 Tasks:
 Determine how the reduction affects the SNR at the receiver’s
envelope detector.
 Explain why AM is more affected by noise in urban areas (e.g.,
power-line hum, switching supplies).
 Suggest non-power-related improvements (antenna tuning,
modulation index optimization, ground conductivity enhancement).

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Ex
 FM broadcasts use 50 µs pre-emphasis to boost high-frequency audio
before modulation. Consider an FM transmitter sending an audio tone
at 15 kHz, which undergoes a +12 dB boost due to pre-emphasis. The
receiver applies matching de-emphasis.
 The receiver’s discriminator input SNR requirement = 12 dB.
 Tasks:
 Calculate the post-detection SNR improvement due to pre-emphasis.
 Explain how pre-emphasis improves SNR differently across the
spectrum (speech vs. music).
 Explain why pre-emphasis does not change the SNR of low-frequency
signals.
 Real-world application:
 Why FM broadcasting uses pre-emphasis
 What modern audio compression replaces pre-emphasis with

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