Experiment 3: Channel Effects
Elazegui, Diann Claire L.
I. INTRODUCTION
The communication channel is the medium by
which the electronic signal is sent from one place
to another. In its simplest form, a medium can be
a pair of wires that carry voice signal from a
microphone to a headset, a coaxial cable which
is used to carry cable TV signals, or a twisted-pair
cable which is used in a local-area network (LAN).
It can also be a fiber-optic cable that carry the
message on a light wave or a free space. When
the medium is a free space, the resulting system
is known as radio, also called as wireless. There
are different characteristics of the channel that
can cause distortion, these are the noise
susceptibility, channel bandwidth, channel
timing variations, and channel resonance.
One characteristic that measures the
performance of the network is bandwidth.
Transmission channels has limited bandwidth.
The limitation arise from the transmission’s
medium limited bandwidth in order to prevent
interference from other sources. The pulse signal
is consists of a large number of frequency
components called harmonics which are located
at the multiples of the fundamental pulse
frequency. However, practical channels have
limited bandwidth. The higher frequency
components are eliminated that cause the shape
of the pulse delivered to the receiver to vary. For
a pulse to reach its full amplitude, the width of
the pulse must be greater than the rise time,
equation 1 shows the formula to compute the
rise time.
tr = 1/𝜋𝑏𝑤 equation 1
The channel bandwidth limits the rise time and
also determines the minimum pulse width. The
leftover energy from the previous pulse is called
intersymbol interference. The input signal of the
channel is changing its state before the output
can catch up. The energy that is left over from
the previous pulse provides the next pulse
another starting point that changes its final
voltage level. The process of filtering the
frequency components will reduce ringing but it
will make the pulse rise time increase.
This experiment mainly focused on channel
bandwidth and channel noise. The objective of
exercise 1 is to measure the channel simulator
bandwidth, to demonstrate how a pulsed signal
is affected by the passband of the channel, and
to describe the effect of channel resonance and
ringing.
For any data transmission event, the received
signal will consist of the transmitted signal,
modified by the various distortions imposed by
the transmission system, plus additional
unwanted signals that are inserted somewhere
between transmission and reception. This
undesired signals are referred to as noise. If the
noise power is much greater than the
transmitter signal power, the receiver will not be
able to reconstruct the receive message. The
ratio of the signal power to noise power is shown
in equation 2, this is an indication of how easily
a pulse can be detected. The signal-to-noise ratio
[SNR(db)] is the standard comparison between
the signal power and the noise average power, it
is an indication of how easily the pulses can be
detected.
SNR(db) = 10 x log (Ps/Pn) equation 2
Exercise 2 aims to measure the signal to noise
ratio, to demonstrate the effect of noise on PAM
signals and on PCM signals, and to compare the
noise sensitivity of PAM and PCM signals. The
PAM sampler has four equally spaced samples
during each cycle of the sine wave. The middle of
the first PAM sample occurs at about 10o and the
middle of its second sample occurs at 100o.
Equation 3 is used to calculate the rms voltage of
a series of pulses with equal magnitude.
Vrms = A(Tpw/T)1/2 equation 3
The square of the voltage ratio to find the power
ratio is the alternate form of the SNR(db)
formula. The power formula shown in equation
4 can be expressed as rms voltage squared
divided by the resistance. Substituting it to
equation 2 would result to equation 5.
P = V2/R equation 4
SNR(db) = 10 x log(Vs2/Vn2) equation 5
The PAM signals contains several pulses, each
having their own pulse amplitude and can be
analyzed separately and summed using the
square root of the sum of the squares. The
formula is shown in equation 6.
PAMrms = (Vrms12 + Vrms22 + … )1/2 equation 6
Another issue to the performance which is
related to delay is known as jitter. Jitter is a
problem if different packets of data encounter
different delays and the application using the
data at the receiver site is time-sensitive.
II. METHODOLOGY
In exercise 1, the M1 message signal was
connected to the SAMPLE 1 input and M2 was
connected to the SAMPLE 2 input in the PAM-
TDM block. Channel 1 was connected to the
ADDER output. The patch lead was used to
connect the PAM-TDM ADDER output to
CHANNEL SIMULATOR IN and the noise control
of the CHANNEL SIMULATOR was turned fully
counter clockwise in order to determine
whether the output of the CHANNEL SIMULATOR
was approximately the same as the PAM-TDM
transmitter output. The scope time base was set
to 2 us/DIV and the trigger level was adjusted
until each channel is displaying one positive-
going pulse. The CM switch 8 was turned on and
off to determine the effect of the CM on the
CHANNEL SIMULATOR’s bandwidth. The time
required for the output of the CHANNEL to reach
63% of the input of the CHANNEL was measured.
Also, the rise time required for the channel
output to change from 10% to 90% of the input
pulse height was measured to determine if the
pulse width is longer than the rise time using
equation 1. The SAMPLE HOLD 1 was connected
to FILTER 1 using a two-post connect and CH1 to
FILTER 1 output. The output of the CHANNEL
SIMULATOR was connected to the PAM-TDM
receiver input using a patch lead. CM 6 was
turned on and off to determine if the receiver
can recover the M1 message signal when the
channel bandwidth is 6 kHz. The rise time was
also calculated using equation 1. M1 was then
connected to CODEC 1 AX, CODEC 1 DX to
CHANNEL SIMULATOR IN, and CHANNEL
SIMULATOR OUT to CODEC 2 DR. The pulse
width of one PCM bit was measured. Channel 2
probe was connected to the AR output of CODEC
2 with scope time base set to 1 ms/DIV to slowly turned counter clockwise to remove the
determine if the scope displaying a 1 kHz distortion. The average rms voltage of the PCM
message signal. Channel 2 probe was moved to bytes was calculated using equation 3.
CHANNEL SIMULATOR OUT with scope time base
set to 5 us/DIV. The CM 8 was turned on and off III. RESULTS
to analyze why the output of CODEC 2 distorted
when CM is enable. It was assumed that the
reason behind this is due to intersymbol
interference, CODEC 2 cannot detect pulses, and
also the CHANNEL SIMULATOR BANDWIDTH is
too low.

In exercise 2, the PAM SAMPLER output was

connected to CHANNEL SIMULATOR IN,
CHANNEL SIMULATOR OUT to the PAM
reconstruction FILTER, and PAM SAMPLER input
to M2 message signal. The trigger source was set
to external, and the time base to 0.2 ms/DIV. The
channel 2 probe was connected to M2 with both
channel set to 1 V/DIV, time base to us/DIV,
input coupling of both channels to ground and
superimpose the traces in the center of the
display. Both channel was set to ac coupling. The
peak voltage of the M2 message signal was
measured. The pulse width and the time period
of the small PAM pulses was measured and the
duty factor was determined. The signal-to-noise
ratio (SNRdb) at the receiver’s input was
calculated using equation 2. Channel 2 probe
was connected to the output of the PAM FILTER
with 200 mV/DIV to determine if the recovered
message signal contains significant noise
distortion. M1 was connected to CODEC 1 AX,
CODEC 1 DX to CHANNEL SIMULATOR IN, and
CHANNEL SIMULATOR OUT to CODEC 2 DX. The
CHANNEL SIMULATOR noise control was
adjusted fully counter clockwise. The scope was
connected from external trigger (EXT) to M1,
channel 1 to CODEC 2 DX, CH 2 to CODEC 2 AR.
The CODEC 2 AR was connected to the input of
the SPEAKER AMP to hear the audio output. The
noise control of the CHANNEL SIMULATOR was
 V. REFERENCES

Frenzel, L. E., Jr. (2016). Principles of Electronics

Communication Systems (4th ed.). New York:
McGraw-Hill Education.

Forouzan, B. A. (2007). Data Communications

and Networking (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-
Hill Education.

Stallings, W. (2007). Data and Computer

Communications (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River,
New Jersey 07458: Pearson Education.

IV. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS AND Tomasi, W. (2004). Electronic Communication

CONCLUSION System. Pearson Education, Inc. Singapore.

It was analyzed that if the RC time constant is

high, the charge on the capacitor does not
decrease much. When the time interval between
pulses is long, however, the capacitor loses some
of its charge into the load, so the average dc
output is low. When the pulses occur rapidly, the
capacitor has little time between pulses to
discharge; the average voltage across it
therefore remains higher. The actual bandwidth
of a digital signal is infinite but many of the
components have such a small amplitude that
they can be ignored, therefore, the effective
bandwidth is finite. The capacity of the channel
increases with its bandwidth. It was also
analyzed that ringing will be reduce removing
frequency components near the resonant
frequency of the channel. It was also analyzed
that digital communication has noise immunity
because the noise amplitude must be much
higher than the signal amplitude to make a
binary 1 look 0 or vice versa. Digital transmission
uses signal regeneration process to generate a
clean output pulse.