What are the Side-bands?...

Side bands are the sum and difference frequencies produced at the transmitter by the modulating frequencies. For instance a 5 kHz (5,000 Hz) Audio tone might be used to modulate an 800 kHz carrier frequency. This would produce frequencies of 800 kHz, 805 kHz and 795 kHz

What is Single Side Band (SSB) transmission?....

At full modulation the carrier in an AM signal requires two thirds of the power but conveys no information. The second side band can be viewed as rebundant (overlooking frequency-selective fading in an ionospheric transmission path, that may distort one side band at times). Interference between several carrier frequencies, resulting in steady audio whistles or 'beats' is another disadvantage of AM. Power may be saved and the band occupied by an AM signal in the frequency spectrum can be halved if only one side band is transmitted without carrier. The result is single side band suppressed carrier signal, called simply single side band signal (SSB) transmission. The carrier must be reintroduced at the receiver in such systems and closely adjusted to the original carrier frequency to avoid signal distortion. The introduced carrier carrier must be within 10 or 20 Hertz of the original carrier frequency for adequate intelligibility of voice signals, and stable oscillators are needed for generation of the local carrier. For SSB the transmitter does not need to generate carrier power, and ratings are in terms of peakenvelope-power (PEP), the power capability at the peak of the modulating signal with linearity

of the amplifier is maintained. For equal information content, and 100% modulation, the SSB signal requires only 1/6 th power of the double side band signal. However, the situation is even more favourable to SSB when speech is transmitted. Speech is not a continuous sine wave, and its average power is low with respect to its peak requirements. A peak-to-average power ratio of 10:1 is often assumed for speech, and under that condition, a Double Side Band (DSB) AM signal would require 1.05 times carrier power, whereas for equal intelligibility the SSB signal would require only 0.05 units of power or 1/21 as much. Because of the lower power rating, circuit components designed for SSB equipment can be smaller and lower in cost. For generation of a modulated signal without carrier, a balanced modulator is used. A filter then discards one side band.

RF Oscillator This is the stage where the carrier frequency intended to be used is generated by means of Crystal Oscillator Circuitry or capacitance-inductance based Variable Frequency Oscillator (VFO). The RF oscillator is designed to have frequency stability and power delivered from it is of little importance, hence can be operated with low voltage power supply with little dissipation of heat. Buffer Amplifier The low power RF carrier output from the RF oscillator is amplified in this portion and it also keeps the RF oscillator and power amplifier circuits separate electrically imparting frequency as desired by the amateur can be done in this stage, when the carrier frequency multiplication technique is applied here. In it the Morse key for keying out carrier continuous wave can be accomodated. Modulator Audio information is impressed upon the carrier frequency at this stage Balanced Modulator In this type of modulator, while the audio information (voice) is impressed upon the carrier frequency, at the same time its output gives a signal without carrier frequency but yet with the two side band frequencies carrying the voice/audio information. Side-band filter It discards out any one of the side band. RF linear Amplifier

RF power amplification is done here and this stage is coupled to the antenna system through antenna impedance matching circuitry. Care is taken at this stage so that no harmonic frequency is generated which will cause interference in adjacent band (splatter) on other bands.