ECE

NIT Puducherry
Communication Theory
Dr. Thomas Joseph

ABCDEF
August 16, 2022
Communication Theory (EC301)

1. Define modulation.

2. Explain why modulation is necessary or desirable. [Assignment Qn]

3. Name the circuit that causes one signal to modulate another, and give the names of the two
signals applied to this circuit.

4. In AM, how does the carrier vary in accordance with the information signal?

5. True or false? The carrier frequency is usually lower than the modulating frequency.

6. What is the outline of the peaks of the carrier signal called, and what shape does it have?

7. What are voltages that vary over time called?

8. Write the trigonometric expression for a sine wave carrier signal

9. True or false? The carrier frequency remains constant during AM.

10. What mathematical operation does an amplitude modulator perform?

11. What is the ideal relationship between the modulating signal voltage Vm and the carrier voltage
Vc ?

12. What is the modulation index called when it is expressed as a percentage?

13. Explain the effects of a modulation percentage greater than 100.

14. What is the name given to the new signals generated by the modulation process

15. What is the name of the type of signal that is displayed on an oscilloscope?

16. What is the type of signal whose amplitude components are displayed with respect to frequency
called, and on what instrument is this signal displayed?

17. Explain why complex nonsinusoidal and distorted signals produce a greater bandwidth AM
signal than a simple sine wave signal of the same frequency.

18. What three signals can be added to give an AM wave?

19. What is the name given to an AM signal whose carrier is modulated by binary pulses?

20. True or false? The modulating signal appears in the output spectrum of an AM signal.

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21. What percentage of the total power in an AM signal is in the carrier? One sideband? Both
sidebands?

22. Does the carrier of an AM signal contain any information? Explain

23. What is the name of a signal that has both sidebands but no carrier?

24. What is the name of the circuit used to eliminate the carrier in DSB/SSB transmissions?

25. What is the minimum bandwidth AM signal that can be transmitted and still convey all the
necessary intelligence?

26. State the four main benefits of SSB over conventional AM.

27. An AM wave displayed on an oscilloscope has values of Vmax = 4.8 and Vmin = 2.5 as read
from the graticule. What is the percentage of modulation? [Assignment Qn]

28. What is the ideal percentage of modulation for maximum amplitude of information transmission?

29. To achieve 75 percent modulation of a carrier of Vc = 50 V, what amplitude of the modulating

signal Vm is needed? [Assignment Qn]

30. The maximum peak-to-peak value of an AM wave is 45 V. The peak-to-peak value of the
modulating signal is 20 V. What is the percentage of modulation? [Assignment Qn]

31. What is the mathematical relationship of the carrier and modulating signal voltages when
overmodulation occurs?

32. An AM radio transmitter operating on 3.9 MHz is modulated by frequencies up to 4 kHz.

What are the maximum upper and lower side frequencies? What is the total bandwidth of the
AM signal? [Assignment Qn]

33. What is the bandwidth of an AM signal whose carrier is 2.1 MHz modulated by a 1.5-kHz
square wave with significant harmonics up to the fifth? Calculate all the upper and lower
sidebands produced. [Assignment Qn]

34. How much power appears in one sideband of an AM signal of a 5-kW transmitter modulated
by 80 percent? [Assignment Qn]

35. What is the total power supplied by an AM transmitter with a carrier power of 2500 W and
modulation of 77 percent?

36. An AM signal has a 12-W carrier and 1.5 W in each sideband. What is the percentage of
modulation? [Assignment Qn]

37. An AM transmitter puts a carrier of 6 A into an antenna whose resistance is 52 Ω. The

transmitter is modulated by 60 percent. What is the total output power? [Assignment Qn]

38. The antenna current produced by an unmodulated carrier is 2.4 A into an antenna with a
resistance of 75 Ω. When amplitude-modulated, the antenna current rises to 2.7 A. What is
the percentage of modulation? [Assignment Qn]

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39. A ham transmitter has a carrier power of 750 W. How much power is added to the signal when
the transmitter is 100 percent modulated?

40. An SSB transmitter with a carrier of 2.3 MHz is modulated by an intelligence signal in the
150-Hz to 4.2-kHz range. Calculate the frequency range of the lower sideband. [Assignment
Qn]

41. A subcarrier of 70 kHz is amplitude- modulated by tones of 2.1 and 6.8 kHz. The resulting
AM signal is then used to amplitude-modulate a carrier of 12.5 MHz. Calculate all sideband
frequencies in the composite signal, and draw a frequency- domain display of the signal. Assume
100 percent modulation. What is the bandwidth occupied by the complete signal? [Assignment
Qn]

42. Explain how you could transmit two independent baseband information signals by using SSB
on a common carrier frequency.

43. An AM signal with 100 percent modulation has an upper sideband power of 32 W. What is
the carrier power?

44. Can an information signal have a higher frequency than that of the carrier signal? What would
happen if a 1-kHz signal amplitude- modulated a 1-kHz carrier signal?

45. The unmodulated carrier power in an AM transmitter is 5 kW. This carrier is modulate by a
sinusoidal modulating signal. The maximum percentage of modulation is 50%. If it is reduced
to 20%, then the maximum unmodulated carrier power (in kW) that can be used without
overloading the transmitter is

46. Suppose the nonlinear devices are available for which the output current io and input voltage
vi are related by io = avi + bvi3 where a and b are constants. Explain how these devices may
be used to provide (a) a product modulator (b) an amplitide modulator (Part of assignment)

47. The circuit diagram of a square -law modulator is shown below. The signal applied to
the nonlinear device is relatively weak, such that it can be represented by a square-law:
v2 (t) = av1 (t) + bv12 (t), where a and b are constants, v1 (t) is the input voltage and v2 (t)
is the output voltage. The input voltage is given by v1 (t) = Ac cos(2πfc t) + m(t) where m(t)
is a message signal and Ac cos(2πfc t) is the carrier.
(a) Evaluate the output voltage v2 (t)
(b) Specify the frequency response of the tuned circuit shown in the figure must satisfy in order
to generate an AM signal with fc as the carrier frequency
(c) What is the amplitude sensitivity of this AM signal (Part of assignment)

48. A carrier wave of peak voltage 12V is used to transmit a message signal. What should be the
peak voltage of the message signal in order to have a modulation index of 75 %?

49. A modulating signal is a square wave as shown below. The carrier signal c(t) = 2 cos(8πt).
Find the modulation index and draw the modulated signal. [Assignment Qn]

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Figure 1: Circuit for question no 47

Figure 2: Message signal for question no 49

50. For an amplitude modulated wave the maximum voltage is found to be 10 V and minimium
voltage is 2 V. What is the modulation index. What is the value of modulation index for the
minimum amplitude to be zero?

51. Due to economic reasons in an AM system only the upper sideband is transmitted. At the
receiver side there is a device to generate the carrier. Show that if a device is available to
multiply these signals we can recover the message signal?

52. The block diagram of a simple AM modulator is shown. Identify the boxes A and B and write
down thier functions?

Figure 3: Block Diagram for question no 52

53. A DSB-SC signal is given as the input to the single balanced modulator and double balanced
ring modulator (discussed in the class). We are interested to filter out the message signal.
Show that the output of ring modulator is twice that of single balanced modulator output.

54. In the system shown in Figure below, m(t) is a low-pass signal with bandwidth B Hz. The
frequency response of the band-pass filtershown in the figure is H(f). If it is desired that the
output signal z(t) = 10x(t), the maximum value of B (in Hz) should be strictly less than

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[Assignment Qn]

Figure 4: Block Diagram for question no 54

55. In the figure, M(f) is the Fourier transform of the message signal m(t) where A = 100 Hz
and B = 40 Hz. Given v(t)=cos(2πfc t) and w(t)=cos(2π(fc + A)t), where fc > A. The
cutoff frequencies of both the filters are fc . The bandwidth of the signal at the output of the
modulator (in Hz) is? [Assignment Qn]

Figure 5: Block Diagram for question no 55

56. In a double side-band (DSB) full carrier AM transmission system, if the modulation index is
doubled, then the ratio of total sideband power to the carrier power increases by a factor of ?

57. Consider the amplitude modulated (AM) signal Ac cos ωc t+2 cos ωm t cos ωc t. For demodulating
the signal using envelope detector, the minimum value of Ac should be?

58. An AM signal s(t) = 20(1 + 0.9 cos(2π · 103 t)) cos(2π · 106 t). The signal is radiated into space
using an antenna whose resistance is 5 Ω. Sketch the spectrum, calculate BW, total power
radiated and modulation efficiency

59. An AM signal is represented in time domain as s(t) = 4 cos(1800πt) + 10 cos(2000πt) +

4 cos(2200πt). Sketch the spectrum and calculate the total power, BW, and efficiency?

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60. A carrier signal c(t) = 5 cos(2π · 106 t) is modulated by a message signal m(t) = 4 cos(8π · 103 t)
to generate an AM signal. Sketch the spectrum and calculate the BW, power and efficiency?
[Assignment Qn]

61. A carrier signal 5 cos(2π·106 t) is modulated by a message signal m(t) = cos(4π·103 t) to generate
an AM signal with modulation index of 0.5. Calculate BW and power, Also determine the
quantity PSB /PC . [Assignment Qn]

62. An AM transmitter radiates 50W when the carrier is modulated by a sinusoidal signal with a
modulation index of 0.707. Determine the efficiency, Carrier power and side band power, peak
amplitude of the carrier before and after modulation

63. 10 signals each bandlimited to 5 kHz are transmitted through a channel after modulation using
FDM. The guardband is 2 kHz. Determine the bandwidth of the multiplexed signal? (a) If
all the modulators are AM (b) If all the modulators are DSB-SC (c) If all the modulators are
SSB [Assignment Qn]

64. 4 signals each bandlimited to 5 kHz, 10 kHz, 10 kHz, and 15 kHz are transmitted through a
channel simultaneously after modulation. The modulators used are AM, DSB-SC, SSB and
SSB. Assume a guard band of 2 kHz. Determine the bandwidth of the multiplexed signal?

Student’s name: End of exam