Analogue and digital signals course

The course is designed to be studied as preparation for the other courses in the StarTel suite. The six StarTel courses together support the achievement of a Telecommunications or Communications Technology NVQ at level 3.
This course introduces the characteristics and capabilities of the signals used in communications systems and the impairments that limit communications.

Prerequisites:

Study of Physics or Additional Science at secondary (high) school level.

Summary of topics covered:

Basic principles and characteristics of the passive components of an electrical circuit.

Characteristics of analogue signals; explanation of the terms level, frequency and bandwidth.

Expressing loss in decibel units; explanation of the advantages of using decibel units.

Characteristics of AC circuits containing inductance and capacitance; concepts of impedance and resonant frequency.

Causes and effects of analogue impairments including loss, delay, noise, distortion, echo and crosstalk.

Definition and significance of signal to noise ratio.

Advantages of digital signals; explanations of bits, bytes and bit rate.

Relationship between the bandwidth of a link and the maximum achievable bit rate.

Causes of errors including noise, jitter and dispersion; measurement of error performance; concept of noise margin.


Number of modules: 8
Approximate study time: 7 hours

Download and view the StarTel course summary in Adobe PDF format