Target audience:

This course is designed for those who require an introduction to the fundamental technical concepts that underpin modern telecommunications. The course is suitable for those joining the industry in a technical role especially those in an apprenticeship.

 

Course prerequisites:

An understanding of the basic properties of analogue and digital signals, electrical circuit theory and the effects of signal impairments. It is recommended that the PTT courses "Analogue and digital signals" and "Signal impairments" are studied before attempting this course.

 

Course objectives:
By the end of this course you will be able to:

• explain the importance of achieving maximum power transfer over a transmission line.
• explain the conditions for maximum power transfer over copper cables with reference to the cable's characteristic impedance.
• describe the use of logarithmic units to express power loss, gain and level.
• explain how a balanced pair of wires provides a higher immunity to interference.
• describe the characteristics and applications of twisted pair and coaxial copper cable.
• explain the principles and characteristics of optical fibre transmission.
• give examples of the use of optical fibre cables in telecommunications systems.
• describe the various propagation modes of radio waves.
• describe the characteristics and applications of wireless communications in the various frequency bands.

 

Number of modules: 4 
Approximate study time: 5 hours 

Download and view the course specification in Adobe PDF format

 

Delivery platform requirements:
To access the course, a computer running a browser such as Google Chrome, Safari etc is required. The computer should have Internet access and be running Adobe Flash. A screen resolution of at least 1024x768 is necessary.