Unit 2: The Wireless Section
Lesson 11: Communications Systems, EM Spectrum and Signals
(a) Understand the basic components of a communications channel and the impact on security of using free space as a communication medium.
(b) Identify communication applications for bands of the electromagnetic spectrum ranging from extremely low frequency (ELF) to extremely high frequency (EHF).
(c) Define the basic properties of a periodic electromagnetic signal (period, frequency, wavelength, phase, and amplitude) and describe their mathematical relationship.
(d) Understand the relationship between the time domain and frequency domain representations of a signal.
Lesson 12: AM Modulation and Power
(a) Define baseband signal and describe some potential limitations associated with transmitting baseband signals.
(b) Define modulation.
(c) Discuss the role of modulation in signal transmission and the methods of modulating a sinusoidal carrier.
(d) Determine the sidebands, bandwidth, modulation index, and percentage modulation of an
AM signal.
(e) Determine when overmodulation exists for an AM signal.
(f) Describe the relationship of the sideband power to the total AM signal power.
Lesson 13: Gain (dB), Noise, and Tuned Circuits
(a) Define gain and attenuation and describe their application to wireless communication.
(b) Calculate power gains for single and multiple stage systems. Describe what a Watt is.
(c) Express power gain in decibels.
(d) Express power levels in dBW/dBm and other reference levels.
(e) Discuss noise as interference in a communication scheme. Calculate signal to noise ratio
(SNR).
(f) Identify critical frequencies and power ratios in a graph of a bandpass filter.
Lesson 14: Signals, Fourier, and RLC Tuned Circuits
(a) Explain the how Fourier analysis can be used to represent any periodic signal as a sum of sinusoids.
(b) Define fundamental frequency and harmonics, and identify them on a frequency domain plot.

(b) List the basic types of filters (bandpass, band-reject, low pass and high pass) and their characteristic frequency plots.
(d) Given the frequency domain representation of an input signal, determine the frequency domain representation of the output signal for each of the four types of filters.
(c) Given an RLC series circuit, determine resonant and cutoff frequencies, bandwidth, circuit impedance, and Q.
Lesson 15: Antennas
(a) Describe the role of the antenna in a wireless communication system.
(b) Use the four parameters associated with the design of three antennas to solve design problems.
(c) Determine an antenna's gain relative to an isotropic point source (dBi).
(d) Explain the relationship between an antenna's beamwidth and gain.
(e) Compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of directional antennas, specifically a Yagi antenna.
(f) Describe the role of directors and reflectors in the design of a directional antenna.
(g) Interpret an antenna's radiation pattern to determine the side lobe level in dB.
Lesson 16: Propagation
(a) Define reflection, refraction and diffraction.
(b) Describe the characteristics of ground waves, sky waves, and space waves.
(c) Calculate the radio horizon distance for space waves based on antenna height.
(d) Compute received power level for a communication system.
(e) Describe the effects of the Path loss over log distance.
Lesson 17: Analog to Digital Conversion
(a) Provide examples of analog and digital communications systems.
(b) Describe the advantages of digital over analog communications.
(c) Discuss the basic steps of the analog-to-digital conversion process: Sampling and quantizing.
(d) Given an analog waveform, sampling rate, and resolution, determine the resulting binary
A/D output.
(e) Calculate the Nyquist sampling rate for an analog signal.
Lesson 18: Bandwidth and Multiplexing
(a) Explain why multiplexing techniques are necessary in telemetry, telephone systems, radio, and TV broadcasting and internet access- various communication systems.
(b) Describe spatial multiplexing

(c) Describe how frequency division multiplexing (FDM) and time division multiplexing
(TDM) allow multiple signals to be transmitted over the same channel
(d) Trace the steps in the transmission and reception of multiplexed signals.
Lesson 19: Digital Modulation
(a) Quantitatively describe the relationship between a symbol and a bit and the Bit Rate and the Baud Rate.
(b) Describe how digital information is conveyed using various digital modulation techniques
(ASK or OOK, FSK, PSK and QAM) and recognize their waveforms, bandwidth, and constellations.
(c) Using a phase diagram analyze a M-ary PSK signal to determine its symbols and bits per symbols.
(d) Discuss the effect of noise on M-ary PSK and how Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
(QAM) overcomes these detrimental effects.
Lesson 20: Electronic Warfare
(a) Define and provide an example of Electronic Warfare (EW) and its three major subdivisions: Electronic Protection (EP), Electronic Support(ES) and Electronic Attack
(EA).
(b) Define Time of Arrival (TOA) and calculate an emitter’s location based on TOA.
(c) Define Jamming to Signal ratio (J/S) and calculate the necessary power to jam an emitter.
Lesson 21: Spread Spectrum-Jamming Mitigation
(a) Describe the purpose of spread spectrum, the challenges it overcomes, and the advantages it provides for EW and commercial applications of digital communication.
(b) Describe the difference between Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) and Direct
Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) in terms of data and frequencies.
(c) Analyze the engineering factors associated with an FHSS signal (e.g., dwell time, bandwidth, data rate, etc.).
(d) Analyze the engineering factors associated with a DSSS signal (e.g., processing gain, chipping rate, data rate, etc.).
Lesson 23: Error Detection/Correction
(a) Define channel coding.
(b) Discuss the difference between error detecting codes and error correcting codes. Provide examples of each.
(c) Explain the concept of code rate and perform calculations to determine code rate.
(d) Describe the purpose of parity codes and how they can be implemented with XOR gates.
(e) Given a message transmission with a parity bit, determine if a bit error has occurred.
(f) Describe the purpose and applications of cyclic redundancy check (CRC) codes.
(g) Determine the number and location of Hamming bits.

(h) Perform encoding and decoding of Hamming code words and determine location of single bit errors.
(i) Describe the purpose and applications of Reed-Solomon codes.
Lesson 24: Wireless Technologies
(a) Define Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) and Personal Area Networks (PAN) and some of the technologies and their applications.
(b) Discuss the standards for Wi-Fi 802.11 and the history of the different protocols and their specific characteristics.
(c) Describe the differences between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and their advantages and disadvantages.
(d) Describe the differences between Bluetooth and ZigBee.
(e) Perform a Man-in-the-Middle Attack Lab using three Xbees .