what is meant by the word bandwidth in electronics.How its meaning varies in different situations(communication chanel, conductor,Transmission line).What does meant by FM radio transmission has infinite bandwidth.
In: Engineering
The original meaning of the word bandwidth, and the way it’s still used in signal processing, is the difference between maximum and minimum frequencies that are being used for communications. Everything has finite bandwidth, because you can’t communicate with 0 frequency or infinite frequency. In practical terms, your bandwidth is limited because the radio spectrum is shared, and each person communicating only gets a little bit.
FM radio stations for example, are limited to frequencies between 88 to 108 MHz. Each station must be at least 0.2 MHz appart, further limiting the bandwidth available to each station.
There is the Shannon–Hartley theorem, that predicts the maximum communication rate, based on bandwidth and signal to noise ratio.
speed = bandwidth * log2 ( signal / noise )
Therefore maximum theoretical communication speed is directly proportional to speed. More bandwidth = more speed.
This has caused the word bandwidth in general speech has come to mean the same as communications speed.
It’s common to says something like. “My download speed is too slow, I need more bandwidth”
Which technically, you may not be getting any additional frequencies or ‘more bandwidth’, it’s just your internet provide removing an artificial limit on your account.
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