Microwave Advanced Training:

Microwave Advanced Training Course

In this Microwave Advanced Training course, you will learn both the technology and applications of line-of-sight microwaves. We will review elements of microwave link design, including digital radio and RF channel characteristics. You will also learn aspects of microwave link control, management, testing, standards, and practical deployment issues. This comprehensive Microwave Advanced Training review will give you the tools necessary to design and analyze any microwave link.

Microwave links are a key part of the world’s communications infrastructure. The tremendous growth in wireless services is made possible today through the use of microwaves for backhaul in wireless and mobile networks and for point-to-multipoint networks. For anyone involved with telecommunication and information technology, understanding this technology is of fundamental importance.

What’s Included?

• 2 days of Microwave Advanced Training with an expert instructor
• Microwave Overview Electronic Course Guide
• Certificate of Completion
• 100% Satisfaction Guarantee

Resources

Related Courses

Customize It:

• If you are familiar with some aspects of Microwave Advanced Training, we can omit or shorten their discussion.
• We can adjust the emphasis placed on the various topics or build the Microwave Advanced Training course around the mix of technologies of interest to you (including technologies other than those included in this outline).
• If your background is nontechnical, we can exclude the more technical topics, include the topics that may be of special interest to you (e.g., as a manager or policy-maker), and present the Microwave Advanced Training course in a manner understandable to lay audiences.

Objectives:

After completing this Microwave Advanced Training course, attendees will be able to:

• Understand the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of this field
• Describe in detail how this technology works
• Identify the appropriate applications for microwave line-of-sight (LOS) links, from cellular backhaul to WiMax
• List the key components of digital radio and LOS links and describe how they fit together
• Plot a path profile and ensure sufficient clearance over obstacles in the path
• Predict multipath fading and calculate path reliability
• Analyze and design a microwave system

Microwave Advanced Training – Course Syllabus:

Introduction

• Microwave and other radio systems: Microwave versus copper cable, fiber optics, and leasing services
• Microwave frequency bands
• Regulatory matters: Rules, regulations, and recommendations; radio licenses and permits.
• Regulatory agencies (FCC or your national body)

Characteristics of Voice, Data, and Video

• Combining various signals
• Channelizing the radio spectrum: Frequency, time, and code division multiple access (FDMA, TDMA, CDMA)

History of Analog Microwave Radio

• Frequency Division Multiplex (FDM) techniques and hierarchies
• L Carrier and ITU frequency plans

Digital Transmission Systems

• Sampling theory
• Time Division Multiplex (TDM) techniques and hierarchies
• North American and ITU digital hierarchies
• Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy (PDH)
• Synchronous networks (SDH/SONET)

Digital Power Spectra and Bandwidths

• Bandwidth definitions and requirements
• Nyquist and another shaping
• Regulatory masks
• Baseband data signals
• Filtering and roll-off factors

Digital Modulation

• Amplitude, frequency, and phase shift keying (ASK, FSK, PSK)
• Binary versus M-ary modulation
• QPSK, Offset QPSK, and p/4 QPSK
• Minimum Shift Keying (MSK)
• QAM and Trellis Coded Modulation (TCM)
• Orthogonal FDM (OFDM)

Line of Sight Transmission

• Free space loss
• Effect of terrain
• Reflection and diffraction
• Fresnel zones and path profiles
• Clearance requirements

Effects of Climate

• Refraction and variations in radio refractivity (N factor)
• Snell’s law and the effective earth radius (K factor)
• Rain attenuation; specific rain rate and effective path length; ITU rain attenuation model
• Other atmospheric attenuation
• Prediction of the outage using computer models

Fading

• Multipath fading
• Reflection and diffraction causes
• Rayleigh, Rician, and log-normal statistics of fading
• Multipath propagation models; Barnett-Vigants observations; ITU models
• Diurnal and seasonal variations

Effect of Fading on Digital Radio

• Flat versus frequency selective fading
• Minimum versus non-minimum phase fading
• M and W curves
• Flat, dispersive, and composite fade margins
• Calculation of estimated outage using computer models

Equalization

• Linear versus non-linear equalization
• Transversal filter
• Zero-forcing equalization versus minimum mean-square error
• Decision feedback equalization and training equalizer

Antennas and Diversity

• Antennas types and parameters: Gain, directivity, radiation pattern, polarization, beamwidth
• Waveguide types and characteristics: Rectangular, circular
• Diversity types: Space, frequency, angle, polarization, hybrid
• Diversity combination and improvements over non-diversity systems

Forward Error Correction

• Definition of coding types and coding gain
• Types of block codes with examples: CRC and Hamming codes
• Convolutional coding and Viterbi decoding, with example
• Interleaving and turbo codes

Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) Coordination

• Interference analysis for co-channel and adjacent-channel
• Carrier-to-Interference (C/I) ratio
• Threshold-to-interference (T/I) ratio
• Manual and computer-aided design for intra- and inter-system interference
• Frequency planning
• Satellite and other external interference
• Detailed analysis of a terrestrial RFI case

Performance Objectives

• Single link, tandem link, and end-to-end objectives
• S. and ITU standards and recommendations
• Availability and error rate objectives
• Measurements of bit error rate, eye patterns, and jitter

Acceptance Testing and Performance Monitoring

• Factory tests; BER testing
• Use of the spectrum and link analyzers
• Propagation instrumentation
• On-line performance measurement
• Fade margin testing
• Fault isolation and performance monitoring

Path Engineering

• Manual and computer-aided design
• Site selection, mapping, path profile generation, and analysis
• Reflection point analysis
• Selection of components to meet performance objectives
• Software examples; hands-on exercise designing paths; analysis of problem path
• Use of digitized terrain data from USGS Digital Elevation Models for path profiles

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