Wireless Signals

Wireless Signals

IT 242

8/20/2012

Wireless Signals

In phyics it is said that no empty space is truly empty. This was hard for some to understand during the golden age of physic but in the here and now one only has to look toward their own wireless network to see how this concept can be understood in a practical way. Within a simple home network you router sends an invisible wireless signal through the air to a receiver that picks it up and uses the data to connect to the internet or to communicate with another device. This is only one example but in a technologically advanced world there are bound to be a multitude of ways to send and receive data. It is no different for wireless technologies, specifically wireless signals. There are four types of wireless signals that I will be discussing in this paper; infrared, satellite, microwave, and radio.

Infrared is a kind of signal that uses led’s and ild’s to transmit signals to devices that use photodiodes to receive the signals, usually operating in ranges from 100 ghz to 1000thz. These signals are invisible to the naked human eye and are only noticeable, without specialized instruments, to those with electromagnetic sensitivity. Infrared signals can be a cost effective way to transmit data depending on the scale of the network but is best when used in small scale operations or in an ad-hoc network setup in a single room. Infrared signals need a clear line of sight and thus cannot pass through physical barriers, such as walls, and can be obstructed by natural occurrences such as rain or fog.

Microwave signals are a common type of signal that has multiple uses, from cooking your TV dinner to long distance communications. Most major communication providers use microwave signals for long distance telecommunications transmissions as it is an excellent way to send data across long distances when using cables or wires would be extremely costly. A company could use microwaves in this way to send signals to employees...