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47 votes
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Why can so little digital information be stored on a cassette tape?

I had heard that tape is still the best medium for storing large amounts of data. well, "best" is always a reduction to a single set of optimization parameters (e.g. cost per bit, ...
Marcus Müller's user avatar
11 votes
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Why do we integrate the modulating function in FM?

You need to integrate the modulating signal because frequency is the time derivative of phase. Therefore, the typical relationship from introductory calculus holds: $$ \phi_i(t) = \int_{-\infty}^{t} \...
Jason R's user avatar
  • 24.7k
11 votes
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Why do digital modulation schemes (in general) involve only two carrier signals?

Ah! They don't generally involve only two degrees of freedom. The ones you've been looking at mostly have, but that's not because they're the only ones used or taught. Chances are you'll meet one or ...
Marcus Müller's user avatar
8 votes

Why can so little digital information be stored on a cassette tape?

High-capacity tape formats use helical scanning. Here I look at why that gives a higher capacity than linear recording with four tracks (one stereo track on each side) like in a compact cassette (C-...
Olli Niemitalo's user avatar
8 votes

I'm missing something when it comes to understanding FM

In addition to the perspective offered in @Ash's answer, Claude Shannon touches on FM in his paper "Communications in the Presence of Noise" (Proceedings of the IRE, January 1949). He ...
TimWescott's user avatar
  • 12.9k
7 votes

FSK and IQ modulation

What is the advantage of performing the FSK using IQ modulation? You only need one RF oscillator operating at a single frequency, instead of having 2 (or more in the case of M-ary FSK) oscillators ...
GordonFreeman's user avatar
6 votes
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Recommendation for good ressources on digital processing and D-QPSK

Wow, I'm honored by Matt L. doing what I'm often doing: Referring people to GNU Radio. The project actually has a list of recommended literature, but I don't know how well that'd fit you. It's ...
Marcus Müller's user avatar
6 votes
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Difference between FFSK and FSK modulation schemes

Fast FSK is just another term for minimum-shift keying (MSK). In the modern literature, the term fast FSK has been almost completely replaced by MSK. There is a very good tutorial paper on MSK by S. ...
Matt L.'s user avatar
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5 votes

How does the RaspberryPi radio hack convert digital GPIO signals to an FM signal?

First, the answer to why you do not see a negative voltage is that the output being digital will range from 0 to the maximum digital voltage at the output (+Vs). This will have a DC offset of +Vs/2 ...
Dan Boschen's user avatar
  • 53.8k
5 votes
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Quadrature modulation for FM and AM

Both amplitude and frequency modulated radio signals nowadays use quadrature modulation and demodulation as a mean to transfer and receive radio signals. This question is ill-defined – a signal ...
Marcus Müller's user avatar
5 votes

What is the mixed numerology in OFDM

In general, it means several waveforms will coexist in 5G ecosystem. In the context of LTE-based 5G (up to now), several subcarrier spacings (hence CP) coexist. The first and foremost motivation for ...
AlexTP's user avatar
  • 6,650
5 votes

Why can so little digital information be stored on a cassette tape?

You have already selected your answer, but I would like to put a few more lines. First of all, objecting to Marcus, I think that your first assumption is correct! We can store one hour of almost CD ...
Fat32's user avatar
  • 28.4k
5 votes

I'm missing something when it comes to understanding FM

Large modulation indexes are preferred because the signal-to-noise ratio has a cubic dependence on modulation index ($\beta$). $$SNR_{FM}=3\beta^2(\beta+1) CNR$$ Where CNR is the carrier-to-noise ...
Ash's user avatar
  • 945
4 votes
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Simplified equations for FM (frequency modulation) synthesis and PM (phase modulation)?

If $t$ is time, $s(t)$ is the (appropriately scaled) signal, $\omega_0$ is the angular frequency, and $\phi_0$ is a phase offset, then phase modulation is $$ t \mapsto \sin(\omega_0 t + \phi_0 + s(t)) ...
hmakholm left over Monica's user avatar
4 votes

FSK and IQ modulation

There are many ways of demodulating the FSK signal Indeed! What is the advantage of performing the FSK using IQ modulation? Depends. Generally, IQ is the only shape you have your signal in, so ...
Marcus Müller's user avatar
4 votes
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How to convert sampled real audio signal to it's IQ components for IQ modulation?

I’ll answer the question I think you’re asking here: If you have a real valued signal that came right out of an A/D and you’d like to recover signal phase, you can use the Hilbert transform to ...
vintagevogue's user avatar
4 votes
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How to estimate the frequency characteristics of a nonlinear chirp?

How about just using $\dfrac{d\phi}{dt}$ to compute the instantaneous frequency? GNU Octave code (I just made up a sample rate of 2 Msps): ...
Andy Walls's user avatar
  • 2,710
4 votes
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Positive slope of BER with a greater frequency deviation?

This could happen as discriminator gain is increased with a filter discriminator approach since in many of those approaches the gain would be maximum and linear for small signals only and then the ...
Dan Boschen's user avatar
  • 53.8k
4 votes

Why can so little digital information be stored on a cassette tape?

Typical cheap cassette tape recorders and players in the 1970's used audio circuitry that did not have a completely flat frequency response and added a lot of phase distortion (mostly inaudible to ...
hotpaw2's user avatar
  • 35.6k
3 votes
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Frequency modulation of $m(t)$ in MATLAB

Integration was incorrect. I was integrating it with $dx= 1$. Doing m(j)*1/Fsoperation in the for loop, I have made $dx= 1/Fs$ now. As can be seen, frequency ...
Uygar Uçar's user avatar
3 votes
Accepted

How does the RaspberryPi radio hack convert digital GPIO signals to an FM signal?

I just skimmed https://github.com/SaucySoliton/PiFmRds/blob/master/src/pi_fm_rds.c#L454 and from what that code looks like, it initializes a clock generator to run at an adjustable clock. Then, it ...
Marcus Müller's user avatar
3 votes

Impact of modulation index in FM

Assuming an FM modulation of a sine wave of frequency $f_m$. Theoretically, the modulated signal is an infinite sum of cosines at the frequencies $f_c + nf_m$ ($n\in \mathbb{Z}$) which the amplitudes ...
Sofiane's user avatar
  • 178
3 votes

difference between GMSK (Gaussian Minimum shift keying) and GFSK (Gaussain frequency shift keying)

With GMSK, the frequency modulation index is 0.5. With GFSK, the frequency modulation index is larger than 0.5 (the signaling tones are farther apart). The receiving techniques used for GMSK as an FSK ...
Andy Walls's user avatar
  • 2,710
3 votes

Biquad cookbook formula for broadcast FM de-emphasis?

Taken from this excellent RDS tutorial, and original source: De-emphasis filter, $H(s) = \frac {1} {RC.s + 1}$, implemented as IIR filter via a bilinear transform: ...
mins's user avatar
  • 473
3 votes

Biquad cookbook formula for broadcast FM de-emphasis?

You could also implement a 2nd order IIR filter which has response of 1st order filter by using some other TF but one used in RBJ's cookbook. Here's one way to do it using MZT (C++). ...
Juha P's user avatar
  • 927
3 votes
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FM demodulation with arctan

The $\arctan2()$ function has a jump at $\pm\pi$ which will cause problems when trying to compute a derivative. Since you're using the first difference discrete derivative approximation to compute $d\...
Andy Walls's user avatar
  • 2,710
3 votes

How to isolate overlapping FM signals?

What if they did all use the same carrier? What you're describing is a single-frequency network (SFN). These are in common use for things that are not stupid FM broadcast. The whole truth is that ...
Marcus Müller's user avatar
3 votes
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About phase unwrapping

The problem comes from sampling the phase. For the given phase function, the changes in the phase from one value $t_i$ to the next one $t_{i+1}$ can become too large, so phase unwrapping will not work ...
Matt L.'s user avatar
  • 91.2k
3 votes

Homodyne and heterodyne detection

I'll assume AM DSB modulation for simplicity, but the same idea applies to quadrature modulation. I'll assume that the received signal has been properly bandpass filtered. I'll also ignore noise and ...
MBaz's user avatar
  • 15.4k
3 votes
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FM synthesis algorithm is not very efficient

I think you're overthinking the integrator: Since your $s$ is a discrete signal in itself (you're doing DSP!!), the integral $S(T) = \int\limits_0^T s(t) \,\mathrm dt$ of it at any time $T$ actually ...
Marcus Müller's user avatar

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