Introduction

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Hi, welcome to an Introduction to Analog and Digital Communications course.

This course is divided into 3 Parts:

• Part A - Analog Communications (deals with transmitting analog signals)
• Part B - Digital Communications (deals with transmitting digital signals)
• Part C - Software Defined Radio (SDR) (all concepts done with computer)

Traditional books and engineering college classes that address digital communications start by describing a good amount of theoretical concepts that can be overwhelming to learners that are being exposed to this subject for the first time. Moreover, there is more than one way to explain this subject, different ways to express the same thoughts mathematically and it is very easy to get confused with which method to follow.

My goal is to present a different way to learn these concepts with the hope to equip the reader with tools to then use other resources and explore the topics that you found more interesting at your own without getting overwhelmed with the math involved in this field.

Remember, there are a lot of different ways to explain these concepts, I am offering one approach that hopefully can help digest more complex problems in the future.

With that in mind, I am using 3 tools to help with the study of communication concepts:

• Design: includes block diagrams, simulations, and/or schematics.
  
• Lad: includes building an experiment to observe what was designed.
  
• Theory: supports the findings and observations with mathematical concepts.
  

The majority of the topics will be explained in that particular order. However, there are instances that I will move around between those tools because some topics are better understood that way.

The icon that is below each tool is to help the learned identifying the respective section during the text.

The chosen order is not diminishing the theoretical aspect of the course but rather let the user be exposed to a concept based on a design (fostering an engineering mindset), and then complement what the user is experiencing in the lab with the theoretical concepts to support the findings.

If you find this icon in the text, that means that in front of it you have access to an interactive hyperlink so you can play around with a particular concept.

I hope you like it and let's dive in :)