A terrestrial microwave transmission is a electromagnetic signal transmission technology in which a beam of radio signals from one ground - base microwave transmission is focused to another station with the help of antenna. Microwave operate on the frequency range from 1 GHz to 1000 GHz. Microwaves are unidirectional as the sending and receiving antenna should be aligned to establish communication. Microwave transmission works on the principle of line of sight (LOS) i.e, the receiver must face in the direction of sender.
The characteristics of terrestrial microwave are:
- Frequency Range : The range of frequency is from 1 GHz to 1000 GHz
- Bandwidth : It supports the bandwidth from 1 to 10 Mbps
- Range : It works best on short range and is cheap to use in short ranges. While it requires a higher tower for a longer distance and can become more expensive.
- Attenuation : Attenuation means the loss of signal. The signals can also be affected by environmental conditions and the size of receiving antenna.
There are some advantages of terrestrial microwave as well.
- Microwave transmission is cheaper than using cables.
- It is free from land acquisition as it does not require any land of the installations of cables.
- Microwave transmission provides an easy communication in terrains as the installation of cable in terrain is quite a difficult task.
- Communication over oceans can be achieved by using microwave transmission.
On the other hand there are some disadvantages of microwave transmission:
- Eavesdropping: An eavesdropping creates insecure communication. Any malicious user can catch the signal in the air by using its own antenna.
- Out of phase signal: A signal can be moved out of phase by using microwave transmission.
- Susceptible to weather condition: A microwave transmission is susceptible to weather condition. This means that any environmental change such as rain, wind can distort the signal.
- Bandwidth limited: Allocation of bandwidth is limited in the case of microwave transmission.