TABLE OF CONTENTS Part 1 of this text, "Key Radio Concepts," is provided for readers who are not already familiar with the engineering principles of radio and how they apply to cellular systems. It also will benefit radio experts in two ways. First of all, it will help our readers explain these concepts to people in other fields and to businesspeople. Second, today's code division multiple access (CDMA) wireless technology is built on a series of developments going back over 30 years. It is easy to be expert in a system and not to know where it came from or to have an in-depth knowledge of how it works. However, in understanding the history of our field and the challenges faced by our predecessors, we gain a deeper expertise, improving our ability to handle the problems we face today.
Chapter 1, "Radio Engineering Concepts," defines the fundamentals of radio, including frequency, amplitude and power, and modulation. It also includes explanations of multiple access and modulation, a description of how a radio signal is altered by an antenna and by the space between the transmitter and receiver, and how we calculate signal power through those changes.
In Chapter 2, "Radio Signal Quality," we discuss impairments...
