SCHOOL ON DIGITAL RADIO COMMUNICATION FOR TRAINING & RESEARCH IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Dated: Wednesday, 11 February 2004

By: Rizwan Waheed
HYPERLINK "mailto:rwaheed@ictp.trieste.it" rwaheed@ictp.trieste.it
HYPERLINK "mailto:rizwan_waheed@hotmail.com" rizwan_waheed@hotmail.com
URL: HYPERLINK "http://www.geocities.com/uafweb" http://www.geocities.com/uafweb

It was the 3^rd day of school and the 1^st day at Giambiagi Lecture room. All our remaining lectures will now be held at this room.
At 09:00, one of the directors of the School Prof. Dr. R. Struzak along with the Prof. Dr. Bill Luther from FCC-USA started the activity. Due to some problem the other director Prof. Dr. S. M. Radicella did not join the activity this day.
After a little introduction, at 09:20 Mr. Grassberger gave the detailed introduction about the Computer Systems at ICTP. He told us about the facilities at ICTP like personal data area, user accounts, checking e-mails, web browsing, connecting laptops, CD-recording and printing. Although we had already received a guide for ICTP computers but this presentation proved very useful as we got the opportunity of asking questions. The important things mentioned by Mr. Grassberger were:
Proxies of ICTP:proxy.ictp.trieste.it port: 3128 & proxy1.ictp.trieste.it port: 3128
SMTP server: smtp.ictp.trieste.it
And the help desk opened from Mon-FRI (10:30-12:00 and 13:30-15:00)
One may personally visit them or may call at 353 and for very urgent matters/emergencies 999 or via web HYPERLINK "http://scs/support/" http://scs/support/
Then there was the coffee break and after this all the participants again gathered in the lecture room for taking an informative lecture on “Role of Radio in Technology Applications” from Prof. Dr. Luther. As usual his lecture was a mixture of information, and very important facts & figures. First he asked for the solution of problem given by him on 09th Feb to calculate the probability of collision of satellites in GSO. One of the participants Mr. Ruben, who is also a Junior Associate of ICTP solved the problem and supported his logic using the diagram (answer is 10^-12). Hard copy of the solution of problem was also distributed. Then the actual lecture started and Prof. Luther covered the following topics:
Relationship between spectrum management & wireless
International consensus
Wireless systems and new developments in Wireless spectrum
Mobile & Fixed wireless
Global positioning (GPS, GLONASS)
Satellite services and sharing with terrestrial systems
Satellite frequency bands (L, S, C, X, Ku, Ka, V Bands)
Access & markets
Due to shortage of time he changed slides very quickly but thanks to the ICTP, we got the hard copy of the material and we are able to go through it. He finished his lecture at 11:30 with these words on his last slide:
“History teaches us that when the regulator and operator are independent, competition is more robust, there is greater confidence in the market, higher levels of investment, increased incentive for innovation, and more rapid expansion”
At 11:30 Dr. Fitton from Altera, London-UK presented the first part of “Digital Modulation”. He gave the introduction and basics of Digital Modulation (DM), need of DM and different modulation schemes. Then he talked about the Shanon-Hartley Capacity Theorem and later he gave the comparison of different modulation schemes. He also discussed about the problems in wireless environment like noise, interference and mobile channel (SNR, BER). At last he told about the multi path environment and mentioned that the received signal in this environment is made up of a sum of attenuated, phase shifted and time delayed versions of the transmitted signal. The lecture was finished at 12:30, the time for LUNCH BREAK!
Once again we gathered at 14:00 for the lecture of Prof. Pietrosemoli from Venezuela. His topic was “Wi-Fi technology overview”. In his lecture he explained the Wi-Fi technology, IEEE standards (802.11, 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g). He added that 802.11b is top in the market but in the present scenario 802.11g is a better choice due to its down compatibility. Then he discussed about the elements of transmission systems, MAC management frames and channel overlapping. He finished at 15:00 and then Prof. Luther invited Prof. Dr. R. Struzak to present his lecture on “Introduction to Electromagnetic Compatibility & Interference Mitigation”. He told us very well about the electromagnetic compatibility and its importance, basic EMC standards and sources to find out these standards, EMC limits and its tests. Prof. Dr. R. Struzak explained the testing procedure of EMC with help of self explanatory pictures and gave some important web references for getting more details on EMC. The lecture finished at around 15:50 and after some questions we went for coffee break (from 16:00-16:30).
At 16:30, we assembled in Lab with a very nice person Mr. Carlo Fonda, who explained all the laboratory matters in a friendly way. On the 1st day of school itself, he had given us the printed manual to be used in our all lab matters during rest of the school. This manual is also available on the following link:
HYPERLINK "http://wireless.ictp.trieste.it/handbook/index.html" http://wireless.ictp.trieste.it/handbook/index.html
Mr. Carlo asked the participants to construct 5 groups of people of their own choice. After this grouping of the participants, each group was assigned a table with different equipments and 2 computers. Moreover he also gave two books to each group helpful for making the antennas.
He also informed us that each person will make his own antenna and will take it with him to his home country so that he can explain this to his students & colleagues.
He told us the safety measures in Labs and the basics of the RF including the introduction to frequency, measuring units of frequency, amplitude, frequency bands, bandwidth, wavelength, power and detailed introduction of decibel with examples. He also explained the advantages of using the dB. Librarians were also nominated who will be responsible for the books of the library in lab.
Eventually at 18:50 our session was finished after a break from 18:10-18:40.