9. Whats a decade? A bandwidth, where the higher band is 10x the lower band (100 MHz - 1
GHz).
10. Skin effect? The signal is reported on the surface of the object, but not inside, e.g. a solid brick
wall.
11. VSWR? Voltage Standing Wave Ratio. The numeric representation of the device leak, written like
X:1 where X is greater when the leak is greater and 1:1 is the absolute no-leakage VSWR.
12. Describe an impedance matching circuit. A circuit capable of changing the impedance with
different values for incoming and outgoing impedance.
13. Describe circular polarization. The signal travels both vertically and horizontally.
14. Whats the job of the amplifier? To increase the incoming signal.
15. What is noise figure? The level of noise that a low-noise amplifier (LNA) is capable of
discriminating.
16. Whats a transfer curve? It is a graph of the output power versus the input power of an amplifier.
17. Whats the 911 point? The point where the input power results in flames on the other end.
18. Whats saturation point? The point where the amplifier loses its linearity of the transfer curve.
19. What does balanced amplifier consist of? Two amplifiers stuck together.
20. What is the filters function? To filter out all the unwanted radio signals.
21. What filter types are there? Low-pass (all frequencies below are allowed to pass in), high-pass,
bandpass (all frequencies of a given bandwidth are allowed) and band-reject.
22. What are saw filters used for? Very low frequency filtering.
23. What are mixers used for? To change the frequency of the signal.
24. Whats a superheterodyne receiver? Its a receiver that uses two mixers in a row.
25. Describe VCO. Voltage-controlled oscillators change the frequency of the produced sine wave
depending on the voltage they receive.
26. Who is responsible for PLLs? Phase-locked loops are done by synthesizer, that samples the
sine wave and if its not good enough, changes it.