On Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:17:20 -0500, Rich Griffiths
wrote:

Shannon's equations provide most of the answers:
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/...rt8/page1.html

Shannon's equations don't actually tell you much that's useful, as a
Ham.

This would presume that the Ham is rather indifferent or incapable.
Shannon's work is exceedingly useful, and at the core, quite simple to
perceive which further illuminates those mediocre qualities of your
Ham. It is unfortunate that the link above offers no graphs by which
Shannon's points would become startling apparent.

For instance:
http://www.aero.org/publications/cro...ages/04_04.gif
shows how signal to noise ratio has a vast effect over bit error in
digital transmission. In the face of equal powers (noise and bit
level), you would run the odds of 1 bit in 10 being mistaken (pretty
good odds, actually). If you were to raise the power in the bit by
10dB, that would fall to 1 bit in a million being mistaken.

In the same graph, Shannon reveals how, if you code your bits (I will
leave it to the student to discover the meaning of that), you could
achieve the same 1:1000000 advantage with the addition of less than 1
dB of power boost.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC