Talk:Signal strength in telecommunications

Latest comment: 8 years ago by Number 57 in topic Requested move 3 May 2015

Untitled edit

Signal strength is in units of electric field strength, e.g. microvolts per meter, not per square meter. I have changed the units everywhere, but I don't know if the numbers are correct. The original author may have been confused by the fact that the power per unit area of a signal at a given frequency, in watts per square meter, is proportional to the square of the field, i.e. (V/m)^2. DMPalmer 21:41, 7 September 2006 (UTC)Reply


Can someone tell me if it is possible to increase the quality of reception on my radio. For example, I want to receive an FM station but it is very fuzzy, any way to fix this?

Sevenimage (talk) 08:19, 14 January 2008 (UTC) I believe that Signal Strength refers to power measured after conversion through an antenna and is measured in Watts (or dB). For Radio systems, since the signal strengths are relatively week, they are measured with reference to 1 mW, i.e. in dBm. Field Strength on the other hand is measured in dBμV/m. Field strength is converted to signal strength and vice versa.Reply


Can anyone explain why field strength measurements in dBµ are base 20? I know that in audio engineering, this is done because a "dBu" of audio really means "dB milliwatts into a 600 ohm load". Since the units are technically in watts, then by increasing the amplitude (voltage) of the signal by a factor of 10, you are increasing the watts by a factor of 100 (assuming a constant load impedance). With regards to radio signal field strength measurements, if a "dBµ" is supposed to be referenced to a field strength of 1 microvolt/meter, then 0.1 mV/m (100 µV/m) should be 20 dBµ, and 1 mV/m should be 30 dBµ. Thanks in advance. --RadioTheodric (talk) 20:33, 13 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Electric Field? edit

The article states ".. the magnitude of the electric field ..." Should it not be rather amplitude of the electromagnetic wave? Or the average electric field over some number of wavelengths? Why would one want to measure the magnitude of an electric field at a point in space when the wave that you are trying to measure has a constantly varying electric field? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xylog (talkcontribs) 09:43, 18 July 2010 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 3 May 2015 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Number 57 20:13, 10 June 2015 (UTC)Reply


Signal strengthElectric field strength – move Signal strength over here. --Relisted. George Ho (talk) 00:47, 10 May 2015 (UTC) Fgnievinski (talk) 02:17, 3 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

  • Oppose this is a telecom topic, where it is called "signal strength" -- "electric field strength" is a much more general topic -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 05:10, 4 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • That's fine by me. Though probably "telecommunications" would be better than the jargon term "telecom" -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 22:57, 4 May 2015 (UTC)Reply
Er, no it doesn't, it redirects to Electric displacement field. Where on my travels did I get that from then? Obviously these terms are all related by Maxwell's equations etc, so there's no question of the title just where best to put them: I think augmenting the DAB would be uncontroversial. Si Trew (talk) 13:21, 4 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.