Carrier Frequency

Carrier frequency is a technical term used to indicate:

  • In telecommunication systems
    • Vaguely speaking, the center frequency or the frequency of a carrier wave (radio wave)
    • The "nominal frequency" or the center frequency of an analog frequency modulation, phase modulation, or double-sideband suppressed-carrier transmission (DSB-SC) (AM-suppressed carrier), radio wave
    • In very technical language: The frequency of the unmodulated electromagnetic wave at the output of a conventional amplitude-modulated (AM-unsupressed carrier), or frequency-modulated (FM), or phase-modulated (PM) radio transmitter
    • In very technical language: The nominal frequency or center frequency of various kinds of radio signals with digital modulation -- provided that the message bit stream is a random uncorrelated sequence of equally probable ones and zeroes ("marks" and "spaces")
  • In molecular biology
    • The rate of occurrence within a living population of a broken chromosome that causes a genetic disorder

Famous quotes containing the words carrier and/or frequency:

    The problems of society will also be the problems of the predominant language of that society. It is the carrier of its perceptions, its attitudes, and its goals, for through it, the speakers absorb entrenched attitudes. The guilt of English then must be recognized and appreciated before its continued use can be advocated.
    Njabulo Ndebele (b. 1948)

    The frequency of personal questions grows in direct proportion to your increasing girth. . . . No one would ask a man such a personally invasive question as “Is your wife having natural childbirth or is she planning to be knocked out?” But someone might ask that of you. No matter how much you wish for privacy, your pregnancy is a public event to which everyone feels invited.
    Jean Marzollo (20th century)