EEC 429 Microwaves Antennas And Radio Frequencies Exam 2026

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EEC 429: First Semester Examination for EEC429, Microwave Antennas and Radio frequencies, University of Buea, Course Masters Dr WONTCHUI and Dr MBIEDA, February 2025/2026, 2 hours. Section A (32 marks): microwave communication, microwave link design considerations, a link-design process flowchart (interference analysis, path loss, fade-margin, and availability calculation stages), loss/attenuation contributions, link budget definition and factors, fading types, PON/GPON definitions and reasons, GPON system constituents (OLT/ODN/ONU), GPON multiplexing mechanisms (WDM, TDMA), optical access networks, burst vs continuous GPON technologies, and dynamic bandwidth assignment. Section B (38 marks): definitions (microwave antenna, sectoral horn, first Fresnel zone, clearance), antenna characteristics, horn antenna applications and types, parabolic reflector properties and feed structures, horn-flaring purposes, a horn antenna power-gain calculation (10x5cm aperture at 6GHz, eta=0.55), and a full parabolic-reflector problem (3m dish at 5GHz: effective area, directivity, half-power beamwidth/beamwidth-between-nulls, and reflector depth), plus a case study on the step-by-step microwave link design procedure and designing a 1GHz Camtel Buea-UB campus link using Radio Mobile software.