Broadcast transmitter

A broadcast transmitter refers to an installation used for broadcasting, including radio transmitter or television transmitter equipment, the antenna, and often the location of the broadcasting station.

In broadcasting and telecommunication, the part which contains the oscillator, modulator, and sometimes audio processor, is called the "exciter". Most transmitters use the heterodyne principle, so they also have frequency conversion units. Confusingly, the high-power amplifier which the exciter then feeds into is often called the "transmitter" by broadcast engineers. The final output is given as transmitter power output (TPO), although this is not what most stations are rated by.

Effective radiated power (ERP) is used when calculating station coverage, even for most non-broadcast stations. It is the TPO, minus any attenuation or radiated loss in the line to the antenna, multiplied by the gain (magnification) which the antenna provides toward the horizon. This antenna gain is important, because achieving a desired signal strength without it would result in an enormous electric utility bill for the transmitter, and a prohibitively expensive transmitter. For most large stations in the VHF- and UHF-range, the transmitter power is no more than 20% of the ERP.

For VLF, LF, MF and HF the ERP is typically not determined separately. In most cases the transmission power found in lists of transmitters is the value for the output of the transmitter. This is only correct for omnidirectional aerials with a length of a quarter wavelength or shorter. For other aerial types there are gain factors, which can reach values until 50 for shortwave directional beams in the direction of maximum beam intensity.

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