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A great question!

We hear much about digital and analog signals and most people know nothing about the difference. Let's try to give some simple basics.

A digital piece of electronics is either on, or it is off, Black or white with no gray in between. Early electrical devices used 5 volts circuitry. If the five volts was there, we had a digital "on" condition. If the 5 volts was not there, we had a digital "off" condition. We could use this in many ways. One way was to call the "on" condition a mathematical "1" and the ansence if the voltage a "0". That means we could make electrical devices count to one! BIG DEAL? well, yes it was because that is how every computer out there works, as well as how the internet transfers all this cool stuff!

Analog is everything in between the "0" and the "1" of digital electronics. This an probably the most interesting area for most engineers that really know electronics. You may be able to save audio information in digital form, but your ear sure wants to hear it in analog. The ability to vary voltages between the full on and off of the divice requires more currents and more design abilities. All actual transmission of every radio or television signal is done through and analog transmitter. When you hear about the end of analog television and the new digital transmission, they are actually discussing the input to the analog transmitter.

The ability to decode digital transmissions on this analog signal allows us to use much more of the transmission band for the given device. A television signal that could only put out maybe 7 signals in analog now can carry many signals. That television station you are watching could also be sending a great deal of other information out! Even in analog we could send a dozen different things out "behind" that signal you could hear and see. "Muzak" (the elevator music) goes out "behind" these tv or radio signals (called sub carriers). Digital encoding of this information allows for many many times the sub carriers on a given station.

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