Distortion, one of the reasons of transmission impairment, means a change in the shape of the received signal. A single sine wave is called a simple signal. On the other hand, a signal with multiple sine waves is called a composite signal. Distortion occurs in the composite signal.
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A sine wave has three parameters:
Peak amplitude
Frequency, and
Phase
Peak amplitude is the distance between the point of highest intensity and the point of zero intensity.
Frequency is the number of times a periodic signal repeat in 1 second. In this example, the signal repeats two times in 1 second, so the frequency is 2 Hz.
Phase describes the position of a wave relative to time 0. In this example, the phase shift is 0°.
The distance covered by a signal in one cycle is called its wavelength. It is calculated as propagation speed divided by the frequency of the signal.
The frequency of a signal is independent of the medium. However, the wavelength and the speed of the signal both depends on the medium and frequency.
A composite signal has multiple sine waves with different frequencies, so each component has different propagation speeds in the medium. Therefore, every component reaches the destination at different times. It creates a change in the signal's phase at the receiver compared to what they had at the sender. The shape of the composite signal is, therefore, different at the receiver.
It is called distortion.
Distortions can degrade or even severely disrupt a communication process. The effect of distortion can be neutralized by using equalizers.
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