telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

, the term degree of start-stop distortion has the following meanings: # In

asynchronous serial communication Asynchronous serial communication is a form of serial communication in which the communicating endpoints' interfaces are not continuously synchronized by a common clock signal. Synchronization ( clock recovery) is done by data-embedded signal ...

data transmission Data communication, including data transmission and data reception, is the transfer of data, signal transmission, transmitted and received over a Point-to-point (telecommunications), point-to-point or point-to-multipoint communication chann ...

, the ratio of (a) the

absolute value In mathematics, the absolute value or modulus of a real number x, is the non-negative value without regard to its sign. Namely, , x, =x if x is a positive number, and , x, =-x if x is negative (in which case negating x makes -x positive), ...

of the maximum measured difference between the actual and theoretical intervals separating any significant instant of

modulation Signal modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform in electronics and telecommunication for the purpose of transmitting information. The process encodes information in form of the modulation or message ...

(or

demodulation Demodulation is the process of extracting the original information-bearing signal from a carrier wave. A demodulator is an electronic circuit (or computer program in a software-defined radio) that is used to recover the information content fro ...

) from the significant instant of the start element immediately preceding it to (b) the

unit interval In mathematics, the unit interval is the closed interval , that is, the set of all real numbers that are greater than or equal to 0 and less than or equal to 1. It is often denoted ' (capital letter ). In addition to its role in real analysi ...

. # The highest absolute value of individual

distortion In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signal ...

affecting the significant instants of a start-stop modulation. The degree of distortion of a start-stop modulation (or demodulation) is usually expressed as a percentage. Distinction can be made between the degree of late (positive) distortion and the degree of early (negative) distortion.

References

{{FS1037C Telecommunications engineering Data transmission