decibel milliwatt
Sign in to saveAlso known as dBm, decibel milliwatts
thumb|A schematic showing the relationship between dBu (the [[voltage source) and dBm (the power dissipated as heat by the 600 Ω resistor)]] dBm or dBmW (decibel-milliwatts) is a unit of power level expressed using a logarithmic decibel (dB) scale respective to one milliwatt (mW). It is commonly used by radio, microwave and fiber-optical communication technicians & engineers to measure the power of system transmissions on a log scale, which can express both very large and very small values in a short form. dBW is a similar unit measured relative to one watt (1000 mW) rather than a milliwa
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thumb|A schematic showing the relationship between dBu (the [[voltage source) and dBm (the power dissipated as heat by the 600 Ω resistor)]] dBm or dBmW (decibel-milliwatts) is a unit of power level expressed using a logarithmic decibel (dB) scale respective to one milliwatt (mW). It is commonly used by radio, microwave and fiber-optical communication technicians & engineers to measure the power of system transmissions on a log scale, which can express both very large and very small values in a short form. dBW is a similar unit measured relative to one watt (1000 mW) rather than a milliwatt.
The decibel (dB) is a dimensionless unit, used for quantifying the ratio between two values, such as signal-to-noise ratio. The dBm is also dimensionless, but since it compares to a fixed reference value, the dBm quantity is an absolute one.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “decibel milliwatt” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.