Analog signals are composed of continuous waves that can have any values for frequency and amplitude. These waves are smooth and curved.
Radio transmissions are a combination of two kinds of waves: audio frequency waves that represent the sounds being transmitted and radio frequency waves that "carry" the audio information. All waves have a wavelength, an amplitude and a frequency as shown in the figure. These properties of the wave allow it to be modified to carry sound information.
The two most common types of modulation used in radio are amplitude modulation (AM) and frequency modulation (FM). Frequency modulation minimizes noise and provides greater fidelity than amplitude modulation, which is the older method of broadcasting . Both AM and FM are analog transmission systems, that is, they process sounds into continuously varying patterns of electrical signals which resemble sound waves.
