Spring 2027

Communication Systems II

Communication Systems II covers statistical analysis of information transmission, receiver design for AWGN and bandlimited channels, spread spectrum, channel capacity, and error control coding.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Paul Milenkovic2.6/5

Summary

1 / 3

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.67 GPA, 88.9% A/AB (n=9 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.93 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=22 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.82 GPA, 90.9% A/AB (n=11 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Formulate baseband and carrier-modulated waveforms for digital communication including PAM, PSK, QAM and OFDM

  • Apply inner product space concepts and the theory of optimal receivers to map waveforms to signal constellations

  • Determine performance resulting from sub-optimal receivers

  • Calculate exact and upper-bounded probability of error of a digital communication system from a signal constellation

  • Quantify inter-symbol interference in a band-limited digital communication system

  • Evaluate the performance of a forward error correction code

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

(E C E 203 or 330), graduate/professional standing, or member of Engineering Guest Students

    • ECE 203
    • ECE 330
    • graduate/professional standing, or member of Engineering Guest Students
    take one
ECE 437

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Any of
    • ECE 203
    • ECE 330
    • graduate/professional standing, or member of Engineering Guest Students

Professors

Spring 2027
Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 2.27/5 from 63 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.67 GPA, 88.9% A/AB (n=9 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.93 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=22 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.82 GPA, 90.9% A/AB (n=11 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

PAUL MILENKOVIC is recorded teaching in Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 250

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
Download part 1

Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.67 GPA, 88.9% A/AB (n=9 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.93 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=22 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.82 GPA, 90.9% A/AB (n=11 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Receiver design for digital transmission through AWGN and bandlimited channels
  • Spread spectrum communication systems
  • Channel capacity, source and error control coding
  • Inter-symbol interference in band-limited digital communication

Skills

  • Formulating baseband and carrier-modulated waveforms for digital communication (PAM, PSK, QAM, OFDM)
  • Applying inner product space concepts and optimal receiver theory to map waveforms to signal constellations
  • Calculating exact and upper-bounded probability of error for digital communication systems
  • Evaluating the performance of forward error correction codes

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Not enough comparable courses for Spring 2027 in UW–Madison.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
ECE 437 · Spring 2027

Communication Systems II

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:320:006376",
    "course_id": "ECE 437",
    "course_uid": "course_8882696e9f9c3fba0f0ea447",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "006376",
    "source_subject_id": "320",
    "title": "Communication Systems II",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Spring"
  }
]
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Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "e64007d8b39e88da7cc0b930075c3fcefedb3ea178121561c2fadc2350b99c8d",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}