I am confused about using in and on for the following sentence:
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I have two channels only. Concurrent transmissions on both channels will cause problem.
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I have two channels only. Concurrent transmissions in both channels will cause problem.
A channel here is a wireless link, which is not visible. I am talking about two cellphone users who are trying to make calls simultaneously. However, there are only two channels available and both cannot be used at the same time.
Can anyone please explain which one is more currect and why?
Best Answer
Strictly speaking, one transmits over a channel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem
In practice, you'll find that both on and in are also being used, albeit less frequently:
n-gram
However, there may be a nuance: for example, a TV engineer might say my station transmits on Channel 5, but we are now transmitting a test in our UHF channel.