TELEMETRY BOOSTER

An information-carrying acoustic-pressure wave is generated in a wellbore using mud pulse telemetry. The information-carrying acoustic-pressure wave is converted, downhole, into an information-carrying electromagnetic wave and that wave is transmitted to the surface where it is received and the information extracted. A downhole repeater converts the acoustic-pressure wave and transmits the electromagnetic wave. The signal is received by an uphole/surface receiver. The repeater and/or the surface receiver may use an insulating gap. The electromagnetic signal is modeled as a leaky and noisy electronic circuit and the modeling results are used to select a spread spectrum transmission technique. The selected spread spectrum transmission technique is used to transmit the information-carrying electromagnetic signal at an increased rate of data transmission. The electronic noise and/or loss of signal energy are mitigated and a maximum transmission distance of the information-carrying electromagnetic signal is estimated using the modeling results.