Pilot signal

In telecommunications, a pilot signal is a signal, usually a single frequency, transmitted over a communications system for supervisory, control, equalization, continuity, synchronization, or reference purposes.

In FM stereo broadcasting, a pilot tone of 19 kHz indicates that there is stereophonic information at 38 kHz (19×2, the second harmonic of the pilot). The receiver doubles the frequency of the pilot tone and uses it as a phase reference to demodulate the stereo information.

If no 19 kHz pilot tone is present, then any signals in the 23-53 kHz range are ignored by a stereo receiver. A guard band of ±4 kHz (15-23 kHz) protects the pilot tone from interference from the baseband audio signal (50 Hz-15 kHz) and from the lower sideband of the double sideband stereo information (23-53 kHz). The third harmonic of the pilot (19×3, or 57 kHz) is used for Radio Data System.

In AM stereo, the bandwidth is too narrow to accommodate subcarriers, so the modulation itself is changed, and the pilot tone is infrasonic (below the normal hearing range, instead of above it) at a frequency of 25 Hz.