Comm - Chapter 4 Radio Receiver

CHAPTER 4
RADIO RECEIVER
• In radio communications, a radio receiver is an electronic device that

receives radio waves and converts the information carried by them to a
usable form.
• It is used with an antenna. The antenna intercepts radio waves
(electromagnetic waves) and converts them to tiny alternating currents
which are applied to the receiver, and the receiver extracts the desired
information.
• The receiver uses electronic filters to separate the desired radio frequency
signal from all the other signals picked up by the antenna, an electronic
amplifier to increase the power of the signal for further processing, and
finally recovers the desired information through demodulation.
• The information produced by the receiver may be in the form of sound (an
audio signal), images (a video signal) or data (a digital signal). 1
AM RECEIVERS
•AM receivers are used to receive DSB-FC or normal AM signals .These is

commercial receivers and are based on the super heterodyne principle.
Super heterodyne AM radio receivers
• In super heterodyne radio receivers, the incoming radio signals are
intercepted by the antenna and converted into corresponding currents and
voltage.
• In the receiver, the incoming signal frequency is mixed with a locally
generated frequency.
• The output of the mixer consists of the sum and difference of the two
frequencies. The mixing of the two frequencies is termed as heterodyning.
2
Cont.
• Out of the two resultant components of the mixer, the sum

component is rejected and the difference component selected.
• The value of the difference frequency component varies with
the incoming frequencies, if the frequency of the oscillator is
kept constant.
• It is possible to keep the frequency of the difference
components constant by varying the frequency of the local
oscillator according to the incoming frequency.
• In this case the process is called super heterodyning and the
receiver is known as a super heterodyne radio receiver.
3
Cont.
•Basically, the receiver consists of a radio-frequency (RF) section, a mixer and

local oscillator, an intermediate-frequency (IF) section, demodulator, and
power amplifier.
• Figure shows the block diagram of a super heterodyne receiver for
amplitude modulation using an envelope detector for demodulation
4
Cont..
•In fig .the receiving antenna intercepts the radio signals and feeds the RF
amplifier.
•The RF amplifier selects the desired signal frequency by rejecting all
unwanted signals and Amplifies the weak RF signals to a suitable high level.
The RF amplifier is a small signal voltage amplifier that operates in the RF
range.
• After suitable amplification of the RF signal, it is fed to the mixer.
• The mixer takes another input from a local oscillator which generates a
frequency according to the frequency of the selected signal so that the
difference equals a predetermined value.
5
Cont..
•The mixer consists of a nonlinear device such as a transistor .Due to the
nonlinearity; the mixer output consists of a number of frequency components.
•It provides sum and difference frequency components along with their
higher harmonics.
•A tuned circuit at the output of the mixer selects only the difference
components while rejecting all other components.
•The difference component is called the intermediate frequency (IF). The
result of the heterodyning is to produce an intermediate-frequency carrier
defined by: FIF = FLO - FRF
6
Cont..
•Where FLO is the frequency of the local oscillator and F RF is the carrier
frequency of the incoming RF signal.
•We refer to FIF as the intermediate frequency (IF), because the signal is neither
at the original input frequency nor at the final baseband frequency.
•The IF section provides most of the amplification and selectivity in the
receiver.
•The output of the IF section is applied to a demodulator, the purpose of which
is to recover the baseband signal.
•The mixer local oscillator combination is sometimes referred to as the first
detector, in which case the demodulator is called the second detector.
7
Cont..
•The audio amplifier stage consists of an audio driver stage and an audio
output power amplifier stage.
•The audio driver is a single stage small signal amplifier that provides drive
to the output power amplifier .
•The output of the power amplifier is given to the speaker that produces the
sound signal.
8
FM receivers
Super heterodyne FM radio receivers
• The basic difference between AM and FM super heterodyne receivers lies in the use of
an FM demodulator such as limiter and frequency discriminator
• Figure . shows the block diagram of a super heterodyne receiver for Frequency
modulation
9
Cont..
• In figure , the RF amplifier amplifies the received signal by the

antenna.
•The amplified signal is then applied to the mixer stage. The second
input of the mixer comes from the local oscillator.
•The two input frequencies of the mixer generate an If signal .This
signal then amplified by the IF amplifier.
•The output of the IF amplifier is applied to the limiter .The limiter
removes the noise in the received signal and gives a constant
amplitude signal.
10
Cont..
•The output of the limiter is now applied to the FM discriminator, which

recovers the modulating signal.
•However, this signal is still not the original modulating signal. Before
applying it to the audio amplifiers stages, it is de –emphasized.
•De-emphasizing attenuates the higher frequencies to bring them back to
their original amplitudes as these are boosted or emphasized before
transmissions.
•The output of the de-emphasized stage is the audio signal, which is then
applied to the audio stages and finally to the speaker.
• Automatic Gain Control (AGC) AGC is a system that controls the increase
in the amplitude of an electrical signal from the original input to the
amplified output, automatically. 11
Cont..
•The following table shows typical frequency parameter of AM and FM radio
receivers.
12

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CHAPTER 4

• In radio communications, a radio receiver is an electronic device that

•AM receivers are used to receive DSB-FC or normal AM signals .These is

• Out of the two resultant components of the mixer, the sum

•Basically, the receiver consists of a radio-frequency (RF) section, a mixer and

• In figure , the RF amplifier amplifies the received signal by the

•The output of the limiter is now applied to the FM discriminator, which

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