AM Reception

FIGURE 5-1

Tomasi
Electronic Communications Systems, 5e

Simplified block diagram of an AM receiver

Copyright 2004 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
All rights reserved.

 Demodulation reverse process of

modulation
DSBFC simply converts modulated
signal back to original source information.
To do this requires receiving, amplifying,
demodulating, bandlimiting and filtering.
Refer Figure 5.1

 From Figure 5.1

Functions:
RF section/Receiver Front end:
Mixer/converter:
Intermediate Freq: freq between RF and
information freq.

IF section: amplify & selectivity

AM detector: demodulates
Audio section:

Receiver Parameters

To evaluate the ability of the receiver performance

to demodulate signal

1. Selectivity: ability to accept a given band of

freq & reject all others.

Shape Factor

2. Bandwidth Improvement: ability to reduce

bandwidth to minimize noise.

BI

3. Sensitivity: Minimum RF signal level that can

be detected at the i/p & still be able to be
demodulated.

SNR
Threshold

4. Dynamic Range: difference in dB bet.

Min. i/p level necessary to distinguish a
signal and the i/p level to overdrive the rx
& create distortion.
5. Fidelity: ability to produce at the o/p of rx
an exac replica of the original source
info.
6. Insertion Loss
7. Noise

 AM Receiver Types
TRF
Superhetrodyne

Tuned-Radio-Frequency (TRF) Receiver

The TRF receiver is the simplest receiver

that meets all the basic requirements.

Drawbacks of TRF Receivers

Difficulty in tuning all the stages to exactly
the same frequency simultaneously.
Very high Q for the tuning coils are
required for good selectivity BW=fo/Q.
Selectivity is not constant for a wide range
of frequencies due to skin effect which
causes the BW to vary with fo.

FIGURE 5-4

Tomasi
Electronic Communications Systems, 5e

AM superheterodyne receiver block diagram

Copyright 2004 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
All rights reserved.

Antenna and Front End

The antenna consists of an inductor in the
form of a large number of turns of wire
around a ferrite rod. The inductance forms
part of the input tuning circuit.
Low-cost receivers sometimes omit the RF
amplifier.
Main advantages of having RF amplifier:
improves sensitivity and image frequency
rejection.

Mixer and Local Oscillator

The mixer and LO frequency convert the
input frequency, fc, to a fixed fIF:
Refer
to
page
171

High-side injection: fLO = fc + fIF

IF Amplifier, Detector, & AGC

IF Amplifier and AGC

Most receivers have two or more IF stages
to provide the bulk of their gain (i.e.
sensitivity) and their selectivity.
Automatic gain control (AGC) is obtained
from the detector stage to adjusts the gain
of the IF (and sometimes the RF) stages
inversely to the input signal level. This
enables the receiver to cope with large
variations in input signal.

Diode Detector Waveforms

Sensitivity and Selectivity

Sensitivity is expressed as the minimum
input signal required to produce a
specified output level for a given (S+N)/N
ratio.
Selectivity is the ability of the receiver to
reject unwanted or interfering signals. It
may be defined by the shape factor of the
IF filter or by the amount of adjacent
channel rejection.

Shape Factor

B60dB
SF
B6 dB

Image Frequency
One of the problems with the superhet
receiver is that an image frequency signal
could interfere with the reception of the
desired signal. The image frequency is
given by:
fimage = fsig + 2fIF
where fsig = desired signal.
An image signal must be rejected by
tuning circuits prior to mixing.

Image Frequency Rejection

For a tuned circuit with a quality factor of
Q, then the image frequency rejection is:

IR 1 Q x
2

x
In dB,

f im age
f sig

where,

f sig
f im age

IR (dB) = 20 log IR

Principle of Mixer & Local

Oscillator
In Superhetrodyne Receiver

Function
Take the signal from the RF stage (antenna &
front end) & convert it to the IF (intermediate
frequency)
Mixing two signal frequencies produces SUM (+)
and DIFFERENCE (-)
LO produces very stable & pure sine waves.
LO frequency changes according to the desired
frequency (carrier frequency) + IF (which is
fixed).
Hence, if the receiver is tuned to a new desired
frequency, LO frequency automatically changed
so that the difference between the new desired
frequency & LO frequency is maintained.

How things work in LO & Mixer

Example:
Desired radio station frequency = 1MHz
Bandwidth = 20kHz
Hence,
3 components of the AM signal are:
Lower sideband = 990kHz
Carrier freq. = 1MHz or 1000kHz
Upper sideband = 1010kHz

 When go into the mixer, they will mix with the

LO signal, say of 0.8MHz.
The result will be the SUM & the
DIFFERENCE:
990 800 = 190 & 1790 kHz (mixing of lsb)
1000 800 = 200 & 1800 kHz (mixing of carrier)
1010 800 = 210 & 1810 kHz (mixing of usb)

DIFFERENCE = (190, 200, 210)

SUM = (1790, 1800, 1810)
No information is loss it just being
converted to a new set of frequencies.

 Now say we want to tune to another channel

which is 0.2MHz higher than the first radio
channel.
New desired signal = 1.2 MHz
To track the new set of input frequency, LO
frequency is increased by 0.2 MHz, to 1MHz.
New output of mixer then equals to
1190 1000 = 190 & 2190 kHz
1200 1000 = 200 & 2200 kHz
1210 1000 = 210 & 2210 kHz

DIFFERENCE = (190, 200, 210)

SUM = (2190, 2200, 2210)

 Now, let us look back the set of frequencies

for the first channel (1MHz) & for the second
channel (1.2MHz)
1MHz radio station:
DIFFERENCE = (190, 200, 210)
SUM = (1790, 1800, 1810)
SAME

1.2MHz radio station:

DIFFERENCE = (190, 200, 210)
SUM = (2190, 2200, 2210)

 This is the uniqueness of superhetrodyne receiver:

The DIFFERENCE between received frequency component
and LO frequency is always the same regardless of what the
tuned frequency is.
This DIFFERENCE is known as INTERMEDIATE
FREQUENCY (IF).
So.
Since all tuned signals (or radio channels) now have the
same IF value, regardless of where they are in the
received band (say 20 channels in a bandwidth range
from 50MHz to 150MHz), the receiver is designed to
handle signals of this frequency (IF) ONLY.

 Compared to the TRF receiver, if the first channel

is at 50MHz & we want to change to a new
channel at 100MHz, TRF must shift +50MHz to get
the new channel.
In superhetrodyne, IF is maintained and only LO
frequency is changed, but its OK because LO is
very stable & easy to control.

 What about the SUM?

It is easily eliminate by having a Bandpass
Filter that remove the SUM (which is a set
of high frequency components) & only
allow the DIFFERENCE to pass through.

Image Frequency Problem

Say the IF used in AM system = 455kHz
Channel that we interested to = 25MHz
But there are also another unwanted signal
from other transmitter at 24.09MHz
Normally, RF amplifier will allow both signals
At mixer & LO,
LO frequency = 25MHz - 455kHz (low tracking)
= 24 545kHz
The DIFFERENCE for both signals will be
Channel A = 25000 24545 = 455 kHz
Unwanted signal = 24545 24090 = 455 kHz!!

 In other words, an undesired signal on the

other side of the LO output will have the same
difference frequency and pass into the IF
amplifier.
This undesired signal image frequency.
From the previous example (25MHz signal vs
24.09MHz image signal), they are so close &
will be very difficult to filter out by RF amplifier
Solution: Use higher IF frequency (like
10.7MHz) for higher desired signal

 Using higher IF = 10.7MHz

Desired signal = 25MHz
LO frequency = 25MHz-10.7MHz
= 14.3 MHz
The image freq. for this desired signal should
also gives IF = 10.7MHz when mixed with LO
freq = 14.3MHz
Hence, image freq. = 14.3 -10.7MHz
= 3.6MHz
Desired signal (25MHz) and its image
frequency (3.6MHz) is further apart & hence it
is easier to be filtered at RF amplifier.

 Image signal is not a problem when a

455kHz IF is used for the low AM
broadcast band. Why?