Including Common Stage (e.g., Local Oscillator) Patents (Class 455/141)
  • Patent number: 4688264
    Abstract: An AM/FM receiver provided with an automatic tuning system is disclosed. The receiver includes an AM receiving section having an AM intermediate frequency stage, an FM receiving section having an FM intermediate frequency stage, a selection circuit selecting either one of signals derived from the AM and FM intermediate frequency stages, and a counter counting the frequency of the signal selected by the selection circuit. As a result, the presence of a broadcasting station for the automatic tuning operation is detected by the count value of the counter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 25, 1985
    Date of Patent: August 18, 1987
    Assignee: NEC Corporation
    Inventor: Masami Miura
  • Patent number: 4667243
    Abstract: A television (TV) receiving system includes a first TV receiver for receiving TV signals in a first range of frequencies, such as are used for cable, VHF and UHF broadcasting including a frequency synthesizer type local oscillator. The frequency synthesizer uses a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) controlled by a tuning voltage responsive to a first frequency feedback signal. The receiver includes a coupling arrangement for adapting the receiving system for use with an external plug-in unit including a second TV receiver for receiving TV signals in a second range of frequencies, such as are used for direct broadcast satellite (DBS) signals. The second TV receiver provides a second frequency feedback signal. The receiving system includes a multiplexer for selectively coupling one of the first and second frequency feedback signals to the frequency synthesizer for controlling the VCO.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 1985
    Date of Patent: May 19, 1987
    Assignee: RCA Corporation
    Inventors: Harold Blatter, David J. Carlson
  • Patent number: 4656642
    Abstract: In a spread-spectrum direction-finding system, the outputs of the several antenna elements (10a-d) are progressively translated in frequency by a chirped local oscillator (14) and mixers (12a-d) and applied to a two-dimensional dispersive filter (18), which time compresses the results of single-frequency components in the antenna-element outputs to narrow pulses. Limiters (24a-d) remove any strong narrow-band components that are compressed by the dispersive delay line (18) so that further processing to detect a spread-spectrum signal is not degraded by the presence of narrow-band signals. The use of a common two-dimensional delay line (18) to provide the time compression avoids the need to maintain phase tracking among a plurality of separate parallel one-dimensional dispersive delay lines.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 18, 1984
    Date of Patent: April 7, 1987
    Assignee: Sanders Associates, Inc.
    Inventors: John T. Apostolos, Chester E. Stromswold
  • Patent number: 4584716
    Abstract: A radio receiver capable of receiving signals on at least two different frequencies at the same time is described. A hetrodyne frequency is selected midway between the frequencies and an intermediate frequency is selected at a frequency equal to one half of the difference of the frequencies to be received.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 1984
    Date of Patent: April 22, 1986
    Assignee: Honeywell Inc.
    Inventor: Cornell Drentea
  • Patent number: 4539710
    Abstract: A diversity telemetry receiver having plural spaced antennas includes a plurality of RF FM receiving channels each associated with an antenna, and each comprising one or more RF amplification stages, a mixer stage, and one or more IF stages along with an analog circuit providing a plurality of control signals that represent the relative signal level of the associated channel, an FM detector, and a signal level responsive switch operative to selectively apply the IF signal from the channel having the strongest signal level to the FM detector. The output of the FM detector which forms the system output is free of switching transients due to the operation of the level responsive switch prior to FM detection. A data recorder may be connected to receive the FM detector output, and a display may be connected to the level responsive switch to provide a visual indication of the channel having the strongest signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 30, 1983
    Date of Patent: September 3, 1985
    Assignee: Transkinetics Systems, Inc.
    Inventor: Mark T. Dinsmore
  • Patent number: 4484218
    Abstract: A subscriber distribution terminal is connected to the transmission medium for serving a group of subscribers. Within the distribution control terminal is located a plurality of television converters. A local oscillator in each of the converters is controlled by a microprocessor, which establishes the channel selected from the multi-channel television signal received from the transmission medium. The output of each converter is connected to a subscriber drop which is connected to the subscribers television set.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 29, 1981
    Date of Patent: November 20, 1984
    Assignee: The Manitoba Telephone System
    Inventors: Peter Boland, John Coyne, Irving Gimple
  • Patent number: 4406017
    Abstract: The stability of reception of information signals in a low-quality radio communication circuit is notably improved by a method and apparatus of diversity reception which, by means of the local oscillation frequencies of a plurality of receiving systems, permits one or more coherently interrelated received signals to be phase-locked in the phase-lock loops of the respective receiving systems and which, when any of the phase-lock loops has accidentally lost the phase-lock of the received signals, enables the lost phase-lock loop to resume normal phase-lock by borrowing and using, as its own local oscillation frequency, the local oscillation frequency of the phase-lock loop of one of the remaining receiving systems still locking the phases of the received signals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 17, 1980
    Date of Patent: September 20, 1983
    Assignee: Radio Research Laboratories Ministry of Posts & Telecommunications
    Inventor: Kozo Takahashi
  • Patent number: 4397036
    Abstract: A diversity system utilizing a plurality of branches has been found for an angle modulated digital signal transmission. The received signal on each branch is modulated with a local signal which has the same period as the digital signal, and satisfies the orthogonal relationship with each other. The modulated signals are combined by simply summing them, and the combined signal is differentially detected. In the case of two branches, said orthogonal local signals are .sqroot.2/T.multidot. sin (2.pi./T)t, and .sqroot.2/T.multidot. cos (2.pi./T)t, where T is the bit duration of the digital signal, and said local modulation is the amplitude modulation. The present invention can provide the same diversity effect as the prior maximal ratio combining system, although the present invention does not utilize a complicated cophasing means between each branches.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 3, 1979
    Date of Patent: August 2, 1983
    Assignee: Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation
    Inventors: Kenkichi Hirade, Takeshi Hattori, Fumiyuki Adachi
  • Patent number: 4361906
    Abstract: A channel selector characterized in that a plurality of receivers capable of simultaneously performing a receiving operation have a main part of a phase-locked loop frequency synthesizer connected in common thereto, the frequency synthesizer having a programmable frequency divider, a phase comparator, a reference oscillator and a reference frequency divider. The frequency synthesizer is controlled so that a local oscillation frequency corresponding to a determined frequency close to a broadcast signal of a desired receiving channel is synthesized, and one of a plurality of search tuning systems searches and tunes the broadcast signal from the local oscillation frequency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 7, 1980
    Date of Patent: November 30, 1982
    Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Yoichi Sakamoto