Abstract: A radio frequency tuner is provided for selecting channels from a cable distribution network or other reception system. The tuner has one or more stages whose performance, such as signal to noise plus intermodulation, and gain are functions of the stage power consumption. A comparator compares the tuner performance, such as bit error rate, with a predetermined performance. When the tuner performance exceeds the predetermined performance, a power consumption control circuit reduces the power consumption of one or more of the stages so as to reduce the tuner power consumption while maintaining acceptable tuner performance. As an alternative, the control circuit may have an input which allows the power consumption to be preset in accordance with the tuner application. The control circuit also controls a variable gain arrangement to compensate for changes in gain resulting from changes in power consumption.

Abstract: A digital tuner has an input tuning range with lower and upper limit frequencies. An up converter converts an input signal to an intermediate frequency signal whose frequency is higher than the upper frequency limit of the input range. A downconverter is a zero intermediate frequency quadrature converter which converts the intermediate frequency signal to in-phase and quadrature baseband signals. The upconverter has a local oscillator fundamental frequency which is greater than the upper frequency limit of the input tuning range.

Abstract: A modem tuner of ZIF or NZIF type comprises a mixer which receive first and second inputs via a multiplexer in different frequency ranges from different sources such as cable and satellite. A local oscillator supplies signals via a bandswitch which switches the local oscillator frequency range in synchronism with the selection of inputs by the multiplexer. The mixer converts the selected incoming data stream to zero or near-zero intermediate frequency and this signal is filtered exclusively by a variable bandwidth low-pass filter before being converted to the digital domain and demodulated.

Abstract: A tuner for digital terrestrial television has an input section which supplies a sampled intermediate signal, for example at zero intermediate frequency and digitised by an ADC, corresponding to a desired reception channel corrupted by interference such as impulsive noise interference. A threshold generator generates a threshold which is larger than a moving average of the amplitudes of consecutive samples and a comparator compares the amplitudes of the samples with the threshold. If a sample amplitude exceeds the threshold, a corrector sets to zero the sample before processing by a fast Fourier transform. The threshold generator excludes samples which have been set to zero from the moving average.

Abstract: An analogue single conversion tuner comprises a plurality of channels (1, 2, 3) for covering the whole of a desired reception bandwidth. Each tuner comprises an image reject mixer (18) connected to the tuner input (4) by a single tracking filter (16), for example of the single-tuned type.

Abstract: In an amplifier circuit arrangement in which series resistive feedback is utilized in the main amplifier to minimize distortion, and a feedback amplifier is provided in a path from the output of the arrangement to the series feedback path effectively to boost the value of the feedback resistor, a further amplifier is arranged to provide positive feedback to the resistive load circuit of the main amplifier effectively to boost the value of the resistive load.