STC

Downconverters
• Downconverters convert signals from one band to another.

• This enables reception of signals out of the tuning range of the

receiver.
• Use of downconverters common for VLF, microwave, and weather
satellite.
• Operator must mentally add the frequency offset to the frequency
displayed by the receiver.

Down-
Receiver
converter
Sensitivity time control
(STC)
 Receiver Parameters
Important performance measures for receivers
• Frequency stability
• Selectivity
• Bandwidth
• Sensitivity
• Dynamic range
• Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
• Effect of RF amplifiers & pre-amps
 Frequency Stability

• Frequency stability is the same as for

transmitters
• Accuracy of tuning to an entered or displayed
frequency
• Ability to remain on frequency without drifting off
• Often given in ppm – parts-per-million
• 1ppm error at 28MHz is 28Hz.
 Selectivity
• Selectivity is the ability to separate the wanted
signal from nearby unwanted signals (other
stations)
Unwanted signal Filter response
(strong)
Amplitude

Wanted signal
(weak)

Frequency MHz
 Selectivity Measures
• Measures of selectivity
• 60-dB bandwidth
• adjacent channel rejection ratio (VHF, UHF channelised)
but how far away is the next channel (12.5kHz?)
• For SSB, may specify opposite sideband rejection

0dB -
Filter response
Amplitude

-60dB - 60dB bandwidth

Frequency MHz
 Bandwidth
• Band of frequencies which the receiver should accept
• Eg. CW (A1A) morse typically 300Hz
• SSB uses 2.5 to 3kHz
• VHF FM typically 7.5 or 15kHz
• Usually 3dB BW specified, but not always!
Filter response
0dB -
-3dB - 3dB bandwidth
Amplitude

Frequency MHz
 Sensitivity
• Sensitivity defines the limit of detection of weak signals.
• Receivers must have enough gain to bring weakest signals to
comfortable level.
the gain does not define sensitivity
• Sensitivity is determined by 2 factors:
• Bandwidth of the receiver
the wider the bandwidth, the more noise power it lets in
• Noise figure of the receiver front-end
a noisy receiver needs more signal to overcome the noise
• Receivers bandwidth should match the transmitted bandwidth.
so as not to exclude any signal or accept unnecessary noise.
 Sensitivity Definitions
• Sensitivity is defined as the receiver input signal
level for a given SINAD at the output
• eg. 0.2μV for 12dB SINAD
• SNR is Signal-to-noise ratio
• SINAD is Signal + Noise + Distortion
• Intelligible speech needs about 12dB SINAD

SNR  Signal Power Usually expressed in dB

Noise Power

SINAD  Signal  Noise  Distortion

Noise  Distortion
 Dynamic Range
• Dynamic range is the range of signal levels between the
smallest and greatest a receiver can handle
• Lower limit set by sensitivity
• Upper limit set by distortion or AGC control range

• In practice, we are more concerned about dynamic range to

handle unwanted out-of-band signals (AGC doesn’t apply).
• How large an unwanted signal will it reject without affecting
sensitivity to wanted signals
• Overload level may be specified for receiver front-end (RF
amplifier, mixer) as the 1dB compression point
 Dynamic Range
• 1dB compression point
• Power level where amplifier gain drops by 1dB

Output compression 1dB

point

Amplifier linearity curve

Output level

Noise floor
Input level Input compression
point
 Noise Figures
SNR at input Expressed in dB
NF 
SNR at output

• There is a limit of physics to receiver sensitivity

• Even for perfect receivers that add no noise (0dB NF)
• Real receivers can get within a few dB of the limit
• Typical noise figures
• HF receiver; 12 to 20dB - not as critical as atmospherics dominate
• VHF receiver; 6 dB
• Microwave receiver; 2dB
• Raw sensitivity is traded for dynamic range and selectivity in
environments where these are more important
• Adjusting RF gain can optimise sensitivity vs. dynamic range
 RF Amplifiers
• If the RF pre-amp has a similar noise figure to the receiver
• Sensitivity not improved, dynamic range made worse

• If the RF pre-amp has a better noise figure to the receiver

• Sensitivity improved, dynamic range still worse

• If there is a feeder loss before the receiver (masthead amp)

• Without preamp, receiver performance degraded by loss
• Amplifier can overcome feeder loss, performance improved

RF pre-amplifier Receiver
 Downconverters
• Downconverters convert signals from one band to another.

• This enables reception of signals out of the tuning range of the

receiver.
• Use of downconverters common for VLF, microwave, and weather
satellite.
• Operator must mentally add the frequency offset to the frequency
displayed by the receiver.

Down-
Receiver
converter
 Power Measurements
• Receiver
• Minimum detectable RF power
• Maximum allowed input power
• Power levels of interfering tones
• Transmitter
• Maximum RF power output
• Changes in RF power when automatic gain control is used
• RF power distribution over a frequency band
• Power-added efficiency (PAE)
• Power unit: dBm, relative to 1mW
• Power in dBm = 10 × log (power in watts/0.001 watts)
• Example: 1 W is 10 × log 1000 = 30 dBm
• What is 2 W in dBm? Calculate.

16
 Intermediate frequency (IF)
IF is a frequency to which a carrier wave is shifted as an intermediate step
in transmission or reception.
IF is created by mixing the carrier signal with a local oscillator signal in a
process called heterodyning, resulting in a signal at the difference or beat
frequency.
IF are used in superheterodyne (radio) receivers, in which an incoming signal
is shifted to an IF for amplification before final detection is done.
Conversion to an IF is useful for several reasons.
When several stages of filters are used, they can all be set to a fixed freq,
which makes them easier to build and to tune.
It's easier to make sharply selective filters at lower fixed frequencies.
There may be several such stages of IF in a superheterodyne receiver; two or
three stages are called double (alternatively, dual) or triple conversion,
respectively.
• IFs are used for three general reasons. At very high (GHz)
frequencies, signal processing circuitry performs poorly. Active
devices such as transistors cannot deliver much gain. Ordinary
circuits using capacitors and inductors must be replaced with
cumbersome HF techniques such as striplines and WG. So a HF
signal is converted to a lower IF for more convenient processing.
• E.g, in satellite dishes, the microwave downlink signal received by
the dish is converted to a much lower IF at the dish so that a
relatively inexpensive coaxial cable can carry the signal to the
receiver inside the building. Bringing the signal in at the original
µwave freq would require an expensive WG.
• In Rx that can be tuned to different frequencies, a second reason is to convert
the various different frequencies of the stations to a common frequency for
processing.
• It is difficult to build multistage amplifiers, filters, and detectors that can have all
stages track the tuning of different frequencies, but it is comparatively easy to
build tunable oscillators.
• Superheterodyne receivers tune in different frequencies by adjusting the
frequency of the local oscillator on the input stage, and all processing after that
is done at the same fixed frequency: the IF.
• Without using an IF, all the complicated filters and detectors in a radio or
television would have to be tuned in unison each time the frequency was
changed as was necessary in the early tuned radio frequency receivers.
• A more important advantage is that it gives the receiver a constant BW over its
tuning range. BW of a filter is proportional to its center frequency. In receivers
like the TRF in which the filtering is done at the incoming RF frequency, as the
receiver is tuned to higher frequencies, its BW increases.
• The main reason for using an IF is to improve frequency selectivity.  In
communication cct, a very common task is to separate out, or extract,
signals or components of a signal that are close together in frequency.
This is called filtering. Some examples are: picking up a radio station
among several that are close in frequency, or extracting
the chrominance subcarrier from a TV signal. With all known filtering
techniques the filter's BW increases proportionately with the frequency.
So a narrower BW and more selectivity can be achieved by converting
the signal to a lower IF and performing the filtering at that frequency.
 FM and TV broadcasting with their narrow channel widths, as well as
more modern telecom services such as cell phones and cable TV, would
be impossible without using frequency conversion.
USES
• the most commonly used if for broadcast Rx are around 455 kHz for AM and
10.7 MHz for FM. In special purpose Rx other frequencies can be used. A dual-
conversion Rx may have two IF, a higher one to improve image rejection and a
second, lower one, for desired selectivity. A first IF may even be higher than the
input signal, so that all undesired responses can be easily filtered out by a fixed-
tuned RF stage.
• In a digital Rx, ADC) operates at low sampling rates, so input RF must be mixed
down to IF to be processed.
• IF tends to be lower freq-range compared to the transmitted RF freq. However, the
choices for the IF are most dependent on the available components such as mixer,
filters, amplifiers and others that can operate at lower freq.
• There are other factors involved in deciding the IF, because lower IF is susceptible
to noise and higher IF can cause clock jitters.
• Modern satelliteTV receivers use several IF. The 500 TV channels of a typical
system are transmitted from the satellite to subscribers in the Ku microwave band,
in two subbands of 10.7–11.7 and 11.7–12.75 GHz.
• The downlink signal is received by a satellite dish. In the box at the focus of the
dish, called a low-noise block downconverter (LNB), each block of freq is
converted to the IF range of 950–2150 MHz by two fixed frequency LO at 9.75 and
10.6 GHz. One of the two blocks is selected by a control signal from the set top
box inside, which switches on one of LO. This IF is carried into the building to the
TV receiver on a coaxial cable. At the cable company's set top box, the signal is
converted to a lower IF of 480 MHz for filtering, by a variable frequency oscillator.
This is sent through a 30 MHz BPF which selects the signal from one of
the transponders on the satellite, which carries several channels. Further
processing selects the channel desired, demodulates it and sends the signal to the
TV.
A tuner
• a subsystem that receives radio frequency (RF) transmissions
and converts the selected carrier frequency and its associated
BW into a fixed frequency that is suitable for further processing,
usually because a lower frequency is used on the output.
• The function of a tuner is to separate one sine wave from the
thousands of radio signals that the antenna receives.
• Tuners work using a principle called resonance. That is, tuners
resonate at, and amplify, one particular freq and ignore all the
other freq in the air.
 HISTORY
• An IF was first used in the superheterodyne radio receiver, invented by American
scientist Major Edwin Armstrong in 1918, during World War I. A member of
the Signal Corps, Armstrong was building radio direction finding equipment to
track German military signals at the then-very high frequencies of 500 to 3500 kHz.
The triode vacuum tube amplifiers of the day would not amplify stably above
500 kHz, however, it was easy to get them to oscillate above that frequency.
• Armstrong's solution was to set up an oscillator tube that would create a freq
near the incoming signal and mix it with the incoming signal in a mixer tube,
creating a heterodyne or signal at the lower difference freq where it could be
amplified easily. E.g, to pick up a signal at 1500 kHz LO would be tuned to
1450 kHz. Mixing the two created an IF- 50 kHz, which was well within the
capability of the tubes.
• The name superheterodyne was a contraction of supersonic heterodyne, to
distinguish it from receivers in which the heterodyne freq was low enough to be
directly audible, and which were used for receiving continuous wave (CW) Morse
code transmissions (not speech or music).
 Automatic Gain Control Flatness

• Tester pseudocode:
• Set up input signal to appropriate frequency and power level
• Set up output measurement equipment to receive output signal when
triggered
• Program AGC to first gain level and trigger receiver
• Cycle AGC to next gain level
• Wait long enough to capture relevant data
• Cycle to next gain level and repeat though all levels
• Transfer time-domain data to host computer for processing
• Power at ith gain level = 20 × log [VR(i)2 + Vi(i)2]1/2 + 13 dBm for 50Ω
characteristic impedance, where VR and Vi are the measured real and
imaginary rms voltages. 26
 AGC – Other Characteristics
0.6 Ideal

Power (dBm)
0.4

0.2

0.0
0 200 400 600
Time (μs)

0.6 Actual measurement

Power (dBm)

Overshoot
0.4
Missing Nonlinearity
0.2
gain step
0.0
0 200 400 600

Time (μs)
 AGC Characteristics to be Verified
• Gain errors and missing levels
• Overshoots and undershoots – settling time
• Finite (non-zero) transition times
• Varying gain steps – nonlinearity; DNL (differential nonlinearity)
and INL (integral nonlinearity) similar to ADC and DAC

28
STC
• In radar Rx, wide variation in echo signal amplitudes make adjustment of the gain
difficult. The adjustment of receiver gain for best visibility of nearby target return
signals is not the best adjustment for distant target return signals. Circuits used to
adjust amplifier gain with time, during a single pulse repetition period, are called
STC circuits, or „swept gain attenuator”.
• STC circuits apply a bias voltage that varies with time to the IF amplifiers to control
receiver gain. The Figure shows a typical stc waveform. When the transmitter fires,
the stc circuit decreases the receiver gain to zero to prevent the amplification of
any leakage energy from the transmitted pulse. At the end of the transmitted pulse,
the stc voltage begins to rise, gradually increasing the receiver gain to maximum.
In the ideal case the the receiver gain is proportionally to R . In the practice this
4

course is frequently approached by the arising e function for the store of a

condenser.
• STC, used to attenuate the very strong echo-signals from
nearby ground clutter targets in the first few range gates of
a radar receiver.
• Without this attenuation, Rx would saturate due to the strong
signals. This is used in ATC systems and has an influence on the
shape of the elevation pattern of the surveillance antenna.
• It is represented in terms of numerical value typically expressed
in dB, starting from zero, indicating that there is no muting and
that the radar system is accepting all returns.
• The radar equation is based on the fourth root of range,
meaning that doubling the range to a target results in sixteen
times less energy being returned.
• STC (dampak dari statement diatas) – echo dari target yg dekat
akan memp ampl yg lbh kuat.
• Utk long-range radar dg daya outputs yg tinggi, echo dari targets
yg dekat akan memiliki ampl yg terlalu kuat yg dpt
menyebabkan RF amplifiers mengalami saturasi, yg
menyebabkan tampilannya terlalu terang shg tdk ada yg bisa
ditampilkan sampai amplifiers kembali ke ops normal.
• For early radar systems, the solution was to point the signal away
from the ground. This can be difficult for ground or ship-based radars,
which required other solutions.
• In the case of the ground-based AMES Type 7, for instance, the
radars were installed in natural dish-like depressions so that all
returns below a certain angle were cut off very close to the radar.
This still had the same effect in terms of causing the amplifiers to
saturate, but occurred so rapidly after transmission that the
saturation decayed at relatively short ranges. The downside to this
approach is that it permanently hides any signal below a certain
angle, which for a very long-range system might prevent it from
seeing anything near the radar site.
• STC addresses this problem by implementing a reverse gain curve
with the same characteristics as the radar equation, that is, a fourth-
root dependency or some function close to that (often there are
discrete steps). This dramatically damps down amplification of
signals received shortly after the detection pulse is sent, preventing
them from saturating the receiver. The gain modification is reduced
over time, until it reaches zero at some selected distance from the
radar site, often on the order of 50 miles (80 km).
• Because the system works by muting nearby signals, it may have the
side-effect of eliminating small targets near the radar. This is fine for
many applications, like ATC, where the targets are large and nearby
aircraft are often guided using a local-area radar.
i/p signal
 STC diagram
Rx Gain

t
o/p signal
STC W/F
STC Circuit
• Sensitivity Time Control (STC) is commonly used to control the gain of radar
receivers IF amplifiers or of low-noise pre-amplifiers. Radars detect targets
of a wide variety of sizes, ranges, and reflective area, which produce a wide
range of echo signal amplitudes that may exceed the dynamic range of a
fixed gain receiver.
• This STC- circuit shown in the figure is a real wiring used in an ATC-radar. It
is a simple analog voltage controlled attenuator with PIN diodes. The STC
W/F provides attenuation from 1 dB (at zero voltage) and 24 dB (at a voltage
of -24 V).
• The STC- W/F can be a squared or a linear function of the time. By means of
such a sensitivity time control it is possible to obtain the value of the
attenuation dependent of the range. Using STC tends to equalize the
amplitude of echoes independent of range.
• A digital STC may be controlled by a computer to provide
optimum gain as a function of range. The digital STC-
“waveform” is a 4-Bit word and switches the attenuation from
48 dB to zero dependent of time/range in steps of e.g. 6 dB.
• The signals shown in the diagrams at the input and output jack
are stylized. Remember: In reality these are RF-signals at least
on the first intermediate frequency. Imagine that the probe-line
between the tested jack and the oscilloscope includes an
amplitude detector. Then the shown signals are such as real.
•
Automatic Gain Control Methods
• Most radar receivers use some means to control the overall gain.
This usually involves the gain of one or more IF amplifier stages.
Manual gain control by the operator is the simplest method.
Automatic Gain Control (AGC)
• Gain control is necessary to adjust the receiver sensitivity for the best reception of
signals of widely varying amplitudes. A complex form of automatic gain control (agc) or
instantaneous automatic gain control (iagc) is used during normal operation. The
simplest type of agc adjusts the IF amplifier bias (and gain) according to the average
level of the received signal. With agc, gain is controlled by the largest received signals.
When several radar signals are being received simultaneously, the weakest signal may be
of greatest interest. Iagc is used more frequently because it adjusts receiver gain for
each signal.
• The agc circuit is essentially a wide-band, dc amplifier. It instantaneously controls the
gain of the IF amplifier as the radar return signal changes in amplitude. The effect of iagc
is to allow full amplification of weak signals and to decrease the amplification of strong
signals. The range of iagc is limited, however, by the number of IF stages in which gain is
controlled. When only one IF stage is controlled, the range of iagc is limited to
approximately 20 dB. When more than one IF stage is controlled, iagc range can be
increased to approximately 40 dB.
AGC BLOCK DIAGRAM
• The logarithmic amplifier is a non-saturating amplifier that does not
ordinarily use any special gain-control circuits. The output voltage of the
logarithmic amplifier is a linear function of the input voltage for low-
amplitude signals. It is a logarithmic function for high-amplitude signals. In
other words, the range of linear amplification does not end at a definite
saturation point, as is the case in normal IF amplifiers. Therefore, a large
signal does not saturate the logarithmic amplifier; rather, it merely reduces
the amplification of a simultaneously applied small signal.
• A typical circuit for obtaining a logarithmic response is shown in the figure.
If detectors 2 to 5 were not present, the output voltage would be limited by
the saturation point of the final IF stage, as it is in a normal IF section.
However, when the final stage of the logarithmic amplifier is saturated,
larger signals cause an increase in the output of the next to last stage.
 Logarithmic Amplifier

ignal.
video
different
IF-Amplifier
IF
IF-Filter
Ua thresholds
• This increase is detected by detector 2 and summed with the
output of detector 1. This sum produces an increase in the
output even though the final stage is saturated. Detector 3
causes the output to continue to increase after the second
stage saturates. The overall gain becomes less and less as each
stage saturates but some degree of amplification is still
available. The proper choice of IF stage gains and saturation
points produces an approximately logarithmic response curve.
Diagram of dynamic STC
GAI
N

RANGE

AZIMUTH
Dynamic Swept Gain

• Local clutter levels dictate the magnitude of swept gain and

differing requirements for swept gain are presented as the
antenna rotates. Modern systems dynamically measure clutter
levels for a large number of cells within the coverage area of the
radar. These measurements are slowly adjusted to take account
of changing clutter levels and used to set the swept gain
attenuator to an appropriate level for the range azimuth cell
currently being processed. In most cases, the values used are a
variation on the normal static law.
• This approach, while simple in principle, can risk reduction of
MTI performance at the edges of clutter. This is due to abrupt
changes in swept gain law destroying the integrity of the clutter
amplitudes. Furthermore if long or compressed pulses are used,
amplitude changes can affect the performance.
• Swept gain is generally applied to pin diodes, which are biased
to provide a reasonably linear characteristic