Automatic Gain Control

• Automatic gain control (AGC) circuit varies the gain of

a receiver according to the strength of signal picked
up by the antenna.
• The idea is the same as automatic volume control
(AVC) in radio receivers.
• The AGC bias is a dc voltage proportional to the input
signal strength. It is obtained by rectifying the video
signal as available after the video detector.
• The AGC bias is used to control the gain of RF and IF
stages in the receiver to keep the output at the video
detector almost constant despite changes in the input
signal to the tuner.
ADVANTAGES OF AGC
(a) Intensity and contrast of the picture, once set with manual controls,
remain almost constant despite changes in the input signal strength,
since the AGC circuit reduces gain of the receiver with increase in input
signal strength.
(b) Contrast in the reproduced picture does not change much when the
receiver is switched from one station to another.
(c) Amplitude and cross modulation distortion on strong signals is avoided
due to reduction in gain.
(d) AGC also permits increase in gain for weak signals. This is achieved by
delaying the application of AGC to the RF amplifier until the signal
strength exceeds 150 µV or so. Therefore the signal to noise ratio
remains large even for distant stations. This reduces snow effect in the
reproduced picture.
(e) Flutter in the picture due to passing aeroplanes and other fading effects
is reduced.
(f) Sound signal, being a part of the composite video signal, is also
controlled by AGC and thus stays constant at the set level.
(g) Separation of sync pulses becomes easy since a constant amplitude
video signal becomes available for the sync separator.
Basic AGC Circuit
• The circuit illustrates how AGC
bias is developed and fed to RF and
IF amplifiers.
• The video signal on rectification
develops a unidirectional voltage across
RL.
• This voltage must be filtered since
a steady dc voltage is needed for bias.
R1 and C1, with a time constant of about
0.2 seconds, constitute the
AGC filter.
• A smaller time constant, will fail
to remove low frequency variations in the
rectified signal, whereas, too large a time
constant will not allow the AGC bias to change fast enough when the receiver is
tuned to stations having different signal strengths.
• In addition, a large time constant will fail to suppress flutter in the picture which
occurs on account of unequal signal picked up by the antenna after reflection from
the wings of an aeroplane flying nearby. With tubes, a typical AGC filter has 0.1 µF
for C1 and 2 M for R1.
• For transistors, typical values are 20 kΩ for R1 and 10 µF for C1. The filtered output
voltage across C1 is the source of AGC bias to be distributed by the AGC line. Each
stage controlled by AGC has a return path to the AGC line for bias, and thus the
voltage on the AGC line varies the bias of the controlled stages
Gain Control of VT and FET amplifiers
• The gain of a vacuum tube or FET amplifier can be
determined from the equation AV = gmZL..
• gm of both tubes and field-effect transistors
can be controlled by varying their bias. Hence all AGC
Systems vary the bias of RF and IF stages of the receiver
to control their gain.
• The transconductance is smaller near cut-off
but increases as the bias decreases towards zero.
It also decreases if operation of the tube is brought
close to saturation.
• The region near cut-off bias is used for AGC
operation. The self-bias is chosen to fix the operating
point for high gain. The AGC voltage which is negative
gets added to it and shifts the operating point to change the gain.
• The resulting change in gain compensates for variations
in the input signal thereby maintaining almost constant signal
amplitude at the output of video detector.
• In tube circuits a negative bias varying between – 2V and – 20V
is developed by the AGC circuit depending on the strength of
incoming signal. In order to obtain high gain and minimum cross
modulation effects, pentodes with remote cut-off characteristics
are preferred in video IF amplifier circuits.
Gain Control of Transistor Amplifiers

• The transistor is a current controlled device. Therefore, in transistor

amplifiers it is desirable to consider power gain instead of voltage gain for
exploring means of their gain control by AGC techniques.
• The power gain (G) of a transistor amplifier may be determined by the
equation,

where β and Rin are the short circuit current gain and input resistance of
the transistor respectively.
• Here again it is convenient to vary one of the parameters of the transistor
in order to control overall amplification of the receiver.
• The magnitude of β depends on the operating point of a transistor which
is established by the base to emitter (VBE) forward bias.
• Shifting the operating point, both towards collector current cut-off and collector current saturation causes
a decrease in β which in turn reduces the power gain. Figure shows the effect of change in VBE on
collector current and power gain of an amplifier employing a silicon transistor. A number of conclusions
may be drawn from the curves shown in the figure.
• First, the amount of change in VBE which is necessary to shift the operating point of the transistor from
cut-off to saturation is small, only 0.4 to 0.5 V. This is much smaller as compared to about 30 V in a vacuum
tube.
• Second, at some optimum value of forward bias (0.7 V in this case) power gain of the amplifier is
maximum and does not change much for small variations in the bias voltage. However, the gain decreases
as the bias is either increased (shifting the operating point towards saturation) or decreased (moving it
towards cut-off).
Types of AGC
• If the operating point is shifted towards saturation for
controlling the amplifier gain, it is called forward AGC.
• An AGC system which operates by shifting the operating
point towards cut-off is referred to as reverse AGC.
• In many TV receiver designs, either forward or reverse AGC
is exclusively employed for affecting gain control.
• However, in some receivers both forward and reverse AGC
are simultaneously employed in different parts of the RF
and IF amplifier chain.
• It may be noted that receivers which use either reverse or
forward AGC do not operate the amplifiers at peak gain
but fix the no-signal operating point at such a value that
the stage gain may be increased or decreased without
having to move to the other side of the power gain peak.
Reverse AGC
• The power gain curve is not symmetrical, that is, the reverse AGC
region of the curve
falls off more rapidly than does
the forward AGC region.
• This means that reverse AGC will
require a smaller change in voltage for
full gain control than will forward AGC.
• However, operation in this region,
which is close to cut-off makes the
receiver more susceptible to overload
and cross modulation distortion on
strong signals.
• The circuit is of a single stage transistor (n-p-n) IF amplifier
employing reverse AGC.
• The voltage divider formed by R1 and R2 provides a suitable fixed
forward bias from the VCC supply. The resistor R3 and capacitor C1
constitute the AGC decoupling network
Forward AGC
• Forward AGC is often preferred for controlling gain of video IF amplifiers
because it is more linear in its control action.
• Besides a change in β, the input resistance (Rin) of the transistor also
decreases with increase in forward bias.
• This results in a power mismatch between the tuned IF transformer and
the transistor, thereby providing an additional control on power gain.
• A single stage tuned IF amplifier employing forward AGC is shown.
• If a p-n-p transistor is used the forward AGC system would develop
a negative going voltage proportional to the signal strength.
• As shown in the figure, amplifiers employing forward AGC often
use a large resistor (R5) in series with the collector circuit. When
AGC voltage varies to increase collector current, effective VCE
decreases, thereby allowing the transistor to approach saturation
quickly for faster AGC action.
• AGC is applied to the tuner and 1st and 2nd IF stages but not to the
third or last IF stage because amplitude of the input signal to the
third IF amplifier is quite large and any shift in the chosen optimum
operating point by the application of AGC would result in amplitude
distortion.
• Another reason for not applying AGC bias to the last IF stage is the
fact that the AGC control is proportional to stage gain and this is
more suited to RF and first two
• IF stages because the RF signal amplitude here is quite small and
these stages can be designed for more gain without any appreciable
distortion.
 AUTOMATIC FINE TUNING (AFT)

• The local oscillator frequency in the RF tuner is set to

provide exact IF frequencies.
• However, despite many remedial measures to improve the
stability of the oscillator circuit, some drift does occur on
account of ambient temperature changes, component
aging, power supply voltage fluctuations and so on.
• For a monochrome receiver a moderate amount of change
in the local oscillator frequency can be tolerated without
much effect on the reproduced picture and sound output.
• The fine tuning control is adjusted occasionally to get a
sharp picture. The sound output is automatically corrected
because of the use of intercarrier sound system.
• However, requirements of frequency stability of the local
oscillator in a colour TV receiver are much more stringent
because proper fine tuning of colour receivers is judged
both by the sharpness of the picture and quality of colour.
• If the local oscillator frequency becomes higher than the correct
value, the picture IF, subcarrier IF and sound IF frequencies will also
become higher by the same amount and fall on incorrect positions
on the IF response curve.
• This will result in poor picture quality because the amplitudes of
low-frequency video sidebands clustered around the picture IF will
decrease.
• At the same time chrominance signal sidebands clustered around
the location of subcarrier will receive more gain and hence become
stronger than normal.
• Similarly, if the local oscillator frequency changes to become less
than the desired value opposite effects would result and colour
reproduction will become weak.
• In case the decrease in frequency is more than 1 MHz, the colour
burst may be lost and only a black and white picture will be seen
on the screen.
• Similar troubles can also result in receivers that employ remote
control tuning because of non-availability of fine tuning control and
imperfections of the electronic system employed for channel
selection.
• In order to simplify the operation from the point of view of setting the fine tuning
control correctly, and to overcome the problem of local oscillator drift, all colour
receivers and those employing remote control use an AFT circuit.
• The AFT circuit is actually automatic frequency control (AFC) on the local oscillator
in the tuner.
• This control aims at obtaining a picture IF frequency of exactly 38.9 MHz at the
converter output. This is possible only if the local oscillator frequency in the tuner
is maintained at a value which is exactly 38.9 MHz higher than the incoming
channel carrier frequency.
• To achieve this, the IF frequency, as obtained from the IF amplifier section, is
measured by a discriminator circuit that forms part of the AFT control.
• Here the discriminator’s output is a dc correction voltage that indicates the
deviation of the IF frequency from its exact value of 38.9 MHz.
• Since this frequency depends on the oscillator input to the mixer, the AFT voltage
indicates the error in local oscillator frequency. The ‘S’ shaped response curve of
the discriminator is very steep and frequency shifts as little as 50 KHz are clearly
indicated.
• The AFT control voltage is zero at balance i.e. when the IF frequency is exactly
38.9 MHz. For frequency deviations on either side of 38.9 MHz the net dc
correcting voltage is either positive or negative depending on whether the
frequency, is above or below the correct value.
• The dc control voltage thus developed is applied to a reactance circuit or to a
varactor diode that forms part of the local oscillator tank circuit.