TYPES OF RADIO RECEIVER Basic crystal set. A T.R.F. Receiver. A Superhetrodyne Receiver. the Reflex Receiver.

Mainly f.m. receivers are of the superhetrodyne variety. Before we go into any depth about f.m. radio receivers let's consider the principal differences between a.m. and f.m. signals. At first glance it might seem I am merely stating the blinding obvious but the differences are indeed quite profound. BACKGROUND TO FM RECEIVER DESIGN An a.m. receiver relies upon the original carrier signal (station frequency) having been amplitude modulated. This means the original amplitude (strength) varies at an audio rate. Looking at figure 1 we can see an unmodulated carrier signal as it might be seen on an oscilloscope.

Fig 1. an unmodulated carrier signal

as you can see the amplitude of the carrier signal is unvarying, it remains constant in height looking from the top of the figure to the bottom of the figure. This carrier is common to both a.m. and f.m. signals. Perhaps the a.m. carrier signal repeats each cycle from point (a) to point (b) - "blue" - in figure 2 below at the rate of 810,000 times a second, this represents a frequency of 810 Khz and would be in the a.m. radio band.

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Figure 2. one complete cycle of signal

If the signal were varied at 101,700,000 cycles per second then it would be 101.7 Mhz and located in the f.m. radio band. Now if the signal of figure 1 is amplitude modulated it looks like the signal in figure 3 below.

Figure 3. - an a.m. modulated signal

Here you will notice that the audio modulating signal which is depicted in red has varied the strength of the carrier signal which is depicted green for purposes of this illustration. You will note my skills as a graphic artist leave much to be desired (hint: anyone able to contribute oscillograghs in .jpg or .gif formats?) but you should be able to see the carrier sine wave envelope is being varied in strength by the red audio signal. In the receiver circuit a diode detector can convert that envelope above back into the original audio signal for later amplification although some distortion does result. It was to an extent this distortion property that people sought a better means of transmission. More important it was discovered that noise (either man made QRM or natural noise QRN) was amplitude in its properties. I have depicted two blue lines in the diagram above, these represent noise impulses caused perhaps by automobile ignition, nearby

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fluorescent lighting, your computer or atmospheric noise such as a distant storm. Note the blue lines extend beyond the amplitude envelope, they could be many times the magnitude of the received signal.

Nearly everyone has experienced static crashes through an a.m. radio when nearby lightning strikes.
For these reasons frequency modulation evolved. Instead of varying the amplitude of the carrier signal, which remains constant, we vary the carrier frequency more or less by the audio frequency. If a carrier signal is frequency modulated (fm) it looks like one below in figure 4

Fig 4 frequency modulated carrier

You should immediately note that the carrier frequency is varying yet the amplitude has remained constant. REQUIREMENTS OF AN FM RECEIVER This might be a good time to review the schematic circuit of an a.m. radio receiver.

Fig 5 a.m. bcb radio schematic

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Unfortunately the diagram is quite congested because I had to fit it in a space 620 pixels wide. Now the priciple differences between an f.m. radio versus an a.m. radio, and here for the moment we are talking about the entertainment variety, are: (a) the need for VHF reception capability 88 - 108 MHz as against 0.54 - 1.65 Mhz for a.m. reception. (b) the need for limiting action in the I.F. stages (see later discussion) (c) a different means of detection of the audio i.e., recovering the frequency modulation. (d) if we are talking f.m. stereo reception then some means of recovering left and right channel information.

Figure 5. - an a.m. modulated signal being clipped

Naturally we don't put a normal a.m. signal through a limiter, this is usually only done with f.m. signals. I simply provided figure 5 above so you could get the general idea. You should notice that all the amplitude modulation information (including noise) is progressively being removed. BTW 5(b) and (c) were simply done graphically by taking (a) resizing the height by 150% and cutting off the excess height (top and bottom) and repeating that exercise for (c). This is exactly what happens in a limiter only to a much greater amplification!. To give you some idea of the amplification required for proper limiting go back to the old vacuum tube days where a good a.m. - i.f. amplifier might contain three vacuum tubes. In the same period a good f.m. receiver may have had twelve or more tubes in the i.f./limiter stage.

MEANS OF DETECTION A number of f.m. detection schemes have evolved over the years. The principal discrete ones were: (a) F.M. Discriminator (figure 6)

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Figure 6. - an f.m. discriminator

This discriminator simply works on the principal that with no modulation applied to the carrier there is no ouput at the detector. Briefly T1 converts the f.m. signal to a.m. and when rectified the output is still zero because they would be equal but opposite in polarity, if modulation is applied then there is a shift in the phase of the input component with a corresponding difference in the signals out of the diodes. The difference between these outputs is the audio. As an aside, this is somewhat similar to some Automatic Fine Tuning (A.F.T.) schemes in some a.m. receivers, notably early T.V. receivers. With no frequency variation there is no output, with frequency drift there will be an output difference (in either direction) which is amplified and applied to front end tuning diodes for correction. (b) Ratio Detector The schematic looks a little similar to figure 6 but has a third (tertiary) winding on the secondary of T1, diode D2 has its polarity reversed and the two divider resistors are replaced by capacitors. This scheme was quite popular in entertainment type receivers. You detect f.m. but NOT a.m. and it placed some relaxation on the severe limiting requirements. (c) Crystal Discriminator Once favoured by radio amateurs but superseded by later I.C. designs (d) Phase Lock Loops Among the relatively newer designs and PLL's overcome many of the drawbacks and costs associated with building and aligning LC discriminators. REVIEW SO FAR AND STEREO RECEPTION Of necessity I have only given you a general overview and background so far and, for very good reasons. Over the last 20 years developments in the manufacture of dedicated and complete f.m. receivers on a chip have made an in depth review of earlier information presented totally redundent. These developments include companion devices to handle stereo reception.

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