Unit 6

Dtion of FM Signals

UNIT OBJECTIVES

When you have completed this unit, you will be able to demonstrate and evaluate
the selectivity and sensitivity of tuned and tunable receivers. You will have
observed signals at various stages of demodulation and you will be able to plot the
S-curve of the discriminator in each receiver.

DISCUSSION OF FUNDAMENTALS
The antenna of an FM / PM receiver picks-up a large number of RF signals, since
many FM broadcast stations are transmitting at the same time in the same allo-
cated frequency band. The input of the receiver must be selective enough so that
only the desired signal is demodulated.

When a receiver is tuned to the frequency of a given carrier, no other signals can
be received. If this tuning frequency is fixed, the receiver is called a tuned or a
fixed frequency receiver. This type of receiver is used when one specific RF signal
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is to be received. Such is the case for some mobile radios, or for receivers used to
monitor the broadcast station signal.
When it is possible to tune the receiver to several different RF signals, by changing
the tuning frequency, any of the signals in the allocated frequency band may be
received. Receivers of this type are called tunable receivers. Most of them are
superheterodyne receivers. This is the most common type of receiver, the home
FM stereo receiver being an example.

What ever the receiver or tuning method used, the frequency modulated signal
must be demodulated so that the original message can be recovered. The recep-
tion and the demodulation process use a fixed or variable tuning stage, amplifica-
tion and filtering stages, a detection stage, and an output stage.
Because it is used to receive only one signal, a fixed-frequency receiver is technic-
ally simpler than a tunable receiver, which contains, in addition, a variable tuning
stage and the associated components.

NEW TERMS AND WORDS

baseband the frequency band occupied by the signals which modulate the car-
rier in a transmitter.
detection the action of reconstructing a modulating signal from a phase or
frequency-modulated signal.
detector a device by which a wave corresponding to the modulating signal is
response to a modulated wave. It is also called a demodulator.

6-1