Chapter 5: Digital Radio and Receivers #

A receive attenuator weakens every incoming signal, including the one you want. When strong signals are overloading the receiver, though, switching it in can make a weak station easier to copy. That puzzle points to a balance every receiver must strike. It has to hear signals barely above its own noise while handling far stronger ones without distortion.

Follow a signal through a modern receiver, where a converter turns it into numbers and software filters it, and that balance comes into focus. You’ll learn to judge any receiver by how weak a signal it can hear and how well it holds up beside strong ones. Then its specifications make sense, and the attenuator puzzle solves itself.