Patent ID: 8185204

Claim:
A cardiac rhythm management (CRM) system, comprising an external system to communicate with an implantable medical device, the external system including: a telemetry circuit including: a transceiver adapted to transmit and receive data using at least one active radio frequency (RF) channel, the at least one active RF channel selectable from a plurality of RF channels available for use by the transceiver, each of the RF channels representing a channel frequency band; a channel selector coupled to the transceiver, the channel selector adapted to select at least one hop channel according to a sequence of prioritized RF channels; a hop controller coupled to the channel selector, the hop controller adapted to make the at least one hop channel the active RF channel when the at least one hop channel is selected; a channel quality analyzer coupled to the channel selector and adapted to produce an RF channel quality indicator for an RF channel, wherein the RF channel quality indicator includes at least a received signal strength indicator indicative of a strength of signal received through that channel, wherein the channel quality analyzer includes a quality parameter receiver configured to receive an RF channel quality indicator produced by a channel quality analyzer of the implantable medical device; and a preferred channel identifier coupled to the channel quality analyzer, the preferred channel identifier adapted to prioritize the plurality of channels according to the produced and received RF channel quality indicators into the sequence of prioritized RF channels.