Patent ID: 8417189

Claim:
A shockline-based receiver down-converter comprising: a plurality of reflectometer segments each including a shockline, a sampler having a local oscillator (LO) input, radio frequency (RF) inputs coupled to receive an RF reference signal and an RF test signal, and intermediate frequency (IF) reference and test outputs to provide down-converted signals for digital processing; and a LO distribution system having an input connected to receive at least one LO signal, the LO distribution system for distributing the LO signal through the plurality of reflectometer segments to the LO inputs of the samplers, wherein a Bragg cutoff frequency of the shockline varies between the plurality of reflectometer segments; wherein a frequency range of the LO signal is selectable and the LO signal is selectably connectable with one of the reflectometer segments based on both a resultant noise performance and a resultant RF bandwidth of the sampler.