Patent ID: 7154971

Claim:
A demodulator for demodulating an analog signal representing a series of digital symbols, said demodulator comprising: an analog-to-digital converter for converting said analog signal into digital form at a sample rate lying in the range between 1 and 2 complex samples per symbol, noninclusive, to thereby produce a stream of data samples; a digitally implemented demodulator coupled to said analog-to-digital converter, for demodulating said stream of data samples, said digitally implemented demodulator including (a) an initial detection sample estimator for examining temporally adjacent pairs of said stream of data samples, and for generating a provisional initial detection sample for each temporally adjacent pair of said samples, whereby some symbol intervals produce one such provisional initial detection sample, and some symbol intervals produce two such provisional initial detection samples, said digitally implemented demodulator also including (b) gating means for gating only one provisional initial detection sample for each symbol, and said gating means gates only the second such provisional initial detection sample occurring within symbols producing two such provisional initial detection samples, so that the gated samples are initial detection samples; and an intersymbol interference remover coupled to said gating means of said digitally implemented demodulator, for removing at least some intersymbol interference from those provisional initial detection samples gated by said gating means.