Patent ID: 7003053

Claim:
A receiver, comprising: a tuner for selecting a desired broadcasting station from among a plurality of broadcasting stations and receiving a digital broadcast of the selected station, the digital broadcast having a transmission spectrum format which is prepared by dividing digital data comprising a single bit stream into a plurality of bit frames capable of holding the same contents as the original bit stream, allocating different carrier frequencies to the respective bit frames and arranging the bit frames on a frequency axis a demodulator circuit for decoding the plurality of bit frames constituting the received digital broadcast and outputting the decoded bit frames; and a control circuit for controlling the operation of the tuner and the demodulator circuit, the control circuit comprising: decoding control means for stopping decoding at least one of the bit frames, with one broadcasting station selected, search means for searching for other broadcasting station or stations of satisfactory reception condition utilizing free time resulting from stopping decoding, and selected station changeover means for changing over the broadcasting station being selected for reception to the broadcasting station of satisfactory reception condition searched for.