Patent ID: 7065136

Claim:
A receiver comprising: a non-equalizing demodulator adapted to receive a modulated signal and adapted to demodulate the modulated signal to produce a first digital bit stream, wherein the modulated signal includes a plurality of frames, each frame having an amble portion; an equalizing demodulator adapted to receive the modulated signal and adapted to equalize and demodulate the modulated signal to produce a second digital bit stream; and an output control selector, coupled to the non-equalizing demodulator and the equalizing demodulator, adapted to selectively deliver a first one of the first digital bit stream and the second digital bit stream for at least a predetermined period of time before selectively delivering a second one of the first digital bit stream and the second digital bit stream responsive to a predetermined decision criterion, wherein the first one of the first digital bit stream and the second digital bit stream is different from the second one of the first digital bit stream and the second digital bit stream and wherein the predetermined decision criteria comprises a quality metric associated with the modulated signal, the quality metric further comprising a bit error rate associated with the modulated signal; wherein the output control selector produces a first control signal to selectively enable and disable the non-equalizing demodulator to permit the non-equalizing demodulator to deliver and not deliver, respectively, the first digital bit stream; and wherein the output control selector produces a second control signal to selectively enable and disable the equalizing demodulator to permit the equalizing demodulator to deliver and not deliver, respectively, the second digital bit stream; and wherein the output control selector further comprises: a bit error rate (BER) long term averager adapted to receive the amble portion of each frame, adapted to determine bit error rate of the amble portion of each frame, and adapted to average the bit error rate of the amble portion of each frame over time to determine a long term average BER associated with the modulated signal; and a switch adapted to receive the first digital bit stream and the second digital bit stream and adapted to selectively deliver one of the first digital bit stream and the second digital bit stream responsive to a third control signal.