Patent ID: 7761072

Claim:
A method of operating a radio receiver, the method comprising: coupling a signal identifying a received signal overload condition into an automatic gain control (AGC) component; controlling a gain value of the AGC component based on the signal identifying the received signal overload condition; when a signal overload condition is identified: capturing a given value of the gain value that occurred at a point in time prior to the received signal overload condition being identified; during the signal overload condition: instead of using the AGC component to control the gain applied to a received radio signal, coupling a locally generated bit pattern into a radio receiver back-end in response to a presence of the signal identifying the received signal overload condition, the locally generated bit pattern selected such that when processed causes less noise to accumulate in the radio receiver back-end than if a bit-stream derived from the received radio signal were processed using the gain of the AGC component; after the received signal overload condition is identified to have ended: setting the gain value of the AGC component to the given value and processing the received radio signal using the gain of the AGC component.