Patent ID: 7508458

Claim:
A digital television broadcast signal receiver connected to a multi-directional antenna having multiple receiving directions provided in a standard for receiving a television broadcast signal by making one of the multiple receiving directions active, the digital television broadcast signal receiver comprising: a control signal output means for outputting, to the multi-directional antenna, a control signal to command a receiving direction of the multi-directional antenna for receiving each television broadcast signal; a receiver circuit connected to the multi-directional antenna for receiving the television broadcast signal; a BER (Bit Error Rate) detection circuit for demodulating the television broadcast signal received by the receiver circuit and detecting a BER value of the received television broadcast signal; a memory for temporarily storing BER values detected by the BER detection circuit; and a receiving direction determining means for determining a best receiving direction for each receivable channel based on the BER values stored in the memory, wherein for determining the best receiving direction for a channel, using the receiving direction determining means, the control signal output means continuously outputs the control signal to the multi-directional antenna for continuously scanning all the receiving directions of the multi-directional antenna, the BER detection circuit detects the BER values for the scanned receiving directions, while the memory stores the detected BER values for the scanned receiving directions, and the receiving direction determining means determines, as the best receiving direction for the channel, a minimum-error receiving direction to give a minimum BER value among all the receiving directions based on the BER values stored in the memory, wherein for determining the best receiving direction for a channel, the receiving direction determining means detects a minimum-error receiving direction or directions among all the receiving directions based on the BER values stored in the memory, and determines whether or not there are multiple minimum-error receiving directions, wherein in the case where there is one minimum-error receiving direction, the receiving direction determining means determines the one minimum-error receiving direction as the best receiving direction for the channel, and wherein in the case where there are multiple minimum-error receiving directions, the receiving direction determining means determines one of the minimum-error receiving directions as the best receiving direction for the channel with reference to BER values of receiving directions which are adjacent to the multiple minimum-error receiving directions.