Patent ID: 7006565

Claim:
In a communications receiver having a feedback equalizer filler including filter coefficients, said communications receiver responsive to a received signal, said communications receiver further having an input filter responsive to said received signal to form soft decision samples corresponding to said received signal, and a slicer responsive to said received signal to form hard decision samples corresponding to said received signal, said soft decision samples and said hard decision samples comprising a series of individual signal samples, a method for operating said feedback equalizer filter comprising; operating said feedback equalizer filter in a first mode by coupling said soft decision samples to said feedback equalizer filter; operating said feedback equalizer filter in a second mode by coupling said hard decision samples to said feedback equalizer filter; operating said feedback equalizer filter in said first node during a signal acquisition period; operating said feedback equalizer filter in said second mode during a signal tracking period; switching from said second mode to said first mode responsive to a first individual signal sample; switching back from said first mode to said second mode responsive to a second individual signal sample, and wherein the steps of switching from said second mode to said first mode and switching back from said first mode to said second mode comprise switching between said first and second modes in accordance with the quality of said first and second individual signal samples, the steps of switching further comprising: measuring the quality level of said first individual signal sample; measuring the quality level of said second individual signal sample; coupling an individual one of said soft decision samples to said feedback equalizer filter when said first individual signal sample is at a first quality level; and coupling an individual one of said hard decision samples to said feedback equalizer filter when said second individual signal sample is at a second quality level, wherein said second quality level is greater than said first quality level.