Patent ID: 7397865

Claim:
A system for generating a signal to facilitate frequency analysis, comprising: a stimulus generator that generates a plurality of discrete tones according to a frequency spacing and a frequency offset to produce a comb spectrum, wherein the frequency offset is a fraction of the frequency spacing; an IQ modulator that modulates said plurality of discrete tones to generate a modulated signal that includes a respective spectrally inverted spur for each of said plurality of discrete tones, wherein said frequency spacing and said frequency offset cause said spectrally inverted spurs to occur at frequencies other than frequencies of said modulated signal that are associated with said plurality of discrete tones; a channel for communication of said modulated signal; and a frequency analyzer that analyzes said modulated signal after communication through said channel, wherein said frequency analyzer is operable to generate an estimated frequency response of said channel by excluding frequencies of said modulated signal that are associated with said spectrally inverted spurs; wherein said frequency analyzer performs a Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) on samples of said demodulated signal; wherein said frequency spacing equals ω p , said frequency offset equals an integer multiple of ω p /N, and N is an integer; and wherein said DFT has a frequency resolution of ω p /N.