Patent ID: 7536157

Claim:
A transmitter for transmitting signals, comprising: a modulator for modulating a data signal, the modulator being capable of modulating the data signal according to any of two or more modulation schemes to form a modulated signal; an amplification arrangement for amplifying the modulated signal with any of two or more levels of gain; and a control system configured to interdependently select one of the modulation schemes and one of the levels of gain, and to control the modulator to adopt the selected modulation scheme and to control the amplifier to adopt the selected level of gain, wherein the control system is capable of operation in a first mode in which it is restricted to selecting a subset of combinations of the available modulation schemes and available levels of gain, which subset excludes the combination of one modulation scheme and levels of gain greater than a threshold and includes the combination of that modulation scheme and levels of gain below that threshold, and includes the combination of one other modulation scheme and levels of gain above that threshold.