Patent ID: 7957715

Claim:
A frequency converter for a radio frequency signal, comprising: a local oscillator producing a local oscillator signal comprising at least one local oscillator burst, each local oscillator burst within the at least one local oscillator burst comprising a respective plurality of RF frequency pulses, each RF frequency pulse within the plurality of RF frequency pulses having a respective effective amplitude based upon a respective time domain pulse width modulation of each RF frequency pulse, wherein each of the at least one local oscillator burst having, for a pre-determined duration, RF frequency pulses with an effective amplitude above a pre-determined threshold, wherein each of the at least one local oscillator burst has RF frequency pulses with respective effective amplitudes that define an effective amplitude pulse shaping envelope for each of the at least one local oscillator burst, the effective amplitude pulse shaping envelope reducing at least one frequency domain component magnitude of the local oscillator signal; and a radio frequency mixer, communicatively coupled to the local oscillator, the radio frequency mixer receiving an RF signal input and the local oscillator signal and producing an output signal representing the RF signal input at a frequency related to a combination of a frequency of the RF signal input and a frequency of the local oscillator signal.