Systems and methods providing wideband tuners controlling spurious signal placement in the capture bandwidth

A system comprising:

• a first mixer;
• a first local oscillator coupled to the first mixer and providing a first local oscillator frequency thereto,
• a second mixer disposed in a signal output path of the first mixer, the first and second mixers configured to provide a multi-conversion tuner;
• a second local oscillator coupled to the second mixer and providing a second local oscillator frequency thereto;
• at least one filter disposed in the signal output path of the first mixer, the at least one filter defining a capture bandwidth of the tuner;
• and
• a controller coupled to the first and second local oscillators operable to select the first and second local oscillator frequencies frequency converting a plurality of channels to the capture bandwidth of the tuner, wherein the selected first and second local oscillator frequencies have a spurious signal associated therewith which falls within the tuner capture bandwidth, and wherein the spurious signal has an attribute sufficient to degrade a signal output by the tuner outside of at least one acceptable tuner performance parameter and thus comprises a relevant spurious signal remaining within the tuner capture bandwidth, the controller further operable to select a frequency shift for at least one of the first and second local oscillator frequencies to dispose the relevant spurious signal between two adjacent channels of the plurality of channels.

A method comprising:

• determining channel location information for a broadband transmission system;
• selecting a first and second local oscillator frequency combination for frequency converting a plurality of channels of the broadband transmission system to fall within a capture bandwidth of a tuner, wherein the selected first and second local oscillator frequencies have a spurious signal associated therewith which falls within the tuner capture bandwidth, and wherein the spurious signal has an attribute sufficient to degrade a signal output by the tuner outside of at least one acceptable tuner performance parameter and thus comprises a relevant spurious signal remaining within the tuner capture bandwidth;
• determining a frequency offset between a transmitting source in the broadband transmission system and the tuner;
• selecting a frequency shift for at least one of the first and second local oscillator frequencies to dispose the relevant spurious signal between two adjacent channels of the plurality of channels, wherein the selecting a frequency shift uses the channel location information for disposing the relevant spurious signal between the two adjacent channels, and wherein the selecting a frequency shift compensates for the frequency offset;
• and
• controlling first and second local oscillators to provide the first and second local oscillator frequencies in accordance with the selected frequency shift to dispose the relevant spurious signal between the two adjacent channels.