Switchable wide band receiver front end for a multiband receiver

A switchable wide band receiver front end device for a multiband receiver, said front end device including

• an antenna (1) for receiving broadcast signals within a plurality of receiving frequency bands, wherein each of the receiving frequency bands is divided into a plurality of channels;
• one and only one wideband low noise amplifier (2) connected to said antenna (1) to amplify the broadcast signals received in any of the receiving frequency bands and for outputting amplified output signals;
• switching means (10) comprising a number of switches (11, 12, 13) connected in parallel with each other and with said low-noise amplifier (2) to receive said amplified output signals, wherein the number of said switches (11, 12, 13) corresponds to a total number of said receiving frequency bands;
• plural bandpass filters (22, 23, 24) each connected in series to a respective one of said switches (11, 12, 13), wherein each of said bandpass filters has a bandpass filtering characteristic designed to pass signals received in an associated one of said receiving frequency bands;
• one and only one mixer (30) connected to an output side of each of said bandpass filters, said mixer (30) comprising means for mixing filtered signals output from said bandpass filters (22, 23, 24) with a locally generated mixing signal to produce intermediate frequency signals;
• a controllable frequency synthesizer (31) for generating said locally generated mixing signal, said frequency synthesizer being connected with said mixer (30) to supply said mixer with said locally generated mixing signal;
• and
• a control unit (14) comprising means for generating a first control signal to switch said independently controllable switches (11, 12, 13) so that only said filtered signals from a selected one of said receiving frequency bands are input to said mixer (30) and means for generating a second control signal for said frequency synthesizer (31), whereby said frequency synthesizer generates said locally generated mixing signal at a local oscillation frequency according to said selected one of said receiving frequency bands.