🔍 Key Concepts

• MF/HF SSB operation and how audio is recovered from a received signal • Role of the beat frequency oscillator (BFO) in demodulating SSB signals • Which receiver stages (RF stage, synthesizer, RIT) would cause no signal at all vs. distorted/garbled audio

💭 Think About

• Ask yourself: if the voice is garbled but you can still tell someone is transmitting, which receiver circuits must still be working? • Consider which circuit is specifically responsible for re‑creating the missing carrier needed to turn an SSB signal back into understandable audio. • Think about which failures would likely result in complete loss of reception (silence or extreme weakness) rather than unreadable speech.

✅ Before You Answer

• Verify which block of an SSB receiver provides the carrier for demodulation of the SSB signal. • Check which failure (RF stage, synthesizer, RIT, BFO) would most likely cause no reception or no tuning rather than distorted speech. • Confirm that the symptom is specifically garbled/unreadable voice on MF/HF SSB, not simply weak, intermittent, or absent signals.