Response of ideal radio noise meter to continuous sine wave, recurrent impulses, and random noise

The responses of an ideal radio noise meter to continuous sine wave, recurrent impulses, and random noise are evaluated and tabulated. The ideal meter consists of a narrow-band linear low noise super-heterodyne network followed by a detector which responds to the envelope of the intermediate frequency and a dc voltmeter which indicates the detector output. Four detector circuits — peak, quasi-peak, average, and rms — are considered. Their “ideal” characteristics are defined in the text.