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The MC1496 is the classic balanced modulator, and this page takes you from the idea to the finished circuit. What it means to multiply two signals, how DSB-SC differs from ordinary AM —the suppressed carrier and why that saves power—, what the chip looks like inside, and the Figure 27 circuit from its own datasheet, with oscilloscopes and a spectrum analyzer to see what comes out at each point.

Within the Electronics Technician program this content is covered in Modulation systems, Analog communications and Digital modulation.

The same signal can be built by hand in the instrument simulator: there is a multiplier, an adder and two lab filters, and with two generators you first connect the double sideband, then the AM and finally each sideband separately, to look at them on the oscilloscopes and measure their bandwidth on the spectrum analyzer.

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