Why super heterodyne radio receivers are called 'super'?

Answer 1

When two frequencies are "mixed" the sum and the difference frequencies are produced. These frequencies are called heterodynes. If these frequencies are outside the range of human hearing they are said to be supersonic. The full name of a superhet receiver is supersonic heterodyne. This receiver uses a mixer to produce an intermediate frequency outside the range of human hearing.

Before superhets were in common use, but following from the old crystal set was an amplified form of the crystal set, called the 'Tuned Radio Frequency" receiver, or "TRF" for short. With many TRF receivers, a control called 'regeneration' controlled the gain of the RF amplifier, and could be turned up to the point that the entire radio set became unstable and oscillated, usually at the frequency you were tuned to. With the gain set just below the point of oscillation, these receivers were very sensitive. For listening to Morse Code signals, the control would be advanced just into the oscillation stage, and the difference in frequency between the received signal and the receiver's oscillation became a 'beat note', or a beeping sound, that was easy to receive in noisy conditions.

This form of reception became known as 'heterodyne reception', and this type of radio was called a 'regenerative receiver'.

Problem was, this operation usually required 3 hands, a still room and a lot of patience. Once tuned, the radio would drift in frequency, or burst into loud screaming oscillation, seemingly for no apparent reason. Sometime later, the 'super-regenerative' receiver was developed in an effort to simplify operation and these were used up into VHF frequencies into the early '30's.

Eventually, with the development of better radio tubes and more elaborate design, the suphet rapidly became the most popular, as it was so easy to use. At last, you only needed one hand to operate a radio. And you could walk away and come back and it was still tuned to the station. This was the '30's where radios found their way into every westerner's living room, bringing news and entertainment to the masses (that could afford it). By the 60's, we all had 'transistors', and the superhet was everywhere. Now, most of us have TV, cable or satellite. And you know which process they all still use to turn the RF signal into a video signal that the screen can display?

Just testing!