Tutorial on the double balanced mixer

Smart use of mixers is a relevant issue in radio engineering and in instrumentation design, and of paramount importance in phase noise metrology. However simple the mixer seems, every time I try to explain to a colleague what it does, something goes wrong. One difficulty is that actual mixers operate in a wide range of power (150 dB or more) and frequency (up to 3 decades). Another difficulty is that the mixer works as a multiplier in the time-domain, which is necessary to convert frequencies. A further difficulty is the interaction with external circuits, the input sources and the load. Yet far the biggest difficulty is that designing with mixers requires a deep comprehension of the whole circuit at system level and at a component level. As the electronic-component approach is well explained in a number of references, this tutorial emphasizes the system approach, aiming to provide wisdom and insight on mixes.