Reconfigurable direct radio frequency (RF) bandpass sampling receivers are disclosed that provide direct RF sampling of an input signal spectrum passed through a bandpass filter that is tunable over a wide frequency range of interest and that is sampled based on the bandwidth of the filter rather than the bandwidth of the total frequency range of interest. The bandwidth of the filter may further be variable to provide for optimized search against a variety of signal bandwidths. The reconfigurable direct RF bandpass sampling receiver may be implemented with a single fixed clock for applications where the signals of interest lie in adjacent non-overlapping frequency channels. For applications requiring arbitrary tuning, the reconfigurable direct RF bandpass sampling receiver can also use a programmable or switched sampling clock to avoid the Nyquist sample boundaries that occur with bandpass sampling and thus provide sampling of arbitrary frequencies. A high-speed analog pre-sampler may be included to extend the maximum frequency range that can be sampled.