A communications system is provided that includes a detector that has I/Q
mismatch, a calibration circuit that estimating a phase and/or an
amplitude mismatch of the detector, and a compensation circuit that uses
the estimated phase and/or amplitude mismatch to mitigate the effects of
the amplitude and/or phase mismatch. An IQ-modulated signal produced by
the I/Q-modulator can be communicated over a loop back connection to the
detector of the communication system. The calibration circuit can
estimate the I/Q mismatch for the IQ-modulator and can provide the
estimated values to a pre-compensation circuit. In one aspect, I/Q
mismatch in the IQ-modulator of a communication system can be determined
using a spectrum analyzer. Power measurements can be used to compute the
amplitude mismatch and the phase mismatch of an IQ-modulator.