Methods, systems, and apparatus for EM communications. One of the apparatus includes a plurality of receive samplers arranged in parallel and configured to receive an amplitude modulated input signal, each sampler being clocked at a same rate but not a same phase, the rate being in relation with the input signal; a plurality of envelope extractors, wherein each envelop extractor is communicatively coupled to a respective output of one of the plurality of receive samplers, and wherein each envelope extractor is configured to extract the envelope of the input signal after sampling; and a combiner communicatively coupled to the envelope extractors to combine the signal envelopes sampled at their respective phases, creating a combined output that provides an approximate copy of the input signal envelope, providing an output signal for performing symbol synchronization.