A coils array (40, 40') including a plurality of coils (71, 72, 73) receives magnetic resonance signals from an examination region of a magnetic resonance imaging scanner (10). Each coil has mixing circuitry (74, 75, 76, 80, 81, 82) that frequency-shifts the received magnetic resonance signal to a selected transmission channel frequency. The coils array further includes combining circuitry (90) that combines the frequency-shifted magnetic resonance signals to produce an analog frequency domain multiplexed transmission signal output of the coils array. Receiver electronics (56, 56'') receive the analog frequency domain multiplexed transmission signal from the coils array. The receiver electronics include an analog-to-digital converter (164) that digitizes the analog frequency domain multiplexed transmission signal and digital signal processing circuitry (166) that processes the digital frequency domain multiplexed transmission signal to recover digitized signals corresponding to the magnetic resonance signals received by the plurality of coils.