A method for calibration of a magnetic resonance imaging system having a bore, a body coil mounted in the bore, a patient mat, a number of local coils mounted in the patient mat, an upconversion stage having a number of upconverters, and a processing stage, includes the steps of generating a calibration signal in the body coil; receiving the calibration signal at the local coils, upconverting the signal from the local coils in the upconversion stage, transmitting the upconverted signal to the processing stage, synchronously downconverting the signal in the processing stage using the calibration signal generated in the body coil, and processing the downconverted signal to generate an overall path complex gain.