The Essential Guide to RF and Wireless

This is truly an excellent guide for anyone who wants to understand the basics of RF & Wireless. The most wonderful part about this book are the wonderful analogies and simple explanations of a quite difficult topic. The only issue I have is that this book is due for a 3rd edition - the last chapter is somewhat dated (2001)

There are many levels of books on any given subject. For the beginners in RF and wireless, this is the best! I will assign it to my kids as part of their homeschool study in popular science. The tune of the book is friendly and the author is very considerate to his targeted readers. The author made many judgements in selecting subjects and choosing the depth of coverage. With all due respect, he has done a fantastic job and I am sure he got more kicks out of writing this book than we reading it. When he mentioned ASIC, I would add FPGA and VHDL. By the way, there are 24 GPS satellites in 6 planes, instead of 21. Why European want to have their own GPS? B/c our DoD put in a SA to drop the accuracy down to 5% of original military uses for civilian. Also, GSM-MAP is not TDMA. It is w-CDMA. No one like to give QUACOMM the sole control over 3G. Remenber, they had IS-95A & B (CDMAone). Furthermore, it would be great to add TD-UWB and RF-Home/Wi-Fi standards to render the book more enjoyable.

This book is an excellent overview for a person who does not have a formal background in wireless and RF. I think that the author has used good judgement in balancing depth of coverage and breadth of topics. I would strongly recommend it...surely worth the money. Competing titles that I've seen are not meant for the newbie, and many such as Newton's are good but do not solely focus on the wireless aspect of things. I would hope that the author will bring in more coverage of WAP-like protocols and wireless PDA technologies like the ones used---unsuccesfully or succesfully---in the new Palm devices. Heartily Recommended.

I found The Essential Guide to RF and Wireless to be very helpful in understanding the basic concepts and terminology of the wireless industry. As an avid investor, I have in the past invested in companies that are involved in the manufacturing of wireless components without a clue of how they worked. I just knew that wireless was a rapidly growing industry and is quickly becoming an integral part of our society. This book provided me a basic understanding of how wireless works in a very non-technical matter. It was very easy to read with lots of examples and industry tidbits thrown in. The author takes no liberties regarding the knowledge of his readers and explains even the most basic concepts. This may seem mundane to the more adept readers, but very much appreciated by those of us with little or no knowledge of the wireless industry. I have highly recommended this book to my family, friends, and co-workers and would suggest that investors hoping to benefit from the tremendous performance of wireless stocks give it a read.

I read this book out of curiosity in the subject. Having absolutely no background in the RF industry, I found the book very easy to read. The author frequently used analogies which I found to be extremely helpful in understanding the concepts. I know I will remember many of them as I can relate them to everyday life. I now understand why my cell phone doesn't work when I drive next to a cell site on the freeway and why my neighbor's satellite TV reception is fuzzy when it rains. There are a lot of interesting 'tidbits' throughout the book and I have found myself repeating some of this trivia to friends or colleagues when I can relate it to our conversation. The topic of RF seemed so foreign to me that I was surprised at how much I understand after reading this book. This subject has been simplified using terminology and analogies that I can easily relate to. Granted, I had no interest in some parts of the book, but I can honestly say I enjoyed reading the majority of the book. I would recommend this book to anyone that wants some insight into this mysterious "thing" that controls so much of our everyday lives.