Customer Reviews

Communication Systems (Mcgraw-Hill Series in Electrical & Computer Engineering)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The strong points of this book are its mathematical rigor and its ability to convey the intuition behind the math. Unfortunately, there are several weak points. First, there are a surprising number of typos in the book for a fourth edition, even in text that is carried over from the third edition. Second, it is very difficult to read because the authors define a variable once, then use it repeatedly without redefinition, even if the variable is unused for many pages. If you have a photographic memory, this is ok. If not, you spend needless time searching the text for the definition. Finally, the problems at the end of each chapter are often ambiguous. This is life in the real world, but is needlessly frustrating in an academic setting.

If you have the time to dig through this tome, it is worth the effort. But given the clarity with which it explains its topics, such effort is required primarily due to deficiencies in the books style and not the difficulty of the subject matter.

I used an earlier edition of this text in the Communications Systems course at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (where Prof. Carlson was, at that time, the head of the Electrical Engineering Department) and found it to be a very good book. The explanations were concise and easy-to-understand. The book explains the underlying concepts well. The mathematical tools needed for the understanding of the concepts are introduced at the appropriate times.

This book is used in the EE curricula at RPI and at Stanford University (in the EE 279 Introduction to Communication Systems course) and at other schools.

For an EE student at the undergraduate level, this is an excellent introduction to communication systems and should help you understand quite a variety of topics dealing with both analog and digital communications.

I teach a Communication Systems class (senior electrical engineers) and have been using the Carlson Crilly Rutledge 4th edition. Paul Crilly has done an excellent job of updating this communications textbook, adding homework problems and material on wireless propagation. Some of the material is mathematically difficult, but I have not found an easier book except those suited for a BET degree.

The 4th edition contained a number of errors. I sent Paul Crilly a list of errors I found in the 4th edition and he has corrected 100% of them. I will use this 5th edition in my class next year.

I currently use this text in an introductory course to communication systems. I find the text very porrly written with large numbers of errors. The errors are sometimes easy to spot and sometimes rather difficult to find. My professor many times stumbles over the errors. Sometimes it's a battle to understand the examples worked out in the text. A good example of the extent of the errors can be found on page 109 where the authors claim that 35 + 55 - 199.1 + 20 equals -144.1. I thought that such addition was taught in 1st and 2nd grade. A second example is much harder to find such as the + sign instead of a - sign in example 3.5-1 on page 122. I could go on and on with several more examples of egregious errors, but there's not enough room to fit them all. I have written letters to my dean, the editors, and the publisher stating that this book is riddled with many many errors and should be immediately pulled from course materials and publications. If anyone writes a positive review of this book they are either lying, incompetent themselves or had a very good professor who could help them past the errors in the book or avoided using the text as much as possible. If you have a professor who is using this book I recommend you either drop the course or see if the professor is willing to change the text material.

This product is very insightful with regards to communications systems. Some of the notation take some time to get used to, but beyond that, Carlson, et al, does a good job explaining the many facets of electrical communications and the analysis thereof. Warning: this book should only be purchased by those individuals who have a strong background in electrical circuitry and mathematics as the content of the book relies on a prior knowledge of these subjects. However, for those select few who are electrical engineering majors, please think about purchasing this text book.

My Background:
I am a junior engineering-physics major, with an interest in microelectronics and circuit design, currently using this book as a textbook for a course on communications systems.

Comments on Previous Reviews:
I am slightly puzzled by those who think that the book is too mathematically intense, there's really nothing much beyond fourier analysis and basic probability, and most of the text relies only on simple trigonometry. I actually thought the the mathematics in the book were simplistic and inelegant, and detracted from the presentation. Also, as to the complaint of typos, if you are actually following the derivations, such typos are a minor inconvenience and can be easily identified, and while annoying, by no means invalidate the book as a text.

Finally, to the author of the previous review: you should keep comments about your opinions of other people's intelligence or capacity to be engineers out of your review. Such remarks are useless to potential buyers, and serve only to demonstrate ignorance and short-citedness.

Critique of the Book:
My main criticism of the book is that it does not give much insight into the topics, and is extremely poorly written. This makes for a boring read, and I feel like the text did not contribute significantly to my understanding of the subject, but rather I relied on previous mathematical and engineering experience and my professor's explanations.
Furthermore, although it sounds somewhat inane, I was also really bothered by the layout of the book. For some reason, new publishers decide that it's helpful to stick boxes and charts and change font sizes etc... almost at random, in order to be more dynamic. This in itself, wouldn't be disasterous, but it seems to contribute to the disjointedness of the presentation.
Anyway, long story short, the concepts are explained poorly, inelegantly, the wording is unecessarily confusing and circuitous, the problems are nothing more than excercises that merely develop facility with manipulating equations rather than providing solid design skills or fundamental insight, and the presentation is fragmented, poorly motivated and arranged. You can probably learn the material from this book if your background is sufficiently strong, but I would look elsewhere.

This is a very concise and self contained (introductory to intermediate level) communication analysis book. The author does present the communication concepts with a fair balance of mathematical derivations and engineering intuitive interpretation.

This book is good for one who is locking for a mathematically extensive explanation of analog communication systems and basic digital systems. It lacks of real world applications and practical examples.
I purchased the Forth Edition becuase my graduated-school teacher followed that edition for the class, but I had the chance to compare it to the Fifth Edition and it did not include major changes and up-to-date information yet... Still old staft with few to nothing real-world applications and examples.

It also could be a good textbook for EE students without any knowledge in telecom systems, but not for those who already know the basis.

The text is unnecessarily lengthy and should not be even used as reference for an introductory course.

Beware the paperback version of this book. I don't know if all sellers are doing this but the seller I purchased from (The Book Depository) sent me the "international version" which apparently has somewhat different content than the "North American" version. Even worse, the back cover of the text explicitly states that this version should not be sold in North America. As I purchased this through the Amazon web site, I hold Amazon at least partially responsible.