Customer Reviews

The Electronics of Radio

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you're a build-it-yourself amateur radio hobbyist with a thirst for information about how it all works, this book should be on your shelf. It is somewhat less math-intensive than Wes Hayward's classic, _Introduction to RF Circuit Design_, but more practical than most other books I've seen on the subject. The book approaches the the topic by taking the reader step-by-step through the inner workings of the NorCal 40A, a popular QRP (low-power) HF transceiver kit, which means that you'll get the most from the book if you also have the kit (or a completed NorCal 40A). The author presents each section of the radio's design and discusses each in detail, with many circuit examples. The author discusses the pertinent radio or electronics theory in the context of how each part of the radio works. There are also many practical exercises and tests that the reader can perform on the radio, either as it is being built or after it is finished. Having a NorCal 40A isn't a requirement, and most of the book is useful, even apart from the kit construction, since many of the exercises and test procedures can be applied to other radio circuits with little trouble. The book is organized to make it very useful as a college-level engineering text, but the hobbyist shouldn't be scared off by the math and theory. All in all, this is a great new book for the amateur radio community.

Our library ordered this book last year and since then I
have been reading on and off when I get spare time.

Beening quite a novice on radio electronics and a amateur radio
operator(bx2ah, ex-bv2wn) in Taipei, Taiwan I am very much
into any underlying building blocks of the radio art. This book
is particular useful for laymen with only modest college math
background.

If you are an serious amateur radio operator who wish to learn
more about the workings of your ham rig/antenna,
I wholeheartedly highly recommend this brilliant book
to you.

frank chen bx2ah, ex-bv2wn

This book is the sole textbook for the two-term intro ee course EE20 at Caltech. Having gone through every page of this thing quite thoroughly, I can say that it is ok at what it attempts to do. It has decent instructions on how to build and test a NorCal 40A radio. Having a well-stocked lab and lots of test equipment helps you get what you should out of the book, and I'd say it's almost essential to actually build the radio to get everything you can out of this book. Beyond the build, this book, and its course, are a sort of intro to circuit analysis, although in this aspect I find it lacking, with brief descriptions of techniques and circuits that either are not clear or leave too much out of the discussion. For more basic/general E&M a book such as Physics for Scientists and Engineers by Serway and Jewett would be far more useful, and for more advanced circuit analysis techniques, something along the lines of Microelectronic Circuits by Sedra and Smith is a good choice. This book would be good for those interested in the inner workings of a radio and some bits and pieces of RF stuff, however I must emphasize that the building of the radio (which would be fairly expensive) and testing of it are where the real value of this book lie. I must also emphasize that the resulting radio is pretty fiddly and not a practical piece of kit. However, if you buy this book and don't build the radio or do the exercises, then you probably bought the wrong book.

This is a book for peoples whom already have some experienced
with RF circuits, it explain detail how to build the MORSE
code transceiver NORCAL40A.
(It will be perfect if this book have answer to all the
problem's solution at the end of the book)
Beside this book, you should also have the following books available in your shelf :
Electronic Principle(by Malvin)
Communication Electronics Principle and Application(Frenzel)
RF Circuit Design(Chris Bowick)

If you are interested in learning or reviewing radio electronics, I highly recommend this book. The math is not too advanced. The concepts and examples are clearly explained on a level from engineering to the interested layman. Rutledge does a grate job of merging the old technology with that of the 21st century. I also bought "The Science of Radio"by Paul J. Nahin. This is also a great read.

Speaking from the view of an electronics technician who later became an educator (BS in Secondary Ed - U of TN 1980), I believe it accomplishes its purpose for being published (>90%)! Knowing there are no perfect books or authors and one book can not teach you everything about such a complex technical subject, The Electronics of Radio is a very well written and orgainized book.

However, having built one of the ORIGINAL NorCal 40 transceivers kitted by the Northern California QRP Club (years before the book was written), and having used this radio to make hundreds of contacts across the US and Canada as KD4ZPA & KS4RT, I would recommend the following books be read first!

Basic Radio: Understanding the Key Building Blocks by Joel R. Hallas and published by the ARRL.

Basic Radio describes radio theory in a much simpler, non engineering, manner. Its first few pages gives the background for basic communications almost 200 years ago and without boring the reader continues to give good examples, diagrams, and illustrations as radio communications progressed through the years up to today's modern digital communications equipment.

For a more in depth study of basic electronics, I recommend,

electronics DeMYSTiFieD by Stan Gibilisco and pubished by McGraw Hill.

Both of these authors are college teachers (Professors), but do a very good job of making what could be boring reading at times, very interesting and engaging. Very little higher level math is required, but both books teach the same concepts in a more easily understood manner than is possible through a book like, The Electronics of Radio. Either or both of these books will make understanding The Electronics of Radio easier!

Have more questions, my email, is ks4rt@hotmail.com.

(Disclaimer: an EE professor at the school I attended wrote the book.)

I found this book horrible. It neither provides useful intuition nor rigorous analysis. The book is written as if it were an introductory text but it fails to cover a lot of fundamental topics (especially basic transistor circuits) that are critical for such a book. Additionally, the book spends a lot of text making useless analogies (like LRC oscillator to a pipe instrument.)

The overall approach of the book is to take a very detailed theoretical and practical explanation of a specific (NORCAL 50?, I think) radio. The approach makes it very difficult to apply its lessons to designing your own radio or high frequency electric circuits.

This book is composed by Prof. David Rutledge. His class required the book, which is the sole reason for the book entering my hands. This book, and the related course EE20 were the bane of my existence. The book is useless at explaining the basics of electronics. The book solely serves as a cookbook for the construction of a NORCAL radio. It fails at teaching important conecepts, and could only be used by the most faint-hearted hobbyist. On a related note, I have a spare book if anyones interested in buying one. As for now, it just holds up one end of my dorm room bed.