Customer Reviews

Fields and Waves in Communication Electronics

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

 

 

This book may have some perplexing early chapters on basic electricity and magnetism, but no more so than any other intermediate-level physics or engineering text on E&M. That's the nature of the beast - it's a highly mathematical subject. If you want a "cookbook" for the practicing radar/antenna/comm. technician who never wanted/had to learn the theory, look elsewhere. Where this text really shines is not in the "Fields and Waves", but in the "in Communication Electronics." I have not seen a clearer presentation of transmission lines, period, and I own a number of other popular (and widely-taught and cited) E&M books at this level, as well as a rather muddy book on the specific subject of transmission lines. You will not find another similar book with this thorough coverage of real-life applications, simultaneously general enough that it's useful in a broad range of specialty fields. The figures are in general both very clear and very useful.

I refer to and review this book often. It has been updated and has the essential topics such as transmission lines, which is well covered. It also has interesting things like holography and optical image processing in the back, and is rather self contained. Like all great textbooks, you have to read it carefully and work out problems to build understanding. Ramo was the R in TRW as my former emag professor would say...For people who criticize this book, have you read the competition (Cheng)? For a slightly easier approach try Magid's "Electromagnetic Fields, Energy, and Waves". I think Jordan's "Emag Waves and Radiating Systems" is excellent w/regards to HF antennas and maxwell's equations, but it is very old.

I used this book for a couple of my graduate level E&M classes. This book seems to be a good foundation for learning the theoretical in's and out's of E&M. That being said, it is great for graduate students and professors but not so great for real engineers.

Now that I am a Systems (RF) Engineer, I have not found this book all that useful as a reference, simply because I have to go through tons of math just to get the answer I need. It is definitely not a "quick reference" book for the practicing engineer, but rather a in depth mathematical look into E&M theory.

Being a doctoral student in electrical engineering and having a B.S. in physics, I would say this is definitly a graduate level text. The reader must have a strong background in math, being able use formulas such as Legendre polynomials and vector cal with full understanding. It helps to have been exposed to this material. If you are looking for a book with more broken down explainations and examples, I would suggest Intro to Electrodynamics by David Griffiths.

Even though I only had a (now cheap) hardcover 1965 edition, this book was a pleasure to read. One more proof the theoretical principles behind RF are timeless.

Note: this is a good book to undestand the theoretical principles behind RF. If you are an engineer looking for practical design principles or rules of thumb (or even things like how to use a field solver) you need something else.

Disclaimer: I haven't read the whole book, just the areas that interested me in particular, namely transmission lines, Smith charts, treatment of Maxwell equations, and guided RF (information scattered in chapters 1..9). I presume the remaining chapters are equally good, hence the five stars.

This is a good book for someone who already has taken some physics and electronics course. The examples are great and explained well. Still it is a complicated subject matter.

I bought this book 13 years ago to read something about smith transmission-line chart. I think authors described very clear, especially, some figures that use to illustrate example very clear compared to other books with the same topic which is difficult to see something.

I'm no genius in RF Engineering but I have come across a lot of good Microwave Engineering books and this is NOT one of them. More to the point, I work entirely with other RF engineers and every person I showed this book to shuddered and began spouting off profanities at it.

Although the book does start out simply enough, the chapters tend to give only a brief overview of the material. The real trouble starts when you try to work the problems at the end of each chapter. With no solid examples or clear explanations of how to proceed, I found myself referring to my other RF textbooks for support.

I have no doubt that if you are borderline Genius, this book will make perfect sense to you. ...But for us less than genius personality types, keep looking, your book is still out there.

It is a good book but not for undergraduates. That is to say, different books are for different people at different entry level. It always refers back to previous chapters hence the reader is not lost when it mentioned things that are mentioned in previous chapters.

Having graduated as an Electromagnetics Engineer (I hear my lecturers coughing loudly) I found that book hell on paper. It starts off easily enough, but right from the word go you have to think hard about the ideas being put across. If you're good at putting ideas into maths, this book will be a doddle. Unfortunately, there's not many people like that.