Customer Reviews

Introduction to RF Propagation

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While I will agree that the text has some errors, the concepts presented by this book are rock solid and easy to understand. As someone new to RF engineering, this book has been very helpful in describing the basic concepts of antennas, link budgets, atmospheric attenuation, and propagation models.

If you're looking for hardcore mathematics, this book is not for you. If you're looking for a practical conceptual understanding of RF, pick it up. It's very easy to read.

Although I like the book, I give it four stars due to the lack of an "answers" (not solutions) appendix. I think all math/physics/engineering books should have an answers section so that we can all stop worrying about our solutions... Anyway, its a good book.

My rating is insignificant. I have not yet read the book.
Just wanted to share an error with you.

P. 14, Section 2.2 "The Electric Field". The equation is wrong.

It is written as: E = eD
It should be: D = eE

where

D is the electric flux density vector (coulomb / m^2)
e (epsilon) is the permittivity of the medium (farads/meter)
E is the electric field vector (newtons per coulomb (N/C) or volts per meter (V/m) )


Also, on P. 15, TABLE 2.1 the equations for the Electric Field intensity are incorrect.
Their units are wrong...Electric Field units are newtons per coulomb (N/C) or volts per meter (V/m).

For the Infinite line charge: E = (linear charge density (lambda)) / (2*pi*r*e) * r_hat (e = epsilon)
For the Infinite surface charge: E = (surface charge density (sigma)) / (2*e) * r_hat (e = epsilon)
Note: lambda has units of coulombs/meter , sigma has units of coulombs / m^2

I am an EE but have been out of school for 35 years. This book was needed to bring me back up to speed on RF effects on low band VHF propagation. It is well written and the math is well explained. This allowed me to understand the text and the math and apply it to my problem. Well worth the cost.

I'm just using this book as a reference and wanted to highlight an error. Just ignore the rating because I haven't read the whole book thoroughly, but I'm forced to give a rating.

Page 196, first paragraph:
"If the signal bandwidth is less than the coherence bandwidth, B < Bc, then the channel is considered wideband or flat (flat fading). Otherwise, it is called a narrowband channel (selective fading)."

The terms wideband and narrowband seems to have been switched. Narrowband channels are flat fading, while wideband channels are frequency selective fading.