Customer Reviews

Radio Receiver Design (Electrical Engineering & Electronics) (Electrical and Computer Engineering)

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

 

 

The subject matter of the book is extremely attractive. Unfortunately the treatment of most topics are superficial and not sufficient for the serious RF designer.

Receiver spurs are introduced and then the discussion is stopped with a reference to computer programs. There is no discussion of the spur frequency / amplitude map, its underlying theory, and its use.

The classic Motorola application note on RF amplifier design dwarfs the treatment in the book.

The treatment of the origin of amplifier noise and designing for low noise performance is non-existent. Again the Motorola application note and the reference sited therein is a much better start.

One of the RF web sites has some freeware which calculates a receiver performance using entered characteristics of each subcomponent: input and output return loss, gain, noise figure, noise bandwidth, IP3, and various other parameters. If you want to understand this, the book is of little help.

I was attracted by the book title and table of contents, but was seriously dissappointed in the treatment of important topics. If you desire a serious understanding of RF design, this book is not for you.

Dixon's style is clear and concise, aimed at beginners in the field of telecommunications. He effectively motivates the reader by describing the major aspects of RF design instead of focusing on implementation specific details. Note that this book does not present a theoretical analysis of topics such as propagation, synchronization, filters or control loops and instead gives a qualitative overview of specific technologies.

The main topics are superheterodyne receiver, amplifiers (RF and IF), local oscillators, filters, antennas and digital methods (including coding and error detection). If you're a beginner in the field of RF design this book will probably serve as a good primer.