Customer Reviews

Wireless Spectrum Finder: Telecommunications, Government and Scientific Radio Frequency Allocations in the US 30 MHz - 300 GHz

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

 

 

Wireless Spectrum Finder has come full circle. It was originally published as SpectrumGuide in hardcopy, then published as an electronic book, and has now reverted back to hardcopy, published by McGraw-Hill. I was permitted to see a review copy of SpectrumGuide, and while it was tremendously useful to have the ability to do keyword searches, I like the book format of Wireless Spectrum Finder even better than I liked SpectrumGuide. Wireless Spectrum Finder is an annotated list of the various spectrum allocations in the US. In that role, it's extremely valuable to see Kobb's notes on how a particular chunk of spectrum came into use (and often what use it served prior to being reallocated), how it is encumbered, and what "special features" it has. Kobb basically works his way through the spectrum, and handles what could be a dry and dull job with grace and humor. In the sections of particular interest to me, such as 902 - 928 MHz, 2.4 to 2.485 GHz, etc. Kobb does a very credible job of explaining the varying (and at times conflicting) uses of a particular chunk of spectrum. At one point I offered some feedback that Kobb didn't make particular note of the fact that 2.4 - 2.485 GHz was heavily used by ISP's using Part 15 equipment, and that comment was included in the next issue of SpectrumGuide (and was incorporated into Wireless Spectrum Finder). Of particular note is that Kobb maintains an online errata list on his web page. This is particularly welcome for a reference work. I highly recommend Wireless Spectrum Finder. It's an excellent reference work and I find it indispensable in my work as a writer dealing with wireless issues. It has found a permanent home on the "gotta be within easy reach" top shelf of the bookcase behind my desk.

This book is clearly dated now as a lot of "water has gone over the dam"in 10 years.

But it is still very useful (the paper version that is). I am teaching a spectrum policy course and have urged my students to buy it on the used market. If you want to know how spectrum is really used and you are willing to double check for changes in the past 10 years, then this is what you need.

First, let me say that I own both a paper copy and the electronic, Kindle edition of this book. The text is fabulous, it is easily the best reference available on FCC spectrum allocations, and gives a little bit of technical and regulatory history as well that is a tremendous help in understanding how things got to be the way they are. My only complaint about the text of the book is that it needs a new edition since a lot has changed since it was published (digital TV transition, rebanding, etc.).

It seems that the Kindle is a format designed for reading novels where one begins at page one and methodically proceeds one page at a time in sequence until reaching the end. I don't think anybody (with the possible exception of his editor) reads Bennett Kobb's book that way. The Kindle format makes it incredibly hard to search the book by providing precious few hyperlinks (really, only in the table of contents which, of course, just lists the frequency categories HF, VHF, UHF, etc with no finer grained detail). Unbelievably, the index contains neither hyperlinks nor page numbers, which means in reality it is just a list of words that appear in the book with no indication as to WHERE they appear in the book. And there are no hyperlinks within the text itself, even in places where the semantics are begging for one (e.g. the many references to "DTV, see 470-512 MHz"). More generally, the Kindle page-by-page interface makes flipping through the book to find the information you want excruciating.

My guess is that the publishers had the text in electronic form, so it was easy to produce a Kindle edition. But they didn't bother to invest the effort required to really adapt the book to the new format.

Thus three stars: five for the original book and zero for the Kindle formatting.

The Kindle version is extraordinarily difficult to use because there wasn't a good way to search, and scrolling has been taking too long. Too bad because this book came highly recommended by professionals in the field.