An Introduction to Radio Engineering

Citation

Ellis, B. (2005), "An Introduction to Radio Engineering", Circuit World, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 37-37. https://doi.org/10.1108/cw.2005.31.2.37.1

A wee while back, I reviewed Lee's. The Design of CMOS Radio‐frequency Integrated Circuits, from the same stable as this one. The first chapters of Lee's work were, if you remember, an excellent introduction to Radio Engineering, written in quite a humourous and interesting style. Professor Coleman's style is in complete contrast. This is a dry textbook that could be considered as a follow‐on from Lee, but I emit a warning that a reasonable working knowledge of mathematics and electronics is required to obtain a complete understanding. The title prepares one for an introduction to the subject, but this “introduction” covers work I was doing in my fifth‐year undergraduate courses in the middle of last century!

Right from the start, one is plunged into electromagnetic radiation theory, noise and other fundamentals but, by page 14, one enters into non‐linearity with an equation encompassing eight lines on the following page, comprising components of beat frequencies and harmonics. The data leading up to this complexity is there, but it takes a lot of time to work out how the equation is derived. Happily, it is not all this complicated and the references at the end of each chapter point to other, simpler, works (in some cases, even amateur radio publications) if the going gets too tough.

Within the context of the subject matter of this journal, this book does provide some invaluable insights into the theory of microstrip – less on stripline – components and the form of the electric and magnetic fields round them. This knowledge will allow printed circuit designers to produce better products by a better control of the characteristic impedance with minimized losses and lower crosstalk. Even better, microstrip filters may be very useful, not to mention power dividers and λ/4 directional couplers.

Still contextually, whereas this is a valuable textbook for radio engineers by the wealth of information in a relatively small number of pages, I believe that a dozen pages or so provides more information about microstrip design, with the appropriate equations, than in any other work I have seen. This should allow the printed circuit designer to work much more efficiently with the design engineer, if he is involved with high frequencies.

Out of context with this journal, Coleman has written a concise but important work covering most aspects of radio frequency engineering, with the exception of thermionic and highly specialised semiconductor devices. As RF has been rather a poor relation of this digital and optical age (although there is a new upsurge of interest), this book is timely and could well provide third‐to‐fifth‐year electronics students an added interest in their work but, more importantly, a means for qualified engineers in industry to update their knowledge in this specialised field.

Physically, the book is well‐printed and robustly bound with a colourful glossy cover. The print is easy‐to‐read on a good quality, crisp, paper and the numerous line drawings are excellent in quality. A minor criticism may lie in that the circuit diagrams use a number of non‐preferential symbols (e.g. a zig‐zag, rather than a rectangle, for a resistor). The author has written it in good UK‐style English, which helps in the understanding of the concepts.