Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The Wireless World
- 2 Components
- 3 Phasors
- 4 Transmission Lines
- 5 Filters
- 6 Transformers
- 7 Acoustics
- 8 Transistor Switches
- 9 Transistor Amplifiers
- 10 Power Amplifiers
- 11 Oscillators
- 12 Mixers
- 13 Audio Circuits
- 14 Noise and Intermodulation
- 15 Antennas and Propagation
- A Equipment and Pants
- B Fourier Series
- C Puff 2.1
- D Component Data
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The Wireless World
- 2 Components
- 3 Phasors
- 4 Transmission Lines
- 5 Filters
- 6 Transformers
- 7 Acoustics
- 8 Transistor Switches
- 9 Transistor Amplifiers
- 10 Power Amplifiers
- 11 Oscillators
- 12 Mixers
- 13 Audio Circuits
- 14 Noise and Intermodulation
- 15 Antennas and Propagation
- A Equipment and Pants
- B Fourier Series
- C Puff 2.1
- D Component Data
- Index
Summary
A modern electrical-engineering textbook is formidable. One thousand pages of matrices and theorems and problems sap enthusiasm from the hardiest students. Even after wading through this massive amount of material, students may be no closer to designing or building electronic circuits. A delightful contrast to these books is Paul Nahin's The Science of Radio. Nahin, who is also a historian of great skill, approaches the mathematics of communications engineering in top-down fashion, by telling a history of early radio and introducing the mathematics only when (“just in time”) he needs it for his story. However, in one sense, Professor Nahin only tells half the story, and we would like to tell the rest of it. The mathematics of communications, although beautiful, is limited – engineering products must be built. Today's electrical-engineering students have usually not built stereos or tinkered with cars, and this means that they do not know the smoke and smell of construction or the excitement of electronic circuits coming to life. Many universities encourage this trend, with exercises where students switch components in and out of a circuit, never even heating up the soldering iron.
This is an introduction to electronics based on the progressive construction of a radio transceiver, the NorCal 40A, through thirty-nine exercises. At Caltech, beginning electrical-engineering students complete one problem as homework for each lecture. These exercises may also be useful for students in radio engineering classes.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Electronics of Radio , pp. xiii - xivPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999