Rating: 
Summary: A must read for investors in the wireless industry!
Review: I found The Essential Guide to RF and Wireless to be very helpful in understanding the basic concepts and terminology of the wireless industry. As an avid investor, I have in the past invested in companies that are involved in the manufacturing of wireless components without a clue of how they worked. I just knew that wireless was a rapidly growing industry and is quickly becoming an integral part of our society. This book provided me a basic understanding of how wireless works in a very non-technical matter. It was very easy to read with lots of examples and industry tidbits thrown in. The author takes no liberties regarding the knowledge of his readers and explains even the most basic concepts. This may seem mundane to the more adept readers, but very much appreciated by those of us with little or no knowledge of the wireless industry. I have highly recommended this book to my family, friends, and co-workers and would suggest that investors hoping to benefit from the tremendous performance of wireless stocks give it a read.
Rating: 
Summary: easy but still useful
Review: I found this book useful on clearly describing the many RF components ( like amplifers,mixers,filters,...) and something like discrete,hybrid/MIC,and MMIC manufacturing concepts,in an very easy language , I finish it within 1 hour and I am not an english speaker! so the recommendation is : read this book right in the bookstore and grap a paper not larger than A4 as a note, before you feel your leg tired or want to go ... , you may have finish it .
Rating: 
Summary: How can this book be written by a non-RF specialist?
Review: I read "The Essential Guide toTelecommunications" by Dodd before and liked it so I assumed that "The Essential Guide to RF and Wireless" would have a similar quality. Wrong! As I was reading this RF book, it became apparent that the author himself is not an RF engineer. The book is full of RF engineer bashing and even contains technical mistakes. For example, on page 49, the 1dB compression point is defined as "the highest power the amplifier can put out and still be in the linear region". Any RF engineer will tell you that the 1dB compression point lies in the nonlinear region (1dB away from the linear extrapolation)! This book has obviously not been reviewed by technical experts (proofread by an accountant instead) and I wonder how the publisher can let this happen.It seems that the author wrote this book not to educate but to meet his own financial needs. On page 4 he wrote: "I have included only one formula for you to memorize in the entire book; here it is: B=M. This equation means the more book which are bought, the more money I make". There are several other comments like this. Only after I bought the book , I saw the small print on the cover: "Perfect for ... non-engineers!" I really hope that the title be revised to reflect this intended readership. The book wastes pages after pages on trivial facts that even high school students would know. The author says he is working on another writing project "The Essential Guide to DSP". I do hope that the publisher arranges to have his next book reviewed by DSP experts. DSP is a very mathematical subject and please don't write the B=M equation again!
Rating:
Summary: An interesting and easy to understand overview of RF.
Review: I read this book out of curiosity in the subject. Having absolutely no background in the RF industry, I found the book very easy to read. The author frequently used analogies which I found to be extremely helpful in understanding the concepts. I know I will remember many of them as I can relate them to everyday life. I now understand why my cell phone doesn't work when I drive next to a cell site on the freeway and why my neighbor's satellite TV reception is fuzzy when it rains. There are a lot of interesting 'tidbits' throughout the book and I have found myself repeating some of this trivia to friends or colleagues when I can relate it to our conversation. The topic of RF seemed so foreign to me that I was surprised at how much I understand after reading this book. This subject has been simplified using terminology and analogies that I can easily relate to. Granted, I had no interest in some parts of the book, but I can honestly say I enjoyed reading the majority of the book. I would recommend this book to anyone that wants some insight into this mysterious "thing" that controls so much of our everyday lives.
Rating:
Summary: The best so far
Review: I recently started a new job where I need a working understanding of wireless systems, and where I need to be able to comprehend and use the vocabulary of the trade. So, I have read several "Introduction to . . ." books. Weisman's Essential Guide is the best so far. He covers basic concepts, does a good job of explaining the terminology, surveys the different types of systems and the components used to build them, and manages to keep everything readily understandable. If you need to pick up the concepts quickly, pick up this book.
Rating:
Summary: Great ice breaker...
Review: If you don't know much about RF and the devices that manipulate it I would recommend this book. I am begining work in the RF field and feel that this book has helped me so that I can progress to other more agressive books.
Rating: 
Summary: A quick, painless and sometimes humorous overview of RF.
Review: Review my own book? Sure. It's the best book ever written. Everyone should own a copy, even if they can't read. (I need the money.) I was cruising through a wireless trade show a few years back, and looking around it occured to me that of the thousands of people at the convention, only a small percentage actually had an engineering background. Here they were, talking about things like spread spectrum and wireless local loop and all the time I suspected they were bluffing. They didn't really know what they were talking about. (Fortunately, nobody else did either, so it worked out ok.) So it occured to me what these people need is a quick and painless way to understand the concepts and vocabulary of the wireless world. Enter "The Essential Guide to RF and Wireless". A quick, painless and sometimes humorous overview of the wonderful world of RF and wireless. The book is intended for nontechnical people who want more breadth than depth on the subject. (You want more depth? Get an engineering degree.) It is a very fast read and is intended primarily for people working in and around the wireless industry. However, I also believe engineers whose backgrounds are in something other than RF, will also benefit from the book. There is also a terrific appendix on acronyms--which by itself is worth the price of the book--which helps decipher the arcane language used in the industry. Think of it as the Berlitz of RF. If you choose to purchase this book--and I hope you do--you will learn how wireless things work and you will have fun doing it. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: This book is intended for a non-technical audience only.
Review: Stop. If you are an RF engineer you should probably not buy this book. It will be like paying for a calculus book and getting one on long division. You will be disappointed. I have taken some creative liberties in an effort to make the subject easier to understand. If, on the other hand, you are clueless about RF and wireless technology, this book is for you. The book has only two goals: 1)To take the mystery out of how wireless things works by giving you a (very) simplified overview of RF components and wireless systems. 2)To expose you to the most commonly used terms in the wireless industry. I have taken a risk in writing this book. I have chosen to write it in a very lighthearted style by incorporating what I losely refer to as humor. (Sometimes it's funny and sometimes it's not.) My feeling was, that if the book were written in classic engineering textbook style, the intended audience would not make it to the end. This book is fast and easy to read and if you're new to the world of wireless technology, I feel confident that you will learn a lot from it.
Rating:
Summary: Fun to Read for Everyone!
Review: There are many levels of books on any given subject. For the beginners in RF and wireless, this is the best! I will assign it to my kids as part of their homeschool study in popular science. The tune of the book is friendly and the author is very considerate to his targeted readers. The author made many judgements in selecting subjects and choosing the depth of coverage. With all due respect, he has done a fantastic job and I am sure he got more kicks out of writing this book than we reading it. When he mentioned ASIC, I would add FPGA and VHDL. By the way, there are 24 GPS satellites in 6 planes, instead of 21. Why European want to have their own GPS? B/c our DoD put in a SA to drop the accuracy down to 5% of original military uses for civilian. Also, GSM-MAP is not TDMA. It is w-CDMA. No one like to give QUACOMM the sole control over 3G. Remenber, they had IS-95A&B (CDMAone). Furthermore, it would be great to add TD-UWB and RF-Home/Wi-Fi standards to render the book more enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent overview for the non-specialist
Review: This book is an excellent overview for a person who does not have a formal background in wireless and RF. I think that the author has used good judgement in balancing depth of coverage and breadth of topics. I would strongly recommend it...surely worth the money. Competing titles that I've seen are not meant for the newbie, and many such as Newton's are good but do not solely focus on the wireless aspect of things. I would hope that the author will bring in more coverage of WAP-like protocols and wireless PDA technologies like the ones used---unsuccesfully or succesfully---in the new Palm devices. Heartily Recommended.
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