The RF and Microwave Circuit Design Cookbook

Rating:
Summary: covers its topics well, but leaves out some essentials
Review: This book covers some topics in rf and microwave circuit design very well. Amplifiers and oscillators, for example, are not covered. Be sure to check the table of contents to see that it meets your needs. The areas covered are presented so that you can quickly extract design techniques without wading through less relavent information. The book frequenly suggests simulation to tune designs. This is a good idea and low cost simulation tools (ARRL radio designer) are available. The book will give you the most if you have a simulation tool available as you read. Every section has a bit of cautionary advice for the reader. Most of the advice is very much worth taking, but ocasionally it is wrong. (Example: balanced varactor multipliers are harder to design than single ended multipliers - which are too hard to be practical. The latter has some truth, but balanced varactor designs can be very simple.)