The Beginner's Handbook of Amateur Radio

Rating:
Summary: A must?
Review: A must? for beginners. Very easy to read. I'll recomend this book only if you have extra time. You can die without reading it.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: To challenge myself, I decided to study in order to take the Technician amateur radio operating license exam. I picked up this book, which bills itself as a complete source of information. Not so.

Despite the fact that the book is in its 4th edition, it is poorly edited. Information jumps from basic to full jargon in the same paragraph, without any definition of the new terms used. Much of the information on the basics of electric circuits and electronics seems to be pulled from an electronics text.

I'm an engineer, but not an electrical engineer. It's been years since I studied electric circuits and this book did little to refresh my memory. The information on FCC regs is sparse -- the complete Part 97 is not included. The question pool for the multiple choice Tech exam is included, but only the letter answers are provided without any explanation of the answers (leaving the reader to try to find the information in the rest of the book).

I'll look to another source to help prepare for the exam.