Electronics and Electrical Books

This book has a few glaring errors in the introductory section on "Fourier Theory". Probably these don't affect the later chapters on power and noise, but nevertheless reduce the usefulness of the book as a comprehensive reference.

In case you are wondering about the errors, one of them is the 'proof' in section 2.8.5.1 that a delta function integrates to zero! One implication would be that the output of all linear systems is zero. That would simplify the world but is not terribly useful. There are a few other howlers that, together, indicate that the introductory sections in this book are best avoided.

Power Spectral Density is widespread used in electronic engineering books as the Fourier Transform of correlation functions. However this definition seems rather mysterious and not very well connected with the intuitive idea of power, specially for stochastic processes.

This books gives the definitions, proofs and motivations behind Power Spectral Density. It rigorously establishes the bridge between "engineers intuitive concepts" and mathematical laid-down definitions.

Although it introduces Lebesgue and measure theory, the first chapters of the book are not intended to mathematicians, so it only deals with those fundamental results which will be needed further in the book. In following chapters one readily get a great insight into the concepts and connections between those split worlds of engineering and mathematics. The exposition is clear even in the case of stochastic processes, where the Power Spectral Density is clearly definded as a statistical average power.

For those engineers aware of the gaps and flaws of engineering books and who can't turn a blind eye to mathematics, this is a must have book.

Spread spectrum techniques were heavily researched in the 1990s, although in the last decade focus has shifted to MIMO and other new developments. However, CDMA still features as the backbone of several 3rd and 4th generation cellular technologies.

This book starts from the basics of direct sequence and frequency-hopping systems (Chapters 2 and 3) and works up to CDMA in chapter 6. Chapters on channel coding and wireless fading channels are included for good measure. The problems at the end of each chapter are solvable, although few in number. It cannot be overlooked that to work your way through this book you need a solid grasp of probability theory and calculus, this is definitely a book for graduate/advanced students.

Overall, a handy reference tool for graduate students and engineers.

Another technically in depth book from Springer. This recent addition to their portfolio explains the basis of the huge growth in mobile communications. Mostly in cellphones, but also in other devices like laptops that might communicate via a protocol like WiFi.

The basic idea is explained of using a pseudo-random approach to sharing the spectrum in a given volume of space. Very elegant! Torrieri shows how the military developed it during the long years of the Cold War. But, ironically, nowadays the civilian application market has overtaken the military sector in its usage.

The actual maths can get hairy. The book could actually go into much more of this detail. But the author decided to deprecate the more abstruse workings. Still, the book is certainly not a trivial read. It can be a solid but worthwhile challenge for a grad student to master its contents.

I am a control/electronics engineer. I took the PE exam and failed it the first time. My problem was that I did not understand electrical power (generation, distribution, power factor correction, etc.). The electrical PE exam is dominated by these types of problems. Digital Logic and electronics only represent a few of the problems on the exam, and understanding those types of problems alone will not allow you pass it. Bentley's book does an excellent job explaining power. I scored 67 the first time I took the exam. After working with this book for two days, I took the exam again and scored much higher (94 I think it was).

WARNING - YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE USE THE PAPERBACK EDITION AT THE PE EXAM!

For a number of years, this book has been used as one textbook for the PE License review course offerred in Minnesota. The auther formerly taught this course in MN.

The title of this book was NOT included on the list of prohibited books for use during the PE exam. Yet at a recent exam session in Minnesota the proctor confiscated my paperback copy, along with at least one other copy. Classmates who broght the hard cover edition to the exam did not have their books taken.

I believe the problem is that the front cover of the paperback edition proclaims boldly that the book includes over 100 solved problems for the PE exam!

So buy the hard cover edition - not the paperback - if you intend to take this book to the exam session with you!

Pick this book up and you'll be just about set to venture out and set up your own radio station. If you have an interest in broadcasting, radio, internet radio, or anything near being similar to radio, you need to read this book.

This is a highly practical textbook on the how and why of radio broadcast production. Based on the experience of the author in radio production, the book covers a broad range of radio programming and provides a sound understanding of radio production.

The book begins with a comprehensive discussion of the characteristics of radio, including its strengths and weaknesses as a medium of communications. There's also an introduction to typical studio layouts, including a discussion of the pros and cons of using CDs, records, and tapes in the production of radio programs.

There is extensive information on how to interview people under a variety of circumstances, with particular emphasis on how the interviewer should prepare for the various types of interview. There are also specific sections on how to prepare to be interviewed and how to do 'man in the street' interviews.

The book covers an extremely wide range of radio programming situations, providing practical and effective advice for each. Particular attention is given to news programs, from the issues involved with news item selection to how best to write and read news scripts. Additional topics covered include talk show and phone-in radio programs, making radio commercials, music programming techniques, handling remote broadcasts and commentaries. There are also sections on radio drama production and documentaries that discusses everything from sound effects to music and the acoustic environment.

The author is Robert McLeish, an independent consultant and trainer and past head of the BBC's management training program. With many years in radio production, the author currently teaches radio production around the world and advises small stations in development countries.

The book includes an extensive glossary of terms used in radio production and a selection of suggested books of various aspects of radio broadcasting.

I recommend this book for anyone wanting a comprehensive overview of radio broadcast production.

Review by Mike Powers, Radideo.com Guide, February 2000

This book captures the whole nine yards of RapidIO as an interconnect technology for embedded and other applications. Its comprehensive, concise and provides details for a novice user as also a system designer. Well written and a must read for all technology professionals

RapidIO is an emerging technology in embedded processing applications. Given the limited technical resources available on this topic, authors have done a good job compiling a relatively comprehensive material on RapidIO technology.

Chapter 2 of the book provides a good overview of the technology and describes the physical, transport and logical layers in a nutshell. It provides the readers with just enough information to dive into more advanced topics.

Chapter 4 covers the I/O logical operations that are the heart of I/O transactions in RapidIO technology. This chapter is natural extension of chapter 2 and describes the various packet formats and the corresponding response/ acknowledgement packets.

Chapter 5 covers the messaging operations and describes the packet format and response acknowledgement for these transactions. The extension of the topic to the mailbox structure is rather informative for software developers.

Chapter 7 and 8 are written in a very meticulous way and cover most aspects of the physical layer, such as error correction, control, PMA and PCS layers.

Chapter 10 is an excellent topic on system bringup and initialization. It provides thorough and detailed information on the enumeration process, boot loading address mapping and hardware abstraction layer. The API's provided in this chapter are quite useful and provide good overview on the routing table configuration.

Chapter 14 provides the design considerations and tradeoffs for development of the RapidIO technology.

The main problem with this book is the flow and presentation of the material. Since the book is compilation of the articles and chapters by various experts in the field, the presentation of the material in the book is not consistent. You can find the same information being repeated or covered in numerous chapters (for instance the statement: "RapidIO end point can support 8-bit 0r 16 bit destination IDs" is repeated numerous times in the book). Also the index of subjects at the end of the book is not rich and can be improved substantially. I guess a good and thorough editorial review is very much needed.

I believe a reference chapter on the software embedded tools for enumeration and configuration of the fabric switches is missing in the book. Adding reference APIs for standard processors such as TI's TMS320C6455 or Freescale SC8144 would help many software engineers to quickly develop their application.

The information provided in chapters 3, 13 and 15 are too general and broad. For instance chapter 15 covers the FPGA implementation of the RapidIO without any reference on the RapidIO IP foot print (device utilization such as BRAM or logic gates/slices), power dissipation, MGT interface and timing considerations (setup and hold considerations) for FPGAs.
Adding a practical WCDMA or Wimax application with detail information on RF/Baseband interface, framing, CPRI and OPSI interface to chapter 15 would also benefit system designers who intend to adopt the RapidIO technology for the wireless base stations.


The book is not free of typo errors, here are the examples
Page 18 refers to chapter 13 on the topic of GSM while the GSM is covered in chapter 11.
Page 40 , refers the large address field as 63 bits while the correct bits is 61.
Page 154 refers the CSR and CAR discussion to chapter 18, instead of Appendix B.
Page 284 and 285 refers the maximum packet size of 276 Byts, while the max. packet size is 256 Bytes.

While I suggest this book as a good reference and starting point on RapidIO technology, I believe this book has quite some room for improvement and I encourage the authors to address the above mentioned issues in the future editions.
As the last comment, since this book addresses a dynamic and rapidly changing technology, I suggest authors to have an online website (URL) to provide the interested readers with the recent technical materials related to this subject.
RapidIO: The Embedded System Interconnect

The book is written in an organized pattern. it is easy for students to understand various principal and concepts in the digital signal processing.

It is good, with a lot of examples in matlab and c, maybe, it should take more care about the erratas in c code, because there are some errors that can confuse very much when you are developping a project.

Real-Time Stability in Power Systems: Techniques for Early Detection of the Risk of Blackout (Power Electronics and Power Systems)

The book is just an overview of the theoretical issues related to real time stability with no practical considerations. The book is just a collection of different papers without detailed explanation of the methodology used.

All the good books on home wiring do a good job of covering the basic, functional end of wiring; how to connect wires, wiring three way switches, etc. What makes this book stand out is that it helps you design an electrical system for a residential home. This is valuable to those who might be planning on building their own home, or someone who is doing a total overhaul of an older home's electrical service (replacing fuses with breakers, etc.). There are many references to the National Elecric Code.

Wiring a house involves two basic tasks; designing the system, and then doing the work. Most electrical books concentrate on teaching you how to do the work, and ignore the overall design, or layout of the electrical system. If you're re-wiring a house, or starting from scratch, you need this book. This book references the National Electric Code extensively, so you know you're following the latest approved practices.

Interesting book, covers alot of topics in the satellite realm. Unfortunately, you have to be an engineer to enjoy all the fine points, and mathematical equations. Not a bad book, but definitely not for the beginner. A good reference book, though.

I am an electronic engineer and a retired U.S. Army Sergeant Major. I have worked and taught in the civilian and military satellite communications industry for 25 years. I stumbled upon this text when I noticed it in a colleague's technical library. I was amazed at the clarity and detail with which the author explains some very complex concepts. I was equally impressed with the diverse coverage of the entire field of satellite communications from earth segment equipment analysis and link budget calculations to error correction coding techniques and space segment technology. It served to fill gaps in my knowledge and provided a very interesting refresher for seldom-used concepts. I use it as a desk reference on a daily basis in my job as a satellite communications network design engineer at a premere worldwide satellite service provider. This book covers it all and does so in fine style. Whether you are a seasoned professional or newcomer to this industry, this book is a "must-have" for your library!

If you are looking for a source that brings together concepts such as diffraction, spatial averaging and ultrasound I would have to say this monograph is a must have. The first chapter takes the reader into the basics of diffraction and ultrasound. More importantly, in the section that follows on can discover a short but indispensable review of past works related to the subject. What follows is a intense presentation of the Fourier equivalence of the arccos and Lommel diffraction formulations as an approximate pair. What is attractive in this section was that both the unfocused and focused case is presented. The remaining contents of the monograph deal with derivation of spatially averaged one-way and two-way diffraction for unfocused transducers. In both sections on can find a wealth of pictorial as well as mathematical analysis.

The best part about the monograph, is its intimate quality. It reads as a conversation, or a presentation. I very much appreciate that fluidity.

If you are looking for a source that brings together concepts such as diffraction, spatial averaging and ultrasound I would have to say this monograph is a must have. The first chapter takes the reader into the basics of diffraction and ultrasound. More importantly, in the section that follows on can discover a short but indispensable review of past works related to the subject. What follows is a intense presentation of the Fourier equivalence of the arccos and Lommel diffraction formulations as an approximate pair. What is attractive in this section was that both the unfocused and focused case is presented. The remaining contents of the monograph deal with derivation of spatially averaged one-way and two-way diffraction for unfocused transducers. In both sections on can find a wealth of pictorial as well as mathematical analysis.

The best part about the monograph, is its intimate quality. It reads as a conversation, or a presentation. I very much appreciate that fluidity.