Wireless Receiver Design for Digital Communications (Telecommunications)

This book is the result of a person who has built receivers from scratch writing down all their practical experience into a text book. I read other reviews complaining about the "war stories" but those are clearly coming from a student using this as a text book who doesn't care about anything but getting a grade. If you want to actually LEARN the topic, those war stories are invaluable bits of experience that everyone can learn from. The author is one of the best practical RF engineers on the planet who doesn't just teach at a university, but uses his knowledge to create RF systems that work in the real world.

this is a very pedagogical book on the subject, i could tell from the very first page of this book. i received my copy with a little damage during transpotation, but i didn't return it. the Matched filter chapter has a very intuitive explanation that you will never find it any where else, well "any where else is possibly meant by american books" ...i read the same explanation many years ago on a Russian book on Radars. the need for IQ signals was also beautifully explained here....the book has also it's weakness but i grew up knowing that there is nothing is perfect in this world. the book has many worked out examples and useful illustrations through out the whole book to explain the subjects. i would recommend some matlab programs for the future editions as this became standard in all sylabuses, although the book is complet without any extras indeed. extremely helful for self study students,and strongly recommended for any body wants to learn this subject. million thanks for the Author.

Book contains a lot of unnecessary "war stories" which is the author talking about his experiences. I'd recommend Floyd well over this author as Floyd's examples and writing style are much easier to understand for an undergrad. If this is your only textbook for a class I recommend asking the professor if there are alternative material you could read from.

I bought this book for my receiver design class. I have to say, I was very disappointed. My main concern is simply the number of errors in this book. Mostly, these errors are in the sample problems and their solutions, but there are a decent number of errors in the text itself. In the preface, the author attempts to head off this concern: "If we hear about errors in this book (and I hope we do), I consider it a good thing. It means we have been clear enough to bring doubts into the reader’s mind. The reader is thinking about the material and understands it enough to find inconsistencies." This sounds nice in theory, but it does not work in practice. There are so many errors that we spent most class discussion time trying to resolve the inconsistencies in the text. I also believe that a good textbook should be able to be used as a reference. Given the amount of errors here, how do we know, upon opening to a particular page, whether the equations presented are correct? We don't want to start with first principles every time we solve a problem, we want to find the applicable solution method to solve a problem quickly. Unfortunately, the only way this book can meet that standard is if the reader works through the entire book with a pencil, making corrections. The last I checked, this book was priced as a full-blown textbook, so copyediting should have been included in the purchase price! Also, as far as I can tell, there are NO ERRATA available, so it's up to the reader to do all of the work. My second concern is that the author tends to make assumptions at the beginning of a chapter that propagate through all the ensuing equations without explaining how changing that assumption would affect those equations. The most glaring example of this is in the chapter on noise. Toward the beginning of the chapter, antenna temperature is set equal to T0 and the rest of the chapter works from there. However, there is no discussion later in the chapter of how things would change if the antenna temperature changes. It is up to the reader to go all the way back and build up new equations. (Also, I would argue the usefulness of setting antenna temperature to T0 as an assumption, since antenna temperature can change drastically based on where an antenna's main beam is directed.) All that said, this book covers a lot of good material. If you are going to work through the book step-by-step to learn the concepts, and if you have a decent professor or expert guiding you, you can learn a lot about receiver design. But, if you're expecting to use this book as a reference or refresher, please find something else.

Book seems somewhat outdated and is not the most exciting, but it is full of good information

The author does an excellent job of providing readers with technical information like schematics, equations, and graphs without neglecting descriptions in plain English. This book is strongly recommended for students and professionals who are new to microwave engineering, and will serve as a great stepping stone for more advanced texts such as Pozar.

Gbvc

For the engineer that wants to understand receiver design at a fundamental level, this book is for you. Unlike so many technical books that make little effort to provide the reader insight into the topic being address, this one stands apart. Rather than trying to impress the reader with a flurry of derivations, McClanning skillfully guides the reader through the material with carefully chosen examples that makes the material accessible. Once you make it through a chapter, you will feel that you have learned something that you actually use in real life in real design work. I wholeheartedly recommend this book, you will not be disappointed. Chances are you will recommend it to others.