Book explains our world to those who need to know

-- EDN, 4/13/2000

The Essential Guide to RF and Wireless by Carl J Weisman provides a useful introduction to spread-spectrum, code-division multiple-access, wireless-local-loop, and local-multipoint-distribution-service technologies and many other aspects of our diverse and often confusing wireless world. For most of the EDN audience, this $34.99 book (Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-025962-4) tells you nothing you don't already know. But if you're new to the field or are a marketer, salesperson, investor, technical writer, or public-relations person, this book is a great overview with sufficient—but not too much—technical information. It won't make anyone into an engineer, but it does clarify many of the terms, concepts, applications, and complex trade-offs that system designers encounter. This well-written, clearly illustrated book helps reduce the language barriers and gives readers some appreciation of just how amazing the wireless world is. Best of all, it is not written in a cloying "for-dummies" style, doesn't smirk or talk down to the audience, and doesn't try to be cleverly annoying!

—by Bill Schweber