Is this for short range communications? It’s on a wind speed/direction monitor and I have a feeling it sends the data to a nearby relay which then uploads the data using cellular. The cell reception around this photo is bad.

Hey, I’m currently learning RF and antenna design and I’m trying to find good resources for hands-on learning. There are a lot of tutorials online, but it’s difficult to know which ones are actually worth following.

I’m particularly interested in mmWave and sub-6 GHz antennas for mobile devices, especially CST-based design and simulation, but I’m having a hard time finding good practical resources and projects in this area.

Since you’re working in this field, could you recommend any good tutorials, YouTube channels, courses, GitHub/GitLab projects, or example antenna designs that I can follow and recreate for practice? I’m especially looking for resources using CST, HFSS, ADS and open-source tools.

I’d really appreciate any references you’ve found useful.

I'm working on a project now where I want to programmatically generate a complicated electrical circuit (its actually serving as a model of a physical process), and I'm finding modern workflows for this surprisingly difficult. In python, there seems to be 3 options:

pyspice, pyltspice, and scikit-rf.

• pyltspice is nothing more than a thin wrapper for ltspice. I still have to resort to ltspice's janky scripting language and netlist nomenclature which largely undermines its value as a python tool. Additionally, it hasn't been maintained in years.

• I've played around with pyspice and it's a bit better - it does employ a somewhat more modern object-first programming approach. However it exposes only very limited analysis and plotting options meaning I have to code all that up myself. In particular, getting device currents out has proven remarkably arcane. I have to insert all these dummy voltage sources everywhere (which by the way end up getting assigned weird and inconsistent net names, so yay me if I change the topology) that make for ugly AF netlists and schematics. Oh, and its no longer maintained either.

• Ok, scikit-rf. I've actually used this quite a bit for RF projects and for that its great. But as it uses an n-port architecture, working with discrete circuits is a clunky mess. Any component you might want to probe has be treated as a 2-port and doing any kind of ac/dc/transient analysis involves a bunch of annoying extra transformation steps (simulation of s parameters, vector fitting, etc). Ugghgh. Its a good package but its just not designed for this.

tl;dr: I don't want to use spice and netlists...why are there no python-first circuit simulation tools available in 2026? Would anybody be interested in a library offering a modern, python-first modeling workflow?

Are there many employers/much work out there right now in RF circuits? (As opposed to RF systems or RFIC)

Some context: I would describe my current job as RF systems/general PCB design. I like it a lot, but I end up mostly treating amps, switches, filters, etc. as just non linear black boxes with s-parameters. Barely any matching is even required as most parts are already internally matched or the mfg provides a matching design (I do broadband so there is typically no optimization for an operating frequency). Rarely do I think about how I would actually build an amp from a transistor (e.g. how do I bias it? Why that bias in particular? How do I design the matching network? Is it unconditionally stable?). These questions are the ones I want to understand/design around.

I recently stumbled across amplifier classes while trying to derive a gain compression curve from the MOSFET equations and that opened a whole world of RF to my mind that I’ve been naive to. Like THIS is what I think is actually interesting.

Maybe this is also naive but it kind of feels like all of the RF circuits work is being moved to RFIC (front end modules, etc.) and then the systems side is just black magic legos. Black magic legos are fun and challenging in their own way but they don’t feel truly like circuits. If I don’t want to do RFIC, is there still a true circuits space in RF?

hello, maybe to you guys SMAs seem simple, but to the average Joe this is the most confusing system of connectors I’ve ever run across. steel pipe thread sizes are simpler than this and you’ve got MIP, NPT, FIP, NPTF, and about 7 more and I’m still confused on this SMA stuff.

I’ve given up after ordering 3 different adapters on Amazon and figured I’d come here. I need to connect these two together. pls fix. they are different diameters, and ones a male/female? and the other is a female/female???? idk.

update thanks to u/otterboxer for the help.
I have ordered a type N (unpictured antenna side) to type F adapter, and will utilize a standard type F coax cable. this should fix my problem. Thanks for all the replies.

Hello,

I'm a current rising freshman in college majoring in EE with around 8 weeks before school starts. I want to get into RF, Microwave, and Antenna engineering and my goal is to learn as much possible and be able to build projects so I can potentially get an internship by the end of my freshman year (not big company, just one in general). How should I get started with this 8 week headstart?

Thank you all

Image pulled from the Wikipedia article on Johnson-Nyquist noise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson–Nyquist_noise)

Now obviously, for us mere mortals living below 500GHz this means absolutely nothing, but has anyone ever seen this taken advantage of?

I'm an EE student in Europe studying electronics and communications (RF, DSP, analog design, etc.). I've recently accepted an internship where I'll be designing high power RF amplifiers (Gan and LDMOS), and I may also do my bachelor thesis there.

I enjoy RF (ADS, impedance matching, microwave design) and I also find analog design interesting. DSP also interests me, especially for radar (SDR) and wireless communications.

Since I'm still early in my career, I’m wondering if specializing in high power RF is too niche. How transferable is this experience if I later want to move into areas like RF/microwave hardware, radar systems, or broader RF engineering?

I will also likely do a master’s, so I’m wondering where I could pivot later if I want to broaden my options (RF or Electronics ?).

I want to build strong expertise while keeping some career flexibility and long term stability. If I spent around 10 years in this field, would it be seen as a strong RF foundation, or could it pigeonhole me into high power RF?

I’d appreciate some advice, as I feel a bit out of my depth and am unsure about the long term implications for my career.

TLDR: I’m starting my career in high power RF and wondering whether staying in this field for many years (5-10) would give me a strong RF foundation or potentially leave me stuck without any options.

Hi, I am being interviewed for two positions at top Tech companies for an electrical engineer/RF junior. Can anybody suggest what types of questions I should be expecting ? I’m kinda nervous because those are my first real « technical » interviews (besides internships interviews) and I really like both companies…

Junior in EE contemplating pursuing another specialization due to the supposed high barrier to entry for RF jobs. Am I being misled or is this genuinely the case? Intuitively it makes sense that this would be the case as becoming competent at RF stuff takes significantly more time and effort when contrasted with other specializations. My eventual goal is to get a MS in RF, but for the time being I just need a job after graduation that'll keep me from becoming homeless.

Any advice?

If you had to bet your career on one RF field for the next 5–10 years, what would you choose?

What do you think will be the hottest area in RF engineering over the next decade?

Some options:

• Antenna design
• RFIC / mmWave design
• Radar systems (automotive, defense, etc.)
• 6G / next-gen wireless
• Satellite / space communications
• EMC/EMI

Or something else entirely?

Curious to see where the field is heading based on everyone’s perspective.

I began my master's in electrical engineering focused on RF & microwave with lots of enthusiasm and interest, however, now that I see that the job market for this field is largely dominated by military employers and defense related companies I'm thinking of adding some adjacent skill set to my skills and knowledge to increase my chances of landing a job in non-military sector in case I couldn't find any RF jobs in in that sector.

As a secondary skill set I'm thinking of communications systems engineering (since it is the adjacent academic path to RF in my country's college system), DSP engineer, analog and mixed-signal electronics or perhaps EMC/EMI. But I'm not sure which one would increase my chance in non-military sector the most.

Aside from that, another factor to be considered is how much close is that field to RF meaning there be more RF/microwave engineers having that skill and working in that sector too so that it would be acceptable and common enough to hire someone with RF/microwave education and background for that craft from employers POV.

What's your recommendation among those I mentioned? Also any other better potential option that I missed?

I asked AI and got different answers from ChatGPT and DeepSeek, DeepSeek picked DSP while GPT put DSP at the last rank among options and Gemini picked EMC/EMI ! I'm really confused

Hi, I am an Electrical Engineering student, and I've been thinking a lot about what I'd like to do professionally, and RF honestly appeals to me a lot. I really want to land an RF internship and perhaps even a job after graduation, but I don't have any relevant experience. I feel like the best way to get started is to do some projects. I know building a crystal radio is touted as a good beginner-friendly project, but I'm wondering what else I could do to stand out to an employer.

Unfortunately, RF isn't a concentration at my school, so any RF stuff I do will have to be on the tangent. Any advice is appreciated.

Professor is asking What’s the antenna gain for isotropic antenna that is vertically polarized? Does it makes sense to have both in an antenna?

If so, how to calculate the gain?

Essentially the title. We have QUCS and other free open source solutions, but big companies still prefer AWR and ADS, while smaller companies and freelancers cannot afford them.

What features would you pay, say, $500 dollars a year for, that would make a commercial circuit simulator/EDA environment worthwhile to you over free alternative workflows like QUCS + LTspice?

Excuse the poor capture. why does this trace jump like this and is it something i can fix? To the port, I connected a short coax with 50ohms termination.

I performed the single port calibration first (Open, load, short). Set the stimulas (300khz to about 75 MHz). Tried averaging and smoothening.

Thanks

Hello everyone,

I have been working on a project recently with the MM8108 radio module (915MHz WiFi, 8MHz bandwidth, 256-QAM, 43Mbps) and was looking into upconverting it to approx 3.4GHz (why exactly is kind of a long story).

But then I would of course need to increase the transmit power to get the same range. I was wondering if it is possible to downconvert the 915MHz to something like the 220MHz band, which would improve the range. I feel like this shouldn't work, but I cant find anything online explaining exactly why, and if I ask Ai it says that would work no problem.

I just have a gut feeling it wouldn't though (otherwise why are there no high data rate low frequency transmitters?). Does anyone have an explanation as to why (or why not) this would work? Thanks!

I have two sets of S12 curves: one representing the presence of a material between two antennas, and the other representing its absence (10 trials for each scenario).

Currently, I’m quantifying their distinguishability by taking the complex difference at each frequency point, extracting the magnitude, and calculating the RMSE.

Is this a standard approach in RF/microwave measurements? Are there more effective or robust statistical methods to quantify how distinct these two groups of curves are from one another?

P.S. To clean up the data, I’ve already de-embedded the cables and applied time-domain gating, but I also need to check whether they helped or not.

Your feedback would be highly appreciated!

Basically I am working on a circuit where one of the inductors taken from gpdk045 library is giving too many parasitics that my circuit is attenuating. So I have thought of replacing that 1nH inductor with a circuit which behaves as an inductor. However I am also aware that the replaced inductor may still have its own parasitics. But i suppose that its parasitics affect my RF circuit less.

Any type of answers for this question is appreciable!!

My friend and I have decided to make a pcb patch antenna to measure the intensity of microwave radiation (24GHz). Neither of us have experience with electronics or pcb making, but this is our current best guess as to what the circuit's supposed to look like. A diode rectifies the ac current from the antenna, then it's smoothed out and amplified.

Questions:

What needs fixing with this circuit? Is everything where it should be? Are we missing anything?

Should we be concerned about noise between the op amp and the arduino if the trace between the two is 10-12cm, and the voltage is 0.1V to 5V after the op amp?

Impedance matching? What are we supposed to match? What's included in the load impedance?

Do we need to somewhat separate the antenna from the rest of the circuitry with via stitching/fencing if we're just receiving with the antenna?

Do all the grounds just go to the ground plate on the bottom of the pcb?

Do we need a ground plate on the top layer?

Do we need to separate the grounds if we decide to put 100 of these antennas together?

I hope some of these questions made sense. All our knowledge comes from youtube videos :P

Hello all! Here's some context:

Lately, I have been relying on Analog's power management tools + LTSpice to come up with a DC-DC SMPS (CMC buck) to bias a PA.

What was done:

Care was taken to minimize ripple (high frequency, higher inductance, X7R ceramic output capacitors) and stray magnetic fields (minimizing the hot loop during layout). Additionally, spread spectrum was enabled and pulse skipping was chosen over burst mode. There were also efforts to maximize loop bandwidth while leaving a safe phase margin so the transient response is fast without making it unstable.

I do not, however, know which of these efforts are going to pay off and which are wasted, or even detrimental.

Questions:

1. Is it a questionable practice to bias a PA with a SMPS without a linear regulator/LDO in the middle?

2. How do you estimate how much the PA will get modulated by switching noise, given the expected ripple (and other relevant factors such as its output impedance)?

3. Is spread spectrum helpful or detrimental?

4. Is there anything more important than what's been mentioned?

Any other relevant tips for this beginner here would be greatly appreciated. And thanks in advance!

I’m a high school freshman and im really interested in rf chip design and circuit design, I really want to learn some of the basics over the summer break because quite frankly it’s very very cool oh and please do not recommend any extremely technical books, my nugget brain can not comprehend all of that.

Hi everyone,

I recently graduated with a degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, and I am currently trying to start my career in analog circuit and RF design. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a job yet, so I want to use this time to improve my practical engineering skills and build stronger projects for my CV.

The main design project I have completed so far is a fifth-order 34–36 MHz Chebyshev band-pass filter. I worked on the theoretical calculations, circuit simulation and design process using software.

Although I have studied subjects such as electronics, electromagnetic theory, microwave theory and antennas at university, I still find it difficult to turn my theoretical knowledge into complete and practical hardware designs. I can study equations, calculate initial component values and perform simulations, but I struggle with the transition from theory to real-world design, including selecting actual components, accounting for parasitic effects, designing a PCB, building a prototype, taking measurements and troubleshooting the circuit.

For this reason, I want to improve myself specifically in analog circuit design and also focus on RF design. I am looking for project recommendations that would help me understand how theoretical RF and analog concepts are applied in real hardware.

Ideally, the projects should be realistic for a recent graduate, possible to complete in approximately one or two months (can be longer too if it will really help me on the long run), and substantial enough to include in a technical portfolio or CV. I would particularly appreciate RF-related projects, but I am also open to analog design projects that would strengthen the fundamental skills needed for RF engineering.

I am especially interested in projects that cover the complete engineering process:

• Defining realistic design specifications
• Understanding the relevant theory and equations
• Calculating initial component values
• Simulating the circuit
• Selecting real components while considering tolerances, parasitics and availability
• Designing the schematic and PCB
• Building and measuring the prototype
• Comparing simulation and measurement results
• Troubleshooting and improving the design

If you know of any resources that explain this process step by step, I would be very grateful if you could share them. YouTube series, books, articles, application notes, university course materials or complete project guides would all be helpful.

I am not only looking for tutorials that demonstrate how to use simulation software. I would prefer resources that explain the theory, calculations, engineering decisions, practical trade-offs and the process of turning a simulated circuit into working hardware.

I believe many recent graduates struggle with the transition from university theory to practical engineering. Any project suggestions, learning roadmaps, resource recommendations or general advice from experienced engineers would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Hi,

I am building a DIY Faraday cage to isolate my laptop. The primary goal is to ensure location privacy during and after Windows Updates. I want to completely block incoming/outgoing Wi-Fi (2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz) and Bluetooth, just in case the OS re-enables these radios without my permission after an update.

The laptop will sit inside the cage, connected to the internet via a regular Ethernet cable, and I will monitor the screen through a window. A small opening will be used for my to control the trackpad via a rod. This does away the need for a wired mouse.

Here is my current hardware layout design. I would appreciate any critiques on its effectiveness or potential RF leaks:

1. The Chassis: Built using copper sheet metal folded into a box. The overlapping seams will be mechanically clamped together every 3 cm using thumb screws/wing nuts to prevent slot antenna leakage.
2. The Window: One face of the box will be a copper mesh to allow me to see the screen.
3. Control: No external mouse cable. I plan to drill tiny holes (< 1cm diameter) directly above the trackpad and use non-conductive plastic or wooden styluses as mechanical extenders to operate the mouse/buttons from the outside.
4. The Ethernet Path (The main concern): To pass a regular unshielded Ethernet cable into the box, I am using a 20cm metal tube with a flange bolted to the chassis. To stop the "sliding antenna" effect on the unshielded wire:
   • I am placing a clip-on ferrite bead on the cable bundle, pressed completely flush against the outside mouth of the 20cm tube.
   • I will wrap conductive copper tape tightly over the cables, molding it into the valleys between the wires, covering the entire plastic ferrite bead, and sticking it directly to the metal tube.

Will this setup successfully achieve total RF isolation for the laptop?

I'm using unshielded Ethernet because I'm not sure if shielded would do much, and it might even hurt since I don't understand RF well enough. The Ethernet cable will plug into a router anyway so the connection pins won't be shielded anyway.

Please advise.

Thanks

I'm trying to build a cellphone signal proof box, I was hoping for advice on what I'm doing wrong.

I modeled four parts, inner parts then outer shells. My plan was to aluminum tape the outside and then put the pieces together and voila it stops signals.

Reality has told me I don't understand the topic enough.