r/rfelectronics

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!

Hi everyone,

I've done my masters in Power Electronics but the coursework didn't contain anything remotely on EMI/EMC. Recently I interviewed at a firm and have been selected for the role of EMC engineer for power converter. The interview mostly focused on the electromagnetism, project and my research paper focusing on mitigation of ringing in wide bandgap devices which carried me through the interview.

Can you tell what should I focus on before joining so I don't feel the discomfort from the start. Currently, I brushed up my maxwell equation and also studying Henry Ott Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering but the book feel too theoretical.

Any advices are welcome.

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?

For starters just graduated with no job lined up so just doing projects to up my skills and resume. Recently got interested, am currently going to do link budget analysis on a CubeSat and was wondering if I could get more ideas on some projects as well.

Just got a RTL SDR V3 and got into a little gnu radio but not much. Was thinking of Fourier Transforming a FM signal. If any current engineers could give me advice on the engineering process too as well.

I don’t want anything from a legal standpoint. If there is for example a 2.4 or 5 ghz camera what jammer can disable one if it’s possible? Also how would I obtain one

Hey guys!

Looking for the best sound listening device. I have the well known FL-1000, from Sun Mechatronics, but sadly it's total garbage. Not better then the cheapest sound bugs pretty much 😠

Hello! I'm planning my PhD to maximise post-graduation opportunities. For context, I will develop a GaN amplifier to supply several kWs at 15 MHz to a 100nF load placed in a cryogenic environment of a nuclear physics experiment. I have a few questions about the RF industry in Germany:

- I'm targeting either (i) high-power RF application companies (R&S, Airbus D&S, Trumpf, Hensoldt, Raytheon) or, (ii) semiconductor device manufacturers (Infineon, Qorvo). Are there others?

- Is it usual to do an internship at a company during the PhD? How do I go about setting it up?

- Which conferences should I try participating in for most visibility? I read about EuMW and IMS.

Also open to hearing any experiences or advice you might have. Thanks :)

I am an electrical engineer, but I have no RF experience. I have been doing embedded systems and sensor work for over 20 years, and have a decent grasp of EE fundamentals and signal processing.

I would love to learn more about RF, primarily as a home hobbyist but also to improve my understanding of the specialty.

I am looking for recommendations for books or other resources to learn the theory. I would also love any references to practical implementations, such as PCB design and layout. Lastly, if you have any suggestions for a first RF project (or projects) I would love that!

Thank-you all!

i want to use just a simplecap and inductor for a range of 0.3-1.5 ghz, but im unsure how to get started.

read up on the microwaves101 blog already -- any advice?

Hi, I’m thinking about the next step in my career and changing jobs. I’m an EU citizen, so the whole of Europe is open to me (well, perhaps apart from the UK). I work as an antenna and radar designer. I get the impression that the RF sector isn’t as big as it is in the US, but I’m sure there are still places where I can develop my career. I’m looking for somewhere with a good environment for career development (so that every time I change jobs, I don’t have to move hundreds of kilometres to another country, as has been the case for me so far).

For now, I’ve done some research and would like to hear the views of people who already have experience in this area and are familiar with the local markets.

Switzerland – financially, it seems to be the best option, but it’s difficult to find a job there due to the high level of competition. The RF market isn’t particularly large.

Munich and the surrounding area – it’s quite a large hub, with plenty of companies, but the German economy is looking rather weak at the moment and there are mass redundancies, so it might be difficult to find a job.

The Netherlands – a fairly large RF market, earnings can be good thanks to tax relief.

Sweden – considering the size of the country, it’s quite a large RF market,however, I’ve heard that salaries are low compared to other countries in the region, such as Denmark or Norway, but also Germany or the Netherlands.

Finland – just like Sweden

France, Spain, Italy – a fairly large RF sector by European standards, but with low wages. I reckon that Italy might be the best option financially, given the tax relief (as much as 60% in my case), but apparently working standards are also lower there than in the countries mentioned above.

I’d be grateful if you could share your experiences. I’ve done my research mainly in these countries because I knew there were plenty of job offers from them, but I’m not familiar with the situation on the ground. If there are any places I’ve forgotten, please let me know.

I have following lna design. Now I'm not sure if I should devide the input gnd and output gnd of the lna part.

schema of lna

lna part one gnd pout all gnd layers

I have a 6 layer rogers 4350B stack with following purpose

1. Signal / gnd

2. gnd

3. signal

4. gnd

5. pwr

6. gnd

Since the pcb is in a cryostat we produce it without soldermask. Its mounted on a copper cold finger that will conect the last plane. thus I just made the last gnd plane one hughe pour. Lines are 50Ohm coplanaer wave guides.

The frequency of the lna design is optimized for 10Mhz -3Ghz. but the diramics behavoir for under 100Mhz is not known since its a extrapolation.

Any inputs are welcome

Hi I'm trying to design a 2x8 patch antenna array in Microwave Office and there must be an easier way than putting each line manually right? Is there a way to design a single splitter or a single patch and reuse that subcircuit?

How is this done in HFSS? I imagine it would be even worse since you don't have a schematic tool and automatic layout generation.

https://preview.redd.it/ycn5hshburah1.png?width=1804&format=png&auto=webp&s=e002bd79e61e849810a20748433a6c3be2a62611

https://preview.redd.it/g47hm9ekurah1.png?width=1786&format=png&auto=webp&s=f1651b134f78ad5b912b340963d90996780df5d1

Electrical engineer specializing in RF and mixed signal PCB hardware deisgn.I have to choose between 2 great opportunities and I generally cant decide When u add up the pro/con weights of each they equal each other..

Option 1: Quantum computing company. Will design super high Q/ low phase noise rf synths/PLLs and extremely percise analog front ends. Its a start up. Problem is that its an hour commute each way and every day on-site. Maybe occasional wfh like 1 day a week. I would move after a year or two(if theres still a job, these startups lay people off a lot). But everyday on-site sucks a lot for dozens of reasons including me not being able to give 110 percent to the comapny cuz traffic is mentally exhausting.

Option 2: Radar hardware design engineer. 4 days a week wfh. I am disappointed as it seems pulsed radar is in the mhz section of the UHF band and im used to desining front ends 15-25 ghz. Im sure the RX will be more advanced than a regular front end cuz of the weak incoming signal..

Also, forgot to mention, I would have to drop out of my graduate program and spent 10k a year on doggy day care if I take the quantum compjting job. But it is the type of job u get a masters for in the first place so its hard to say if its worth it.

Idk what to choose, I guess i would choose the quantum job in a heart beat if it wasnt full time onsite as its more challenging and a novel new field, but in office every day is torture. Also there will be at least 1-2 years of commuting an hour each way before I can move. On top of that its a start up. My career will be fine either way in terms of being gainfully employed. Its just a matter of me wanting to be challenged and working with cutting edge tech and having personal freedom and convince. I am interested in radar and if that ws my only offer I would be on the moon but this choice ruins the entire mood. Have to get back to one of them soon and tell them nevermind lol..

Before any corporate dude start talling about how u cant do RF or any engineering in a hybrid environment im litteraly doing that right now for one of the biggest RF companies in the world..

I'm learning about direct sampling architecture for transmit-receive chains at my day job for RF design efforts. What is the significance of the sampling rates of the ADC and DAC respectively, in Msps, in terms of the spectrum and overall performance of the radio?

So I'm working with Zedboard and FMCOMMS3 and it's working well. But I need to add more to this system and I'm wondering whether to stay with this combo or move on given that ZedBoard is a bit old and FMCOMMS3 is too

I have a few options, but wanted to get the opinion of the experienced people here. Looking to keep the cost to <$5k. FMC is needed so many of the boards currently more targeted towards hobby won't work.

Most of the work is wireless related, but I think FMCOMMS5 isn't really necessary

It would be nice to be able to do 80MHz for full 2.4GHz capture in one shot

I found some low cost $400 boards for AD9371

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256809433202633.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2usa4itemAdapt

May be worth trying

Anyone has a recommendation? Just looking to get the most bang for my buck

I'm currently working with an electrically short, inverted V dipole (D ~ lambda / 15), and the simulated antenna impedance (shown in differential form below) seems to have several resonances in this low frequency range, meaning that the antenna looks inductive well below half a wavelength. I'm not an antenna expert and am having trouble understanding where that inductive bit may come from given the fact that sub-halfwave dipoles are supposed to be capacitive (perhaps it's something to do with having a bent dipole, but I don't have much intuition on bent dipoles).

https://preview.redd.it/10z0968h0bah1.png?width=1089&format=png&auto=webp&s=b0fafc75adf4fc15f9f8c00aa7983f0a09066cb8

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?