I've been experimenting with Arduino for a while now and I've done some really cool projects, many thanks to this wonderful community who have helped me through a lot of difficulties. However!
It all started when I stopped for a minute and realized that there should be a cheaper way to communicate wirelessly than using expensive XBees. After some googling around I found the cheap RF-links you can use for one-way RF communication. When I saw those small and kind of simple modules I got another question, how does radio communication really works? I mean from the very basic electronic components to transmitting, receiving and decoding data and so on. I thought that if i could understand how radio communication really works my future wirelessprojectproblems will be a lot easier to solve.
SO for you guys I wonder, where should I start? Do you have any tips on videos, websites or even books that could help me understand this interesting phenomena of radio waves?
You might consider looking at HAM radio tutorials. Lots of study guides are available on line. Keep in mind that RF communications is a large field that covers many applications and is not something you master on a theory level in a short time.
Albert Einstein was once asked to explain radio communication, and he supposedly gave the following answer.
You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.
Some of the websites and publications for amateur radio might be a good place
for in-depth coverage of various aspects of radio technology.
I would tend to recommend getting a grounding in electromagnetic theory first -
for this the MIT lectures by Walter Lewin are a great place to start - entertaining
too
Thanks guys for your quick replies! I certainly understand that its a big field and that it will take time to learn. That "let me google it for you" link was hilarious Jack Any books you can suggest?
TI did a pretty good seminar at one of the trade shows a while back. "RF Basics, RF for Non-RF Engineers"
I think the slides are here: http://www.ti.com/lit/pdf/slap127
I would expect that there may be video around somewhere (and googling for "slap127" turns up a number of other classes/tutorials that use it as additional material)
It does assume some electronics background.
polymorph:
If you can find an older ARRL Radio Handbook, they are a great resource and are rather inexpensive.
I second that recommendation, it's a great reference book to have. Pick up a used one on E-bay, actual year isn't all that important as the theory is mostly the same, mostly the radio projects change over time.
Any books you can suggest? 