What do you think?
Rate this book
Field Expedient SDR: Basic Digital Communications
Software Defined Radios are revolutionizing wireless communications, but getting started can be a challenge. Much of the available SDR training veers either towards highly mathematical engineering classes or radio cookbooks with little explanation for the steps taken.
Basic Digital Communications steers between these two extremes by leveraging knowledge you already have but didn't know was applicable to radio technology. Through a series of hands-on exercises, you'll
- the key components of digital transmissions like preambles, payloads and error checking
- how to build transmitters using OOK and FSK
- how to build more advanced radios with PSK and QPSK
- the best techniques for viewing digitally modulated signals
- how to model noise and other system imperfections
When you complete this third volume of our Field Expedient SDR series, you'll know enough to venture into the wild and start exploring the RF spectrum. Many of the online SDR tutorials and walkthroughs will make much more sense, allowing you to build more advanced radios and perform more advanced activities like reverse engineering and RF security research.
Basic Digital Communications steers between these two extremes by leveraging knowledge you already have but didn't know was applicable to radio technology. Through a series of hands-on exercises, you'll
- the key components of digital transmissions like preambles, payloads and error checking
- how to build transmitters using OOK and FSK
- how to build more advanced radios with PSK and QPSK
- the best techniques for viewing digitally modulated signals
- how to model noise and other system imperfections
When you complete this third volume of our Field Expedient SDR series, you'll know enough to venture into the wild and start exploring the RF spectrum. Many of the online SDR tutorials and walkthroughs will make much more sense, allowing you to build more advanced radios and perform more advanced activities like reverse engineering and RF security research.
302 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 18, 2016
7 people are currently reading
11 people want to read
About the author
Paul Clark
105 books4 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 8, 2021
This is the third book in the Field Expedient SDR series. As you know by now from my previous reviews, this is by far the best introductory book I read on Software Defined Radio.
As someone with no background in Radio Frequency or Amateur Radio, I found the authors' approach very easy, engaging and super educational. They have a way to hold your hands through all the theory and exercises.
This isn't a deep dive into Radio signal theory. It will teach you all you need to get started with SDR, GNU Radio software and RF by doing lots of exercises and small projects.
The author goes into the basics of digital communications in this book and looks at the most common systems such as OOK/ASK, FSK and PSK. Everything is introduced from how they work, how they are transmitted, received, modulated & demodulated and finally, how to analyse them using your GNU Radio software.
I have learned a lot and no longer feel intimidated by GNU Radio or concepts such as Modulation or Demodulation.
This book can be read independently, however it is hugely recommended to grasp some the basic foundations in the previous two books as they contain even more detailed baby steps of SDR and using the software with greater degree of hand-holding.
I highly recommend this book and the entire series to anyone remotely interested in Radio Frequency analysis or Software Defined Radio.
The great news is that the authors have now started SDR training on-demand and in-person at events such as Black Hat.
Find their new website here:
https://factorialabs.com/
To download the exercises and materials for the book use the other dedicated website:
https://www.fieldxp.com/
As someone with no background in Radio Frequency or Amateur Radio, I found the authors' approach very easy, engaging and super educational. They have a way to hold your hands through all the theory and exercises.
This isn't a deep dive into Radio signal theory. It will teach you all you need to get started with SDR, GNU Radio software and RF by doing lots of exercises and small projects.
The author goes into the basics of digital communications in this book and looks at the most common systems such as OOK/ASK, FSK and PSK. Everything is introduced from how they work, how they are transmitted, received, modulated & demodulated and finally, how to analyse them using your GNU Radio software.
I have learned a lot and no longer feel intimidated by GNU Radio or concepts such as Modulation or Demodulation.
This book can be read independently, however it is hugely recommended to grasp some the basic foundations in the previous two books as they contain even more detailed baby steps of SDR and using the software with greater degree of hand-holding.
I highly recommend this book and the entire series to anyone remotely interested in Radio Frequency analysis or Software Defined Radio.
The great news is that the authors have now started SDR training on-demand and in-person at events such as Black Hat.
Find their new website here:
https://factorialabs.com/
To download the exercises and materials for the book use the other dedicated website:
https://www.fieldxp.com/
Displaying 1 of 1 review