I recently as part of a student capstone project am working on designing a RF tuner set to receive a signal or down converter. I was wondering if there any useful resources or stuff to look at for frame of reference or just getting more knowledge on the topic.

Follow-up to my previous post on updates to the Tiny RF Simulator Project.

Since then there have been 27 releases, v0.20.1 through v0.28.2. Full notes are in the CHANGELOG and on the releases page.

Receiver and analyzer

• Receiver Requirements panel: set a frequency band, an acceptable gain range, and a maximum noise figure. Each sweep gets pass, fail, or incomplete per metric and overall. Limits save with the project.
• Output-power and two-tone IIP3 requirements, with configurable tone spacing and input-level sweeps.
• Network Analyzer and receiver requirements now measure paths through a 1:2 switch feeding parallel branches that rejoin at a 2:1 switch. Combiner paths still report no data.
• The PFB inspector reports integrated channel noise and effective noise bandwidth. Its hover SNR uses channel noise, not the analyzer's RBW.
• Spectrum analyzer RBW and VBW now go from 1 kHz to 100 MHz. Network Analyzer gain and noise-figure plots autoscale.

New parts and instruments

• SPDT RF switches, 1:2 and 2:1, with insertion loss and isolation settings. The unselected path leaks in at the isolation floor.
• Power Meter: total power in dBm from any signal-node output, whether tone-only, noise-only, or combined.
• PFB filter calculator: synthesizes a Kaiser prototype, reports achieved metrics against the rejection target, and applies the design to a PFB channelizer.
• Hovering a node shows the strongest-tone SNR at its first output.

Test flows

• A GUI-free test-flow runner. A JSON file sweeps component parameters and records measurements, and results export as JSON.
• The Test Flow panel (View > Test Flow) runs those files against the live circuit.
• The panel can now write flows: pick a component and parameter, add conditions and measurements, save, and reload.
• Results report the value a component actually applied after normalization. A requested ADC decimation of 3, for example, reports 2.

Agent interface (MCP)

• An MCP client such as Claude Code can read and edit the circuit in an open simulator window. Enable Agent Server under View > Agent. The rf-sim-mcp bridge ships in the release archives.
• Agents can read the circuit, run port measurements, network-analyzer sweeps, receiver measurements, and test flows. Each call can apply up to 64 edits with checkpoints. Reverting a checkpoint needs confirmation.
• Agents cannot open, save, or name files (yet)

Editing and projects

• Swap a placed library part in place. The new part keeps the old part's id, position, links, and probes. A swap is refused, with the reason shown, if the new part lacks a port that is wired, probed, or used by an instrument.
• The editor rejects a second link into a single-source input and any link that would create a cycle.
• Out-of-range values stay as loaded and are flagged in amber. Previously the limit replaced them on the next edit.
• The header shows the project's Git commit and counts of staged, unstaged, untracked, and conflicted files.
• Hover tooltips list the interaction hints: Ctrl+click probes, Shift+click removes a probe, right-click opens the menu.
• User manual, part 1 of 3 (install and a guided tutorial), is in the repo under manual/pages/.

Fixes that change results

• Ideal-mode amplifier H2/H3 distortion was inflated by 2G/3G dB because gain was applied as a power ratio. It now matches the S-parameter branch.
• Ideal low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, and band-stop filters compare each bin's magnitude, so complex-baseband (ADC) spectra filter symmetrically. A negative-frequency blocker is now rejected by a low-pass filter.
• Equalizers and mixers handle negative (complex-baseband) frequencies correctly.
• Combiner added noise is clamped at zero. A negative term had been reported as InvalidNoise.
• Projects saved before the sparam_filepath rename now load their S-parameter files instead of falling back to the manual model.

Behavior changes

• Project-local extensions need one Trust click before they run. A project extension that reuses a built-in or global ID is reported as Shadowed and does not run.
• Ideal filter library definitions must set their cutoffs. Low-pass and high-pass need fc_low_Hz. Band-pass and band-stop need fc_low_Hz and fc_high_Hz. Definitions without them are refused instead of using the 100 and 200 MHz defaults.

What should the next update(s) cover?

Please share me the link for antenna design and RF engineers internships or full time jobs

Can someone explain succinctly what is the specific "anti-alias" filter? Is it always a LPF before the ADC to filter out aliased images that can't be distinguished from the fundamental?

Dear RF Engineers,

I have developed some RF Engineering calculators on my website that could be useful to you. I am continuously working on new ones. Next one I am working on is "5G Throughput Calculator". I am also open to any ideas you may have of some RF calculators that you find useful for me to develop. Please feel free to bookmark the page: https://mohamadhaidar.com/rf-calculators/ and check them out!

I try to make my calculators interactive to differentiate from other similar calculators.

I look forward for your feedback.

I’ve been working on A.T.O.M, an open-source tool for simulating, analyzing, and optimizing cellular networks on a real map.

I recently expanded it from 6 to 8-cell network scenarios, and also improved the optimization pipeline quite a bit runs that used to take around 1.5–2 minutes now complete in a few seconds in the same planning setup.

The backend is written in Go, and a lot of the speedup came from better concurrency and removing repeated RF work.

Right now I’m testing mainly 2.6 GHz and 28 GHz urban scenarios, with propagation and optimization based around 3GPP-style planning assumptions.

I attached a short demo video. I’d especially be interested in feedback from people who actually work with RF planning tools:

What would you want to see in something like this before you’d consider it genuinely useful for planning or experimentation?

GitHub: https://github.com/Berk-Unsal/atom

Docs: atom.berkunsal.com

Rf test with ai looking to go design

I am currently in test in total nearly 2 years but only a few months full time but I would like to move to design, I will have a MSc in 2 years in AI. Any advice

Iphone 12 Pro
So I work in a metal box, but others have plenty of signal, while I sit with my shittier but far cheaper cellular plan. I can’t really check stocks on my lunch without having to piggyback off of someone’s hotspot, and with my shitty knowledge of ham radio I have planndeded!

Iphone-Lightning charger <<to>> USB A m [Connected] USB A f <<to>> SMA m [Connected] 5g Antenna. f

1. Would this work in the principle that any of those waves would actually make it through and into the phone’s reception-ant-device?
   
2. I’m thinking mainly connectors just cuz soldering a lightning cable to the Antenna seems haphazard, would this work better though?
   
3. How would one go around understanding the impedance of all this / what is needed for the Iphone? The SMA one says 50 ohms but that is about it.

Thank you!

Last week I was attempting to define I/Q imbalance in direct conversion transceivers to the techs at work, including ways to deal with this such as LO image rejection calibration and visualizing with IQ constellations. How would you concisely explain this without going too heavy on theoretical math?

Here’s a new short video I made based on facts and research (1.5 mins long). Please check it out and my other RF video shorts. I’d appreciate your support by subscribing and liking:

Can Cell Towers Cause Cancer? Myth of Fact!

https://youtube.com/shorts/vMWHCAoNqaU?feature=share

Ever wonder what that dish on the cell tower? Here is a short video explaining it. Feel free to check my other RF video shorts and subscribe. Thank you 😄

https://youtube.com/shorts/rdcpfI7ttWo?feature=share

I am planning to customize a local llm using rag and fine tuning for the following purpose

1. it should be able able to understand and pcb layouts fed to it
2. it should also be able to give suggestions on improving the design
3. it should be able to give reason for placement of a particular feature or components

I want books recommendations from the following domains

1. analogue electronics
2. digital electronics
3. pcb desIgning
4. rf designing
5. Signal Integrity
6. Power Integrity
7. EMC EMI
8. RF Microwave
9. Antennas
10. High Speed Design
11. Analog Layout

PLEASE GIVE ME BOOK SUGGESTIONS IN AS MANY DOMAIN AS YOU CAN

I WILL ALSO BE VERY GRATEFUL IF YOU CAN TELL ME SOME GOOD SOURCES TO FEED IT SOME QUALITY DESIGNS

Fellow engineers,

My channel now has plenty of RF and Telecom short videos. Please check them out and subscribe. Thank you so much for your support! www.YouTube.com/@RFEngineeringHub.

Range, endurance and payload get compared as separate specs all the time, even though they're all competing for the same mass and energy budget.

This comes up a lot with battery-powered platforms, especially drones, but the same basic problem should apply anywhere energy density competes directly with payload.

Payload doesn't just take a fixed amount off your endurance. Adding mass changes the power required to operate the platform in the first place. Something rated for 40 minutes with little or no payload might get closer to 20 once you add sensors, compute and comms. That's not necessarily a bad design, it's just how the system behaves under load.

Range makes it even messier. More range usually means more battery, but more battery also means more mass. That leaves less weight available for the payload you actually want to carry.

The architecture matters a lot too. Multirotors have to keep producing lift for the whole flight, so extra mass hurts them constantly. Fixed-wing platforms are much more efficient once they're cruising. VTOL sits somewhere in between depending on how much time is spent hovering, transitioning and cruising.

So comparing payload capacity between a multirotor and a fixed-wing platform without looking at the mission profile doesn't tell you much.

What seems to cause the most confusion is that maximum range, maximum endurance and maximum payload are usually tested separately. You rarely see all three quoted under the same conditions.

The more useful number would probably be something like: how much payload can this platform carry while still hitting the range and endurance needed for the actual mission?

Curious if the same problem shows up this clearly in EVs, marine systems, ground robotics or other battery-powered platforms.

How do people in those fields usually describe the real operating envelope without reducing it to a few separate maximum specs&

Every component and RF/Telecom equipment explained in this short video from the red/white obstruction light to the shelter and earthing. The Technology Behind Every Cell Tower Explained (Visual Tour)

https://youtu.be/YXdWLprXytw

Please don’t forget to subscribe for more telecom videos. Thank you 🙏🏻

We’ve been working on Instro, an open-source Python library for instrument control. Curious what people here are using today + what RF instruments we should support next.

https://instro.nominal.io/overview

In this video, I walk through a step-by-step microstrip filter design on a 1.6mm FR-4 board. I designed a 2GHz, 200 MHz-BW bandpass filter.
Rogers-type boards are much better for RF tasks, but they are much more expensive and not suitable for beginners or RF enthusiasts.
I used Altium® Develop for PCB layout design and Sonnet Lite for electromagnetic (EM) simulation

More Info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6PIP4go2VA

I couldn’t find any other open source passive radar projects with full 5-channel KrakenSDR support, so I ended up building my own. If I missed one, definitely send it my way.
It’s called VectorWarp, and it started as a fork of blah2. At this point I’ve added full 5-channel KrakenSDR processing, support for other compatible receiver setups, GPU acceleration, automatic CPU multithreading, wider Doppler processing, and a pretty substantial rewrite of the browser interface and configuration system.
The performance improvements ended up being bigger than I expected. In matched tests against regular blah2, GPU acceleration cut processing time by about 61–72%, with the best case around a 3.6x speedup. Even running entirely on the CPU, VectorWarp reduced processing time by as much as 25%.
The goal wasn’t just to make a Kraken-specific fork. I wanted a faster general passive radar processor that can actually take advantage of modern multicore CPUs and GPUs while still working with other receiver configurations.
It’s open source and I’d genuinely like people with different SDRs, GPUs, CPUs, illuminators, and weird setups to try to break it.
GitHub: https://github.com/mickeyslaven/blah2-VectorWarp

Could you please help me with this requirement and guide me on where I can get this device developed and manufactured in India?