09-05-2017, 08:13 PM
They say that an education is what remains when you've forgotten everything you were taught.
Coming back to matters electrical. There's plenty that's deeply embedded in the brain cells. I'm not going to forget ohm's law, KCL/KVL, Thevenin/Norton, basic complex numbers, basic trig. That will give me a good start on understanding many circuits and is enough for me to look up anything extra I need to know.
I don't have the details of feedback theory and many other things at my fingertips but I know enough to find out when necessary.
On the digital side, basic boolean algebra is instinctive, inculding de Morgan's rule. In practice when designing in VHDL I'm using this knowledge implicitly. The computer does all the heavy work. Likewise synchornous logic and what to do when life isn't truly synchronous.
I never did learn Smith charts properly, I suppose I once knew a bit of 3 phase theory and could mug it up again, getting the answers wrong by a factor of 3 or SQRT(3) as usual. much other stuff I did at uni is a dim memory from the mid 1970s. I've rarely explicitly used any calculus though understanding the principles makes it much easier to understand a lot of things.
Coming back to FM, a subject that vexes the OP. I understand it in simple terms and certainly won't forget it. When you start to delve deeper the maths gets heavy. Bessel functions aren't something I've ever studied but fortuantely you don't need to understand them to fix a radio or even design an FM TX or RX.
Coming back to matters electrical. There's plenty that's deeply embedded in the brain cells. I'm not going to forget ohm's law, KCL/KVL, Thevenin/Norton, basic complex numbers, basic trig. That will give me a good start on understanding many circuits and is enough for me to look up anything extra I need to know.
I don't have the details of feedback theory and many other things at my fingertips but I know enough to find out when necessary.
On the digital side, basic boolean algebra is instinctive, inculding de Morgan's rule. In practice when designing in VHDL I'm using this knowledge implicitly. The computer does all the heavy work. Likewise synchornous logic and what to do when life isn't truly synchronous.
I never did learn Smith charts properly, I suppose I once knew a bit of 3 phase theory and could mug it up again, getting the answers wrong by a factor of 3 or SQRT(3) as usual. much other stuff I did at uni is a dim memory from the mid 1970s. I've rarely explicitly used any calculus though understanding the principles makes it much easier to understand a lot of things.
Coming back to FM, a subject that vexes the OP. I understand it in simple terms and certainly won't forget it. When you start to delve deeper the maths gets heavy. Bessel functions aren't something I've ever studied but fortuantely you don't need to understand them to fix a radio or even design an FM TX or RX.
www.borinsky.co.uk Jeffrey Borinsky www.becg.tv
