What makes a microwave engineer?
First off, let’s remind everyone that microwave electronics are by and large an analog science, as opposed to most other electrical engineering, which has mostly gone digital. We think of analog as real life, and digital as the “reality TV” of electronics. No one really listens to digital music or sees digital television, your senses are analog. Digital communications must be carried on an analog radio signal. Analog engineering will never go away. If we had to summarize what sets a microwave engineer apart from a “normal” electrical engineer, we’d say that knowledge of just a few simple concepts is required to fit in with microwave geeks. These are S-parameters, the Smith chart, decibels, transmission lines (including waveguide, which really isn’t a transmission line but performs the same function) and skin depth. Notice that we didn’t mention antennas, because we consider that almost a separate subject from microwave engineering! The funny thing is that you can be expert on all of th
