For those who have been working in RF engineering for a while, what kind of projects actually helped you grow early in your career and opened doors for you?

I'm currently working as an R&D RF Systems Engineer, and I really enjoy this role and want to continue growing in this direction. I'm trying to figure out which skills and projects are worth investing my time in early on.

I'm curious whether you focused more on component-level design, like antennas, LNAs, PAs, mixers, filters, and impedance matching, or on larger projects like complete RF front-ends, transceivers, or communication systems.

I'm also interested in the software side, whether it's HFSS, CST, ADS, Ansys Circuit, MATLAB, or other tools, and how much learning DSP actually helped in your work.

I enjoy the mathematical side of DSP, but I'm not particularly interested in spending most of my time implementing algorithms in code, so I'm curious how relevant it is for someone leaning more toward RF hardware and systems engineering.

If you were starting over today, what projects, tools, or skills would you prioritize to build a strong career in R&D and RF systems engineering?

I am building an airband receiver (118-137MHz = 19MHz wide) to simultaneously decode all airband channels. It will be placed indoors, next to a window which points towards an airport.

I am using a 65MSPS 125MSPS 12-bit ADC running at 50MHz 100MHz to undersample the airband into 18-37MHz, which is right in the middle of the Nyquist zone.

1. Antenna
2. BPF #1 to reduce strong frequencies
3. LNA + attenuator
4. BPF #2 to reduce folding frequencies
5. LNA in ADC driver
6. BPF #3 anti-alias filter
7. ADC

I'm looking for directional guidance on the filters (including "that's crazy", "you're an idiot" and "try this instead").

Nearby frequencies († folds into airband):

• † 54-88 - Low-VHF TV
• 88-108 - FM broadcast (especially strong)
• 108-118 - VOR and ILS
• 118-137 - Airband
• 138-144 - Military and federal land mobile
• 144-148 - 2m Ham radio
• † 148-174 - Federal land mobile, public safety, pagers, marine, NOAA weather
• † 174-216 - High-VHF TV, channels 7-13

BPF #1

• Minimize airband loss
• Reduce strong frequencies (especially FM)
• Reduce WiFi and cellular (do I need a ceramic LPF or does it just fade away magically?)

BPF #2 - Reduce 163-181MHz folding frequencies

BPF #3 - Reduce driver noise

I appreciate any advice!

(Software engineer, first RF project, probably bit off too much, oops!)

Edit 1: I wrote the wrong numbers for my ADC!

I'm wondering, both Siwave and HyperLynx are 2.5 D solvers, traditionally good for planer structures and a few GHz. In terms of their precision, is there any consensus to which tool is better?

I know HyperLynx has a bit more easy setup, but AFAIK it has some particular solving method that somehow ignores many effects of reference planes (say you have a void nearby in your ref plane, it doesn't "see" it) and I'm not sure exactly how it takes into account effects of nearby reference through the ports.

SIWave on the other hand seems to take all of the above into account, and the way the ports are set have to explicitly take into account how the signal is excited with respect to the ref plane.

Hi. Im still new in this field, i have some question to ask

So, i still cant figure this out. wich ends connect with wich?
Also, how am i approach to solve this question:

The forward voltage for each diode is 0.6 V. Determine R1, R2,and R3 such that each diode current is 0.5 mA.

We recently received a Rohde & Schwarz FPL1003 spectrum analyzer.

It's always interesting to see how professional RF test equipment holds up in the second-hand market.

https://reddit.com/link/1xhbud6/video/9kydlgrg84yh1/player

In my compact PCB design I have a U.FL connector that will connect to a FPC antenna using 1.13mm coax, but it runs over the LiPo inside the enclosure before exiting. I'd imagine a battery produces some EMI, am I correct on this? If yes, what would be the best way to lessen the effect, would some cable sleeve or similar help?

im an electrical engeneering student looking for ideas for my final project, this is a research project.
i thought about doing my project about "amplification and dumpning" by changing the antenne shape, size and material. but my professor told me it wasnt a good idea. does anyone have any good ones?

Help me design please

I’m using a bladeRF 2.0 micro A9 and recently I’ve been facing random FPGA loading issues.Sometimes the FPGA loads perfectly fine, but other times I get these errors:
dev->backend->load_fpga failed: File or device I/O failure
Failed to switch to NULL interface
The strange thing is that I’ve successfully loaded FPGA images multiple times using the same laptop and USB cable before. I’m using Windows 11. Could this be due to insufficient USB power from my laptop, or is there something else I should check?
I’m also considering programming through JTAG to see if that helps. Has anyone faced a similar issue?

I am looking at AP placement on my ceiling and trying to determine if it can reach a IoT device in my attic. I am looking at Ubiquiti U7 Pro XGS and found the AP spectrum pattern for this device.
From what I can gather, I should have pretty good coverage I place my wireless plug 9' horizontal and 3' vertical from the AP. The device uses the 2.4GHz band.

[](blob:https://www.reddit.com/f5c025c6-d241-4984-955f-3091d4f4a8f1)

Anyone good at reading spectrum maps? From what I can gather through google, I should have pretty good coverage if my IoT device is 9' horizontal and 3' vertical from the AP. At 9' out and 3' up, the device sits at a diagonal angle of approx 72 degrees off the center vertical axis. Near the 60° to 75° mark, the color is a solid, vibrant orange/red.

Just trying to confirm I am reading this correctly, as I am not an RF engineer and not really sure what the charts describe.

Hello! I’m new to RF design and struggling with differential impedance matching for example for impedances attached in the picture. I’m unsure what impedance to use on the Smith chart and how to implement the resulting component values in my circuit. Any help or explanation would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I’ve been building this interactive simulator as a side project aimed to help students understand and visualize electromagnetic phenomena such as radiation, near field effects, polarization and wave interference.

You can:

• place many radiation sources and set their parameters (amplitude, phase and more)
• place perefect wire conductors
• observe the electric field, magnetic field or energy flow field
• zoom in and out and translate the canvas
• change the simulation resolution, frequency and propogation speed

and more!

I hope someone might find it useful and I’d love to hear what people think :)

Live:
https://www.antennasim.com/

GitHub:

https://github.com/rotemTsafrir/antenna_sim

Hi everyone,

I recently completed my Master's degree in Information and Communication Engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China.

My background is mainly in antenna design, electromagnetic simulation, and optimization.

My technical experience includes:

• EM Simulation: CST Studio Suite, Altair FEKO
• Optimization: Altair HyperStudy
• RF & Microwave: ADS, S-parameters, impedance matching, antenna radiation patterns, and VNA measurements
• Research Projects: Dual-layer metamaterial magnetic-induction antenna, 3.5 GHz dual-polarized antenna, and omnidirectional slot antenna

I also published a first-author paper in IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters (AWPL) in 2026.

I'm currently looking for RA or engineering opportunities, especially in antenna design, RF/microwave engineering, electromagnetic simulation, or magnetic coupling.

I'm based in China and open to remote opportunities worldwide, as well as on-site opportunities where work authorization is possible.

If you know of any relevant research groups, companies, startups, or projects, I'd really appreciate your suggestions.

I'm happy to share my CV and publication details by DM.

Thanks!

Hi so for my academics, me and my team are doing a microstrip patch antenna for our project. we simulate it in CST using the student edition. There are few things im worried about before getting it fabricated as this is our first time, and we have only started using the software three months ago.

We were supposed to get a proper resonant impedance value for the S paramater dip at 3.45Ghz but the simulation is only showing us a dip around near 3.4Ghz, that would be a problem right? also we are worried about how and what to expect from a fabrication of the said antenna, would it work as expected in the expected frequency? what are the other nitty gritty details we r over looking? any sort of help i would appreciate. i feel like this post is really inadequate in terms of technicality so any questions about that also ill try my best to answer it properly in the comments. Thank you

Whats the best free alternative to CST, my uni doesnt have many licenses and the learning edition isnt enough for phased arrays which i want to simulate for a project

What’s new:

- New solver: EMerge (FEM) alongside openEMS (FDTD)
- RLC components: R, L and C parts are simulated as lumped elements
- Multiple RLC states, so you can simulate phase shifters and switches
- Plus coax feed ports, current animation, GIF export and many bug fixes

https://github.com/NBalciunas/kicad-rfsim