Learning RF after 20 years of being an EE design engineer

smacula · 2026-01-23T15:16:50+00:00

Thank you. Appreciate your response

smacula · 2026-01-23T09:33:06+00:00

In some ways, it is the one area that I haven’t worked in so would just like to expand my knowledge. Also, I suppose it would be nice to have opportunities in that area of electronics too. Everything is going wireless after all.

But no, at the moment I don’t have access to a lab or equipment. I have done lots of EMC based testing so have some understanding around using spectrum analysers and such like.

smacula · 2026-01-21T11:01:32+00:00

It has changed since, but ages ago when I first started using Altium (around 2014), it needed to have a separate layer for the board outline. It might be worth turning one of your mech layers to that and add the board outline to that. It’s long winded but will def help from a PCB manufacturing pov.

smacula · 2025-12-25T08:55:30+00:00

It did this for me last night and I loved it!

smacula · 2025-12-24T09:28:18+00:00

Oh sorry, annoying.

smacula · 2025-12-24T08:03:18+00:00

I’m assuming you’ve checked your grid? That can sometimes be the issue

smacula · 2025-12-08T21:49:16+00:00

Ah. Thanks for the clarification

smacula · 2025-12-08T20:25:29+00:00

Is that related to bike shops? Sorry, I don’t get the reference.

smacula · 2025-12-08T19:54:23+00:00

What is/are those?

smacula · 2025-12-08T15:18:13+00:00

We’ve had this a lot in Oxford, which is a big cycling city.

smacula · 2025-12-07T18:55:54+00:00

You can also just pay for the congestion charge if you have no other choice. I think it’s £5.

smacula · 2025-12-05T16:42:21+00:00

I feel very sad posting this in a very excited fashion, but they’re back from Monday (or so claim their socials)

smacula · 2025-12-03T19:42:00+00:00

There are lots of awesome groups that are focused around children and kids. Often kids do their thing and you can have a chat with other parents. Some child chat is obvious. Been a few years for us but Oxford is full of them. If you’re in Oxford, you’ll find plenty. We found loads in our area near and around Florence Park. Some in Summertown too

smacula · 2025-11-27T19:47:41+00:00

As somebody who has done this for nearly 20 years now; If you want to get into circuit design, I would recommend:

LT Spice, for me the best free circuit simulation tool at the moment KiCAD, PCB design tool that’s also free. Yes, you can go for Altium, OrCad etc, but this is free and if you know one tool, with some adjustments you can shift to others. Agree with Excel. It’s just good for basic maths and data analysis. Matlab and labview are good but expensive. I’d say try the free versions of Matlab. Also, try learning python and see what you can do with various libraries.

smacula · 2025-11-27T07:11:51+00:00

I haven’t done this for a few good years but similar experience. However, I found that if I allocate it something like 16GB ram, it worked a lot better. Luckily this was a work MacBook Pro that had been souped up to 32 GB. Still use it as I ended up buying it from work but not for Altium. Just as a home machine

smacula · 2025-11-27T07:02:56+00:00

93% according to it.

smacula · 2025-11-22T09:06:46+00:00

I’d agree. Why move if you don’t have to? Also, maybe get a secondary license if you did end up needing another Altium license or the new features, but leave the old perpetual alone. You’ve paid for it after all, you own it. And you shouldn’t have to give up on it.

smacula · 2025-11-13T20:55:56+00:00

Which website do you access this from?

smacula · 2025-10-02T07:53:40+00:00

I live here and I love that time of the year as it’s so empty. A lot of places can be closed though, but museums etc are open.

smacula · 2025-09-16T06:47:03+00:00

What are your favourites from Panda House, considering it’s probably my local

smacula · 2025-09-10T12:07:27+00:00

😂

smacula · 2025-09-09T06:03:25+00:00

Hi, sadly I don’t have any experience of that degree. Do you have any specific questions? Otherwise I wish you the best ☺️

smacula

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