One other thing. The reason for my post here about my new book, and also the
review on page 70 of the May 2008 QST, is to convey information that might
be interesting and valuable to some of the members of this group and to QST
readers. It is not motivated by a search for financial profit, even though
the publisher does pay a small royalty to the author. That total amount is
insignifiant compared to the author's substantial personal investment in
time (time is not free) and materials over a three year interval.

Bill W0IYH

Hello K,

The Mathcad program itself sells for several hundred dollars. The PTC
Company publishes this program, and it alone is quite expensive. The disk in
my book is part of a promotional plan by PTC to encourage the sales and use
of the Mathcad program. Even if the book itself is of no value, which I do
not believe, the Mathcad is of considerable value. Go to www.PTC.com if you
want to learn more about Mathcad.

Bill W0IYH

"K" wrote in message
...
Yea, its proably a great book, but at $125 bucks a copy, it outa be!!

K

"William E. Sabin" wrote in message
news:Y0JOj.128637$yE1.84159@attbi_s21...
One other thing. The reason for my post here about my new book, and also
the review on page 70 of the May 2008 QST, is to convey information that
might be interesting and valuable to some of the members of this group
and to QST readers. It is not motivated by a search for financial profit,
even though the publisher does pay a small royalty to the author. That
total amount is insignifiant compared to the author's substantial
personal investment in time (time is not free) and materials over a three
year interval.

Bill W0IYH

William E. Sabin wrote:

Hello K,

The Mathcad program itself sells for several hundred dollars. The PTC
Company publishes this program, and it alone is quite expensive. The disk in
my book is part of a promotional plan by PTC to encourage the sales and use
of the Mathcad program. Even if the book itself is of no value, which I do
not believe, the Mathcad is of considerable value. Go to www.PTC.com if you
want to learn more about Mathcad.

snip

I have Mathcad 4.0; would it be sufficient? If so, is the book available
separately?

Michael

Hello Michael,

Mathcad 4.0 was sold in 1993. I had it at that time (15 years ago) but it is
very ancient these days. If your computer is fairly modern and has a CD
drive, I suggest "bite the bullet" and get the book with the almost freebie
version 14.0 program attached. If you are using a very early computer that
has no CD drive and if your version 4.0 works OK, you could try it. I
believe it is possible to get the book alone. I personally would not want to
waste my valuable time with that approach. Also, the CD has the Mathcad User
Guide, which is very useful. I can't emphasize too much the excellence of
the new 14.0 version.

Bill W0IYH

"msg" wrote in message
ernet...
William E. Sabin wrote:

Hello K,

The Mathcad program itself sells for several hundred dollars. The PTC
Company publishes this program, and it alone is quite expensive. The disk
in my book is part of a promotional plan by PTC to encourage the sales
and use of the Mathcad program. Even if the book itself is of no value,
which I do not believe, the Mathcad is of considerable value. Go to
www.PTC.com if you want to learn more about Mathcad.

snip

I have Mathcad 4.0; would it be sufficient? If so, is the book available
separately?

Michael

K wrote:
Yea, its proably a great book, but at $125 bucks a copy, it outa be!!

K

"William E. Sabin" wrote in message
news:Y0JOj.128637$yE1.84159@attbi_s21...

One other thing. The reason for my post here about my new book, and
also the review on page 70 of the May 2008 QST, is to convey
information that might be interesting and valuable to some of the
members of this group and to QST readers. It is not motivated by a
search for financial profit, even though the publisher does pay a
small royalty to the author. That total amount is insignifiant
compared to the author's substantial personal investment in time (time
is not free) and materials over a three year interval.

Bill W0IYH



Sad part is that courtesy of the IRS rules, it is a gamble to publish a
small run, specialty book like this at that price. Used to be
different, but that's the reality now. In any event writing one is more
a labor of love than anything else unless you need the publication to
get tenure.

I haven't seen the book and wouldn't buy it because I've been doing this
stuff for 25+ years and already have dozens of books on signal
processing. But if you don't have that sort of background and are
interested in software radio, you really need this or something like it.

There is no substitute for doing the math yourself.

Table of contents looks good though I wonder if it's not a proposal
outline that Wiley has failed to update rather than the actual table of
contents. "Discuss the MathCAD program" doesn't seem like a good section
title.

Have Fun!
Reg

It's the actual Table of Contents.

Bill W0IYH

Table of contents looks good though I wonder if it's not a proposal
outline that Wiley has failed to update rather than the actual table of
contents. "Discuss the MathCAD program" doesn't seem like a good section
title.

Have Fun!
Reg

William,

Given that Mathcad is included, I don't think the price is unreasonable.
However, perhaps you'd consider using one of the free math manipulation
programs such as Octave in the future? It really would make it more
accessible to amateurs. Nevertheless, thank you for writing the book and
getting it published -- it definitely will help some people and is a good
addition to amateur radio literature.

At least Mathcad is much cheaper than Matlab. The MathWorks (publishers of
Matlab) has pretty much completely left out the hobbyist community... the full
version of the software is quite expensive (thousands of dollars), whereas the
"student" version (at a pretty reasonable $99, although each and every
"toolbox" is then an additional $59) require formal proof of student status,
which of course hobbyists generally don't have. :-(

---Joel

And if you look at the larger booksellers online you can buy the book
for a significantly lower price....at Barnes & Noble for instance if
you're a member (and if you buy a lot of books/DVDs I don't know how you
can afford not to be) the volume runs around $90 with free shipping.
Looks like it's $90 on Amazon.com as well.

Haven't had a chance to take a look yet but from the TOC looks like a
good read....have added to my "gonna buy' list.

Congrats Bill....

73 -- Dino KL0S/4

Wherever you buy it and whatever you pay for it, be SURE ahead of time that
it INCLUDES the Mathcad disk. That disk is very excellent and valuable, very
far beyond the price that is being charged.

Bill W0IYH

"Dino Papas" wrote in message
...
And if you look at the larger booksellers online you can buy the book
for a significantly lower price....at Barnes & Noble for instance if
you're a member (and if you buy a lot of books/DVDs I don't know how you
can afford not to be) the volume runs around $90 with free shipping.
Looks like it's $90 on Amazon.com as well.

Haven't had a chance to take a look yet but from the TOC looks like a
good read....have added to my "gonna buy' list.

Congrats Bill....

73 -- Dino KL0S/4