Principles of Radio Communication

Abstract"THE big Morecroft” is so familiar to every serious worker on radio communications that little more than ‘welcome’ need be said of this third edition. The first chapter remains the least satisfactory in the book, since the most difficult of all the tasks of authorship is to be at once elementary and accurate—the later chapters gain from the compact accuracy of technical ‘shorthand’. The work of bringing into perspective the substantial advances registered in the five years between editions has, on the whole, been skilfully and successfully done. It must, however, be suggested that the accounts of fading, direction-finding, and indeed of all the phenomena of ionospheric ‘reflection’ would have been better done had the author relied less exclusively on the Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers—excellent as they are—as a source book, and come to British publications which were available before June 1932, the date of the preface to this edition. The structure and properties of the ionosphere are, quite certainly, more satisfactorily discussed in the British than in the American papers.Principles of Radio Communication.By Prof. John H. Morecroft, assisted by A. Pinto and Prof. W. A. Curry. Third edition, thoroughly revised. Pp. xviii + 1084. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1933.) 46s. 6d. net.