Are there any youtube videos that explain the RF voodoo?

[raspberrypi]

Maybe a tear down of a product that explains what those strange shapes are on the pcb traces? Calling it voodoo is nice but my mind has to know...

[Bud]

Those are baby talks compare to defective ground structures (DGS)

[bktemp]

The Signal Path has some videos on RF circuits, measurement equipment and other related stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSignalPathBlog
Whenever he does a teardown, repair or review he goes over the block diagram and later shows the corresponding parts on the pcb.
One example:

[Lord of nothing]

Maybe: http://rtl-sdr.com/

[vk3yedotcom]

My first port of call would be W2AEW  https://www.youtube.com/user/w2aew

I also recommend articles from Talking Electronics, especially in relation to small transmitters http://www.talkingelectronics.com/te_interactive_index.html

My favoured approach is to start with the big picture, then zoom in a bit to discuss the basic stages of a transmitter or receiver and then drill down further to individual stages. 

My channel has a few (mainly dealing with HF radio) with these two the best ones to start off with.





In relation to circuit boards, key things to consider include symmetry (if using balanced circuits), minimisation of stray capacitances and inductances, earthing and, in some cases, the use of board tracks to deliberately form inductances, eg as part of a tuned circuit or filter. The latter is typically used on UHF where only small inductances are required.

[Howardlong]

Not a vid, but this is quite a handy reference overview for microwave PCB layout features https://www.jlab.org/accel/eecad/pdf/050rfdesign.pdf

[KD0CAC John]

1st thing to do , is not think of RF as voodoo .
2nd thing , if you can not get away from magic thinking , then for get you ever heard of RF / science .
3rd if you do leave behind the magic thinking , then the links above are good sources , Signal Path & W2AEW are a couple of my favorite .

[joseph nicholas]

The best explaination is from a very recent video on the Signal Path involving an adapter the presenter got online to amplifiy an rf signal with alot of via stitching.  He goes into a very cogent explaination of how it works to prevent noise from entering into the amplifier.

[G0HZU]

1st thing to do , is not think of RF as voodoo .
2nd thing , if you can not get away from magic thinking , then for get you ever heard of RF / science .
3rd if you do leave behind the magic thinking , then the links above are good sources , Signal Path & W2AEW are a couple of my favorite .

The videos by W2AEW are always excellent and I rarely comment on them. He clearly does a lot of research and presents his stuff very well. I suppose you could argue that it is generally stuff aimed at less experienced people but I think a lot of professional engineers could learn stuff from his videos. There isn't much (anything?) aimed at UHF/microwave design or theory but I'm not sure if Alan is an RF engineer as such. I think he is an applications or HW engineer.

I'm much less impressed by the signalpath videos. Whilst it's great to see all the teardowns I usually have to turn the sound down during the technical descriptions or try not to listen because there are just too many errors, too many flawed statements. I've pointed out loads of mistakes in the past but I try and avoid watching that blog unless there is a nice piece of RF equipment being taken apart.

[joseph nicholas]

The Signal Path has taken a turn for the worse recently.  He's drunk the cool aid and is looking to commercialize this posts with product give aways and  plugs.  I keep watching because its so jam packed with relavant information regarding rf combined with teardowns and repairs. 

[Arjan Emm]

The Signal Path has taken a turn for the worse recently.  He's drunk the cool aid and is looking to commercialize this posts with product give aways and  plugs.  I keep watching because its so jam packed with relavant information regarding rf combined with teardowns and repairs.

I totally disagree, He was totally overwhelmed with negative reactions on his give away. He just wants some financial support to be able to keep buying fancy faulty equipment and repair it to make an educational video. All videos remain for free for everyone. patrion or not. He's just looking for people that like to contribute for the expenses he needs to make to share his knowledge with others.

[elecman14]

If you are doing RF PCB layout I would recomend this: