Sites / Information

Microwaves101 The place for microwave design information. A great place for a neophyte, and a good a reference for the rest of us.

RF / Electronics

Everything here runs under Windows.

• RF dude's Smith Chart tool. This is also a great option, and the one that I used until I started my own.

• Iowa Hills Software Collection. Mostly analogue and digital filter design tools. Solid, basic, they get the job done.

• QUCS, Quite Univeral Ciruit Simulator A very general purpose RF style simulator. Supports Linear (S parameter), Harmonic Balance, Time domain. The interface is reminiscent of one of the big commercial packages. Not always easy to install, and the documentation is limited.

• AppCAD RF Multitool, showing its age, but still very useful. Includes a PCB transmission line designer and S parameter viewer among others.

• LTSpice. Circuit simulation.

• Audio Spectrum Analyser. Takes a PC audio input and FFT's it into a spectrum analyser.

Technical / Engineering

• SpeedCrunch A fantastic desktop calculator. Get it and be happy.

• Notepad++

• GearDXF, from Forrest Moon productions Does what is says on the can. Generates DXF and STL files of spur gear profiles.

Just useful

• VLC 'nuf said.

• 7Zip 'nuf said.

• WinDirStat For finding out where all that disk space went.

• Putty 'nuf said.

• TeraTerm for when 9600, 8, N, 1 gets the job done

• InfranView Just remember to download the additional formats pack.