Radiation & Propagation Engineering (RAPE), one of the toughest subjects in Electronics Engineering course. Flipping through the book (Jordan) is like going to Greece. Equations and 3D abound and a very strong background of mathematics in cartesian and spherical coordinate system is necessary to understand things. I took two attempts in my course to clear this paper. But, I was determined, no studying from 'examination point of view'. Even if I understand at-least one equation after some struggle, it would be worth it. Those were the days when google and internet were not around to help and following Jordan was a nightmare, as ,some steps in the derivation of equation were 'skipped' because the author considered them to be too trivial to waste paper which could anyhow be dealt with in the classroom..Alas for us..most of this theory was passed on as 'Assignments'. I saw some beautiful pictures of Antenna patterns in the book, and then was tempted to do the same on the computer using QBASIC. The trick (if I remember right), to plot the pattern was to 'project' the wave equation on to the cartesian axes. This was not mentioned in the book (again..maybe too trivial from author's point of view) .
Twelve years after leaving college, and checking some old floppy disks, I found this software which I had written in QBASIC during those malnourished student days ....and it was such a good feeling when the antenna pattern lobes showed up according the the input given. wow! it still gives me goose bumps.
