Introduction to radio frequency (RF) communications

Almost all far-edge networking involves wireless networking of some type, and forms of wireless networking communicate using RFs. Wi-Fi, Cellular, LoRaWAN, SATCOM – they all use radio waves in a similar way as the radio in your car does.

Frequency and wavelength

Electromagnetic radiation consists of an electrical field that varies in magnitude, and a magnetic field oriented at a right angle to its electrical field. Both of these fields travel at the speed of light. Everything from cell phones, radio stations, and Wi-Fi access points to GPS signals are electromagnetic waves.

They are called electromagnetic because they are synchronized oscillations of electric and magnetic fields. But what does that mean? Take a look at the following figure. The part labeled E (the waves going up and down) represents the electric field and the part labeled B (the waves going left and right) represents the magnetic field:

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