RF & Wireless — Fundamentals
Curated: learn RF & wireless fundamentals from a top-rated free course, prove it in Forge by picking the right radio for a real device, and get certified. The wireless entry point of the Curated Engineering track.
Five Fundamentals of RF You Must Know for WLAN Success
CWNP (Certified Wireless Network Professional) · video · ~1h · Free · English
Why we picked it: The most-watched beginner RF primer on YouTube (~345,000 views) from CWNP — the body that runs the industry-standard CWTS/CWNA wireless certifications — so it's both the popularity leader and the reputable one. It's explicitly a 'foundations level' webinar for people newer to wireless, and it teaches the RF concepts (wavelength, frequency, amplitude, phase, and the dB/dBm math) that transfer to every radio you'll ever design with, whether that's Wi-Fi, BLE, or LoRa.
- wavelength vs. frequency (and why they're inversely related)
- amplitude & phase of an RF signal
- RF power in dBm and the dB rule-of-3s/10s math
- antenna gain (dBi) as focusing, not amplifying, energy
- how frequency affects range and wall penetration
- line-of-sight, free-space path loss, and link budgets
- why RF behaviour is the foundation for Wi-Fi / WLAN design
- reading signal levels (why -30 dBm beats -80 dBm)
Study guide
Open the study guide →1 study section · what to focus on + prove it in Forge, then take the check.
Forge practical
Build it in Forge Design · 4 checks · auto-verified from your design
Start the practical →