I have a HAM level understanding of wireless communication and want to expand it. This book and the ones you listed seem like they'll go over my head. Any recommendations on an "101" style text book?
I don't see it for sale anymore but the text is at https://dn760103.eu.archive.org/0/items/fea_Wireless_Digital... . No word on the fate of the "free disk," though.
The other recommendations you're getting are college-level texts. If McDermott's book suits your initial needs, Rick Lyons' and/or Steven W. Smith's DSP books would be a good next step.
Lesson 1: HAM is not an acronym. :)
There's another relatively unknown wireless communication book by Qasim Chaudhari namely Wireless Communications From the Ground Up: An SDR Perspective, also in the 2nd edition.
There are even GNU Radio experiments course available that you can try alongside the book.
According to the author, the course also covers the fundamental concepts of DSP and SDR without using any mathematics.
[1] Wireless Communications From the Ground Up: An SDR Perspective:
[2]Software Defined Radio (SDR) course:
Communication Systems by Simon Haykin