Yeah, you can actually simulate a good chunk of this with just trig, I actually simulated a mixer[1] in python and was able to work out how I/Q got mixed into t

Yeah, you can actually simulate a good chunk of this with just trig, I actually simulated a mixer[1] in python and was able to work out how I/Q got mixed into the baseband, it was a ton of fun. Once you've got the data in I/Q lots of the modulation modes just fall out really easily(I recommend reading about AM, FM and BPSK/QPSK as a starting point which then you can generalize into QAM). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_mixer#Diode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_mixer#Diode