Homepage Archive - May 2024 (page 1)

Friday the 24th

Thursday the 23rd

Wednesday the 22nd

Tuesday the 21st

Monday the 20th

Friday the 17th

Rotary Engine Fires Like a Six-Shooter

Dig those crazy curved pistons, man. They are righteous! That was the sort of hip lingo just beginning to hit the scene in 1961 when this "Rotary Engine Fires Like a Six-Shooter" article appeared in Popular Science magazine. It was not a Wankel type rotary engine in that it still used pistons and connecting rods like a traditional internal combustion engine (ICE). Looking as surreal as the watches in Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory" painting, the pistons' shape conforms to the arched cylinder in which it reciprocates a few thousand times per minute. How someone thinks up a scheme like this is beyond me. It took a couple readings to truly get a grasp on the operation. The writer is a bit misleading when asserting that the pistons are not really reciprocating in the cylinders, but in fact they are; they are just not driven by the traditional crankshaft. The engine's configuration reminds me of a modern brushless motor where the armature remains fixed and the field...

Columbia Screen-Grid 8 Receiver Radio

Every once in a while having your own website pays off by having someone offer hard- or difficult-to-find information. Back in 2016 when I originally posted the Radio Service Data Sheet (RSDS) for the Columbia Screen-Grid 8 (SG−8) Receiver, no photo could be found online. Notice hugeness of the components on top of the electronics chassis - the vacuum tubes, the metal shields, the transformers, the coils, etc. I always put in a fair amount of effort to find actual pictures of the radios. An image search usually does the job, but sometimes there is nothing to be found. This RSDS appeared in the October 1930 issue of Radio-Craft magazine. Typical of the era is a very ornate wooden chassis, and note the tiny tuning window in the center - no round dial or linear frequency scale...

High Life: The Bill Comes Due

According to Electronics magazine editor Lewis Young in mid-1964, the industry was entering into a slump in business opportunities. The boom times provided during the war years of WWII and Korea had resulted in, according to Mr. Young, a lax attitude toward operational strategy that led to wasteful spending and poor accountability for project results. It wasn't just the defense contractors' fault because government bureaucrats - from relatively low ranking military personnel to elected lawmakers - had (have) a habit of making sudden changes to contract requirements. Maintaining the resources needed to keep up with ever-evolving demands necessitated a lot of the excess. Fortunately, the military-industrial complex, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower dubbed it, was on the verge of being thrown another huge monetary bone - the Vietnam War. President Kennedy was already pumping lots of equipment and manpower into it, and LBJ would follow suit with vigor. The money pipeline was filling up quickly; the electronics industry was to be saved once again...

RAN Market Is "Still a Disaster"

"The Radio Access Network (RAN) market is "still struggling," according to the latest report from telecom analysts Dell'Oro Group. The first quarter of 2024 saw exceptionally weak results, with a decline of 15-30% in the overall global RAN market - the steepest decline since Dell'Oro started covering this market in 2000, according to Stefan Pongratz, Dell'Oro VP and analyst. Dell'Oro measures the sector by both revenue and units sold, but "the focus is on revenue," Pongratz said. Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE and Samsung are the top five RAN suppliers, based on worldwide revenues. The vendors' positions remained stable but 'there have been shifts in vendor shares,' Dell'Oro said in an email. 'Huawei's 4QT revenue share improved relative to 2023, while Nokia lost ground over the same period.' So, we can look forward to dour first-quarter results from our Nordic friends at Nokia and Ericsson, following disappointing fourth-quarter results. Ericsson said that it would cut 1,200 Swedish staff in March 2024. This follows planned cuts of 8,500 people worldwide..."

Mac's Service Shop: Electronics and the Energy Crisis

I'm old enough to remember the 1973 Oil Crisis era (the subject of Mac McGregor's and Barney's discussion) that resulted from an oil embargo instituted by Arab oil producing nations during the Yom Kippur War where Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel. I didn't get my driver's license until Fall of 1974 (turned 16 on August 18th), so the worst of it was pretty much over by then. However, I clearly remember sitting in long lines at the gas station with my father, and then being limited in the amount that could be purchased (i.e., no fill-ups). Gas prices jumped from a national average of 38.5¢/gallon in May 1973 to 55.1¢/gallon in June 1974 (43% increase in a year). According to the BLS' Inflation Calculator, that is the equivalent of about $3.52/gallon in 2024 money. That's about what gas is costing right now, so today we're paying oil embargo era rates (thank you Brandon). If you were fortunate enough to own a boat during those times...

Espresso Engineering Workbook™ for Excel

The newest release of RF Cafe's spreadsheet (Excel) based engineering and science calculator is now available - Espresso Engineering Workbook™. Among other additions, it now has a Butterworth Bandpass Calculator, and a Highpass Filter Calculator that does not just gain, but also phase and group delay! Since 2002, the original Calculator Workbook has been available as a free download. Continuing the tradition, RF Cafe Espresso Engineering Workbook™ is also provided at no cost, compliments of my generous sponsors. The original calculators are included, but with a vastly expanded and improved user interface. Error-trapped user input cells help prevent entry of invalid values. An extensive use of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) functions now do most of the heavy lifting with calculations, and facilitates a wide user-selectable choice of units for voltage, frequency, speed, temperature, power, wavelength, weight, etc. In fact, a full page of units conversion calculators is included. A particularly handy feature is the ability to specify the the number of significant digits to display. Drop-down menus are provided for convenience...

Please Visit Empower RF's Website in Appreciation of Their Support

Empower RF Systems is the technological leader in RF & microwave power amplifier solutions for EW, Radar, Satcom, Threat Simulation, Communications, and Product Testing. Our air and liquid cooled amplifiers incorporate the latest semiconductor and power combining technologies and with a patented architecture we build the most sophisticated and flexible COTS system amplifiers in the world. Solutions range from tens of watts to hundreds of kilowatts and includes basic PA modules to scalable rack systems.

Thursday the 16th

National Radio Institute

From the 1940s through the 1980s, National Radio Institute (NRI) ran full-page and multi-page advertisements in many electronics and technology magazines, including Popular Mechanics, Radio News, and here in this 1947 issue of Popular Science. I don't recall exactly how/where I learned of the NRI when I enrolled in their "Electronic Design Technology" course, circa 1987. At the time I was working as an electronics technician for Simmonds Precision Instruments in Vergennes, Vermont. That was immediately preceding my completing a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Vermont. My formal training in electronics began in the U.S. Air Force while attending technical school at Keesler AFB, Mississippi, for being an Air Traffic Control Radar Repairman. NRI president J. E. (James Ernest) Smith, whose face appeared regularly in the ads...

Robot Makes Radios

British engineer John Sargrove was to the production of radios what Henry Ford was to automobiles. At the time this "Robot Makes Radios" article appeared in a 1947 issue of Radio-Craft magazine, Sargrove had recently put his Electronic Circuit Making Equipment (ECME) fully automated assembly line into operation. Applying knowledge from two decades of developing methods of creating inductors, capacitors, resistors, and interconnecting conductors using controlled deposition of various materials on flat substrates, he was able to build 2-tube AC/DC radios at a rate of up to three per minute, with only two ECME operators - one at the input and one at the output. The only manual assembly required was the installation of a potentiometer-switch, a transformer, speaker, and a power cord, plus joining the two fabricated Bakelite plates together. You will be amazed at what Mr. Sargrove's machine did. Unfortunately, raw material shortages after a grueling war...

U.S. to Triple Its Semiconductor Manufacturing

"Whether its lobbying in favor in the industry it represents, ensuring that public policies are promoting innovation or helping to unite all players in the space, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) works tirelessly to support the U.S. semiconductor industry. The group also has its finger on the pulse of the domestic chip manufacturing sector, which it now says is on track to triple in size by 2032. In their new Emerging Resilience in the Semiconductor Supply Chain report, SIA and Boston Consulting Group paint the picture of a sector that’s shaken off the negative impacts of the global pandemic and great chip shortage, and that’s well positioned to thrive and expand over the next eight years. Government funding will play a key role in that expansion. The US CHIPS Act, signed into law in August 2022, committed $39 billion in grants and loans for semiconductor manufacturing..."

Transistor Circuitry

Transistor basics have not changed since they were first introduced to the market around 1953, when this issue of QST magazine reported on them. The first available transistors used germanium substrates, and then in 1954 Texas Instruments introduced the first commercial silicon transistor. The hybrid pi equivalent circuit for a PN junction transistor used in modern circuit simulators has many more "virtual" components in it that allow for high frequency and nonlinear operation modeling, but for audio and AM type that operates entirely within the linear region, the equivalent circuit presented in Figure 1 will still get the job done. Common−(aka grounded−) emitter, common−base, and common−collector circuits are discussed. I remember in college in the mid 1980s running SPICE simulations on an IBM XT computer where the transistor model...

Promote Your Company on RF Cafe

Banner Ads are rotated in all locations on the page! RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000 visits each weekday. RF Cafe is a favorite of engineers, technicians, hobbyists, and students all over the world. With more than 17,000 pages in the Google search index, RF Cafe returns in favorable positions on many types of key searches, both for text and images. Your Banner Ads are displayed on average 280,000 times per year! New content is added on a daily basis, which keeps the major search engines interested enough to spider it multiple times each day. Items added on the homepage often can be found in a Google search within a few hours of being posted. If you need your company news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be...

Many Thanks to Centric RF for Their Continued Support!

Centric RF is a company offering from stock various RF and Microwave coaxial components, including attenuators, adapters, cable assemblies, terminations, power dividers, and more. We believe in offering high performance parts from stock at a reasonable cost. Frequency ranges of 0-110 GHz at power levels from 0.5-500 watts are available off the shelf. We have >500,000 RF and Microwave passive components we can ship you today! We offer Quality Precision Parts, Competitive Pricing, Easy Shopping, Fast Delivery. We're happy to provide custom parts, such as custom cables and adapters, to fit your needs. Centric RF is currently seeking distributors, so please contact us if interested. Visit Centric RF today.

Wednesday the 15th

Do It With Diodes

"Do it with <fill in the blank>," was a popular form of saying back in the 1960s and 70s. It is a form of double entendre, so people thought it was clever. I never did. This "Do It With Diodes" article from a 1961 issue of Radio Electronics magazine is an example. The term "diode" was not new to the electronics field at the time, as vacuum tube diodes and selenium rectifiers had been around for half a century. However, the newfangled semiconductor form of diodes were just coming on the scene. Germanium and silicon were the compounds available for commercial devices. More exotic materials were still in research laboratories. Author Donald Stoner provides a layman's level introduction to semiconductor diode fabrication and operation. Voltage, current, and power handling capacity was still fairly low. Prices for common diode types had dropped to a point that were making them competitive options...

Anatech Intros 3 New Filters for May

Anatech Electronics offers the industry's largest portfolio of high-performance standard and customized RF and microwave filters and filter-related products for military, commercial, aerospace and defense, and industrial applications up to 40 GHz. Three new filters have been announced for May 2024 - a 5520 to 5540 MHz cavity bandpass filter with a passband insertion loss of 1.75 dB and ripple of <0.2 dB, a 4755 to 5000 MHz cavity bandpass filter with a minimum passband return loss of 15 dB, and a 4395 to 4955 MHz cavity bandpass filter with a minimum rejection of 35 dB at 4295 MHz and 80 dB at 5250 MHz. Custom RF power filter and directional couplers designs can be designed and produced...

Electronics-Themed Comics

Good, clean humor has always been a welcome addition to my day whether it comes in the form of a printed comic strip, a TV show, or someone's mouth. My father's side of the family was populated with many jokesters who could be counted on to deliver an ad hoc pun or zinger at the appropriate moment. The environment instilled a great appreciation for such entertainment, so these electronics-themed comics that appeared in editions of trade and hobby magazines like Radio-Electronics, Popular Electronics, et al, are a refreshing distraction from the workaday world. An old saying claims "laughter is the best medicine*," and while it cannot cure cancer, a good dose of humor often helps ease the pain...

Bluetooth into Low Earth Orbit

"A recent Bluetooth connection between a device on Earth and a satellite in orbit signals a potential new space race - this time, for global location-tracking networks. Seattle-based startup Hubble Network announced today that it had a letter of understanding with San Francisco-based startup Life360 to develop a global, satellite-based Internet of Things (IoT) tracking system. The announcement follows on the heels of a 29 April announcement from Hubble Network that it had established the first Bluetooth connection between a device on Earth and a satellite. The pair of announcements sets the stage for an IoT tracking system that aims to rival Apple's AirTags, Samsung's Galaxy SmartTag2, and the Cube GPS Tracker. Bluetooth, the wireless technology that connects home speakers..."

Short Waves and War

Here in one short editorial article, Hugo Gernsback outlines the application of shortwaves in "the next war" to maintain wireless surveillance of the airspace over towns and cities via what is essentially radar, to detonate explosive devices by means of a powerful "special combination impulse," and long-distance wireless communications via radios "so small that one man can easily carry it." This might seem rather moot in today's world, but in 1935 when this issue of Short Wave Craft magazine went to press, it required a certain amount of knowledge of wireless communications and a vision regarding its potential. In my readings of a great many early- to mid-20th-century technical articles on electronics, aeronautics, physics, etc., it is interesting to notice how authors of the pre-WWII era referred to what we now call "World War I" as simply "the World War..."

RF Cascade Workbook

RF Cascade Workbook is the next phase in the evolution of RF Cafe's long-running series, RF Cascade Workbook. Chances are you have never used a spreadsheet quite like this (click here for screen capture). It is a full-featured RF system cascade parameter and frequency planner that includes filters and mixers for a mere $45. Built in MS Excel, using RF Cascade Workbook is a cinch and the format is entirely customizable. It is significantly easier and faster than using a multi-thousand dollar simulator when a high level system analysis is all that is needed...

Update Articles

Amateur Observations During the Total Eclipse of the Sun

Carl & Jerry: How to Haunt a House

Mac's Service Shop: Electronics and the Energy Crisis

June 1969 P-E, Kohler p45

August 1969, Hobnobbing Harbaugh p68

Promote Your Company on RF Cafe

Banner Ads are rotated in all locations on the page! RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000 visits each weekday. RF Cafe is a favorite of engineers, technicians, hobbyists, and students all over the world. With more than 17,000 pages in the Google search index, RF Cafe returns in favorable positions on many types of key searches, both for text and images. Your Banner Ads are displayed on average 280,000 times per year! New content is added on a daily basis, which keeps the major search engines interested enough to spider it multiple times each day. Items added on the homepage often can be found in a Google search within a few hours of being posted. If you need your company news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be...

RF Cascade Workbook

RF Cascade Workbook is the next phase in the evolution of RF Cafe's long-running series, RF Cascade Workbook. Chances are you have never used a spreadsheet quite like this (click here for screen capture). It is a full-featured RF system cascade parameter and frequency planner that includes filters and mixers for a mere $45. Built in MS Excel, using RF Cascade Workbook is a cinch and the format is entirely customizable. It is significantly easier and faster than using a multi-thousand dollar simulator when a high level system analysis is all that is needed...

RF & Electronics Stencils for Visio

With more than 1000 custom-built stencils, this has got to be the most comprehensive set of Visio Stencils available for RF, analog, and digital system and schematic drawings! Every stencil symbol has been built to fit proportionally on the included A-, B-, and C-size drawing page templates (or use your own page if preferred). Components are provided for system block diagrams, conceptual drawings, schematics, test equipment, racks, and more. Page templates are provided with a preset scale (changeable) for a good presentation that can incorporate all provided symbols...

RF & Electronics Symbols for Office™

It was a lot of work, but I finally finished a version of the "RF & Electronics Schematic & Block Diagram Symbols"" that works well with Microsoft Office™ programs Word™, Excel™, and Power Point™. This is an equivalent of the extensive set of amplifier, mixer, filter, switch, connector, waveguide, digital, analog, antenna, and other commonly used symbols for system block diagrams and schematics created for Visio™. Each of the 1,000+ symbols was exported individually from Visio in the EMF file format, then imported into Word on a Drawing Canvas. The EMF format allows an image to be scaled up or down without becoming pixelated, so all the shapes can be resized in a document and still look good. The imported symbols can also be UnGrouped into their original constituent parts for editing...

RF & Electronics Symbols for Visio

With more than 1000 custom-built symbols, this has got to be the most comprehensive set of Visio Symbols available for RF, analog, and digital system and schematic drawings! Every object has been built to fit proportionally on the provided A-, B- and C-size drawing page templates (or can use your own). Symbols are provided for equipment racks and test equipment, system block diagrams, conceptual drawings, and schematics. Unlike previous versions, these are NOT Stencils, but instead are all contained on tabbed pages within a single Visio document. That puts everything in front of you in its full glory. Just copy and paste what you need on your drawing...

Get Your Custom-Designed RF Cafe Gear!

This assortment of custom-designed themes by RF Cafe includes T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks, Tote Bags, Coffee Mugs and Steins, Purses, Sweatshirts, Baseball Caps, and more, all sporting my amazingly clever "RF Engineers - We Are the World's Matchmakers" Smith chart design. These would make excellent gifts for husbands, wives, kids, significant others, and for handing out at company events or as rewards for excellent service. My graphic has been ripped off by other people and used on their products, so please be sure to purchase only official RF Cafe gear. I only make a couple bucks on each sale - the rest goes to Cafe Press. It's a great way to help support RF Cafe. Thanks...

Espresso Engineering Workbook™ for Excel

The newest release of RF Cafe's spreadsheet (Excel) based engineering and science calculator is now available - Espresso Engineering Workbook™. Among other additions, it now has a Butterworth Bandpass Calculator, and a Highpass Filter Calculator that does not just gain, but also phase and group delay! Since 2002, the original Calculator Workbook has been available as a free download. Continuing the tradition, RF Cafe Espresso Engineering Workbook™ is also provided at no cost, compliments of my generous sponsors. The original calculators are included, but with a vastly expanded and improved user interface. Error-trapped user input cells help prevent entry of invalid values. An extensive use of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) functions now do most of the heavy lifting with calculations, and facilitates a wide user-selectable choice of units for voltage, frequency, speed, temperature, power, wavelength, weight, etc. In fact, a full page of units conversion calculators is included. A particularly handy feature is the ability to specify the the number of significant digits to display. Drop-down menus are provided for convenience...

How to Target RFCafe.com for Your Google Ads

One aspect of advertising on the RF Cafe website I have not covered is using Google AdSense. The reason is that I never took the time to explore how - or even whether it is possible - to target a specific website for displaying your banner ads. A couple display opportunities have always been provided for Google Ads to display, but the vast majority of advertising on RF Cafe is done via private advertisers. That is, companies deal with me directly and I handle inserting their banner ads into the html page code that randomly selects and displays them. My advertising scheme is what the industry refers to as a "Tenancy Campaign," whereby a flat price per month is paid regardless of number of impressions or clicks. It is the simplest format and has seemed to work well for many companies. With nearly 4 million pageviews per year for RFCafe.com, the average impression rate per banner ad is about 280k per year (in eight locations on each page, with >17k pages)...