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Thursday 31
 Triad RF Systems announces the
TTRM1076, a 400 to 450 MHz, 32 W bidirectional amplifier (BDA) designed
for high data rate military and commercial radios. It is capable of 12-watt 64QAM OFDM output
and 32-watt peak power for lower data rate FM/BPSK applications. High speed switching of 1 μS
makes it compatible with time division duplex (TDD) mesh radio systems. This class A LDMOS
module is designed for both military and commercial applications. It is capable of supporting
any signal type ...
 "Many next-generation electronic and electro-mechanical
device technologies hinge on the development of ferroelectric materials. The unusual crystal
structures of these materials have regions in their lattices, called domains, that behave
like molecular switches. The alignment of a domain can be toggled by an electric field, which
changes the position of atoms in the crystal and switches the polarization direction. These
crystals are typically grown on supporting substrates that help to define and organize the
behavior of domains. Control over the switching of ..."
 Electronics World magazine for a while had
a monthly feature titled "Radio & Television News." It was a roundup of top news bits.
This particular month's collection had a lot of notable topics. On the heels of the
Apollo 11 moon landing, NASA informs people of the many benefits research and development
on necessary technologies that will redound to the commercial and consumer sectors. "Success
with on-board computers in spacecraft contributes directly to the day when home computers
take over hundreds of chores - from feeding the cat to reminding you of appointments...- and
maybe keep your checkbook balanced
..."
Top-Level Domain Name ".radio" Now
Available
 "The top-level domain (TLD) name ".radio" is now
available to the radio industry and Amateur Radio enthusiasts, and is reserved for individuals
and companies with active interest in the radio sector. Individuals or entities in these categories
will be accepted for the use of a .radio domain: •Radio broadcasting stations •Unions of Broadcasters
•Internet radios •Radio Amateurs •Radio-related companies selling radio goods and services
•Radio products and ..."
 QuickSmith,
a creation of Nathan Iyer, has been around for a long time. It is without a doubt one of the
most feature-filled examples of RF design software around. Nathan recently released a Web-based
version of QuickSmith on a GitHub server, which means it works on any platform with a browser
- desktop or mobile. Access is free, and you can save and reload your design files rather
than losing your work once you leave the website. Being online also means that the latest
version is always available. The screenshot to the right illustrates where to place series
and parallel components, and where to access the sweep ...
 "Several years ago, little was known about the
StingRay, a powerful surveillance device that imitates the function of
a cell tower and captures the signals of nearby phones, allowing law enforcement officers
to sweep through hundreds of messages, conversations and call logs. The secrecy around the
technology, which can ensnare the personal data of criminals and bystanders alike, spurred
lawsuits and demands for public records to uncover who was using it and the extent of its
capabilities ..."
Wednesday 30
 "Illustration of a torsionally tethered coiled harvester
electrode and counter and reference electrodes in an electrochemical bath, showing the coiled
yarn before and after stretch. An international team of researchers led by researchers at
the University of Texas (UT) at Dallas - where they have been working on making
carbon nanotube-based yarns for well over a decade - has devised a way
to make these carbon nanotube yarns into devices that can harvest energy from stretching ..."
 Since 1961, MECA Electronics
manufactures an extensive line of RF & microwave components for in-building, satellite, radar, radio,
telemetry, mobile radio, aviation & ATC. Attenuators, directional & hybrid couplers,
isolators & circulators, power  dividers & combiners, loads, DC blocks, bias-Ts and
adapters & cables. MECA has long been the 'backbone' of high performance wired and air-interfaced
networks. Please visit MECA today to learn how they can help with your projects ...
 QuinStar Technology,
founded in 1993, designs and manufactures millimeter-wave
products for communication, scientific, and test applications including millimeter-wave products,
microelectronic assembly, rapid prototyping, and mass customization. AS9100:2009 Rev C / ISO
9001:2008 certified. QuinStar has been added to RF Cafe's Vendor pages:
Amplifiers,
oscillators,
switches,
attenuators,
circulators & isolators,
filters,
waveguide,
antennas,
phase shifters, and
receiver &
radar subsystems.
 Biographies focusing individually on Albert Einstein,
Thomas Edison, Isaac Newton, Alexander Graham Bell, and Henry Ford abound. Someone, somewhere,
is right now researching and writing yet another dissertation on each them and other well-known
historical figures of science and engineering. Guys like
Michael Faraday rarely have books dedicated solely to their lives and accomplishments,
even though it is not unreasonable to expect that they would. Usually Faraday, Alessandro
Volta, Georg Ohm, André-Marie Ampère, Anders Celsius, Max Planck, et al, are usually included
in books featuring a collection of people who have achieved notoriety in similar fields ...
 "U.S. military researchers are asking Northrop Grumman
Corp. to find ways of speeding how long it takes to develop new defense electronics through
the reuse and
integration of blocks of intellectual property (IP). Officials of the
U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., announced a $7.1
million contract Tuesday to the Northrop Grumman Mission Systems ..."
To add to its high-quality line-up of education, the
Electronic
Design Innovation Conference and Exhibition (EDI CON) USA, the first industry event to
bring together RF/microwave and high-speed digital design engineers and system integrators,
announced today its plenary keynote speakers at EDI CON USA, September 11-13 at the Hynes
Convention Center in Boston, MA. EDI CON USA will host more than 100 exhibitors and feature
88 education sessions that fall into five focused areas: RF & Microwave Design, High-Speed
Digital Design, Measurement & Modeling, Systems Engineering and 5G Advanced ...
 "Imagine sending data over the air in the form of light
rather than radio waves - a method that eliminates the restriction of spectrum availability
in wireless networks. Researchers at the University of Ottawa in Canada have taken a step
forward toward that goal by sending a
quantum-secured message containing more than one bit of information per
photon through the air above a city. It may sound esoteric, but sending multiple bits per
photon ..."
Tuesday 29
 "It may take much longer for wireless carriers to deploy
services on their new
600 MHz spectrum than previously thought. Bidders committed more than
$19.63 billion for TV broadcasters' airwaves during the FCC's incentive auction, which ended
last spring, with T-Mobile leading the way by spending $8B on 600 MHz licenses. Operators
have repeatedly urged the agency to stick to the 39-month repacking plan it has allotted to
reshuffle TV broadcasters' airwaves ..."
 Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 in Smiljan, Austrian Empire,
and died in 1943 in New York City. His life is so amply documented far and wide that regurgitating
the information in books and blog posts would be a waste. Most of what you find there is second-hand,
having gone through the filter of an author's preferences. I like to search for stories on
various topics in their original publications; e.g., scanned newspaper and magazine archives.
A hunt for early stories on Nikola Tesla turned up many 19th century examples from the Newspapers.com
website. It is interesting that back in the day, men like Nikola and Edison were referred
regularly to as "electricians." The oldest article I found on Nikola Tesla appeared in the
July 1, 1889 edition of The Pittsburgh Dispatch, titled "The Electric Fiend" ...
 "As Tropical Storm Harvey heads southeastward,
Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES®) team members are being advised
that the impact to the region's communications infrastructure has been relatively minimal
so far, considering the strength of the storm and the magnitude of the flooding. South Texas
ARES remains on standby as the response phase continues and sheltering becomes a growing need.
ARRL South Texas Section Manager Lee Cooper, W5LHC, told ARRL today (August 28) that the disaster
will be in the response phase for several days ..."
 "Adding slots to the chip-scale laser waveguide, which
generates
terahertz waves, and backing them with reflectors redirects the lost back-end
output 180°, boosting the front-end output power. Terahertz (sub-millimeter) waves - wavelengths
of 1 mm down to 30 µm, corresponding to frequencies from 300 GHz to 3 THz - pose a dilemma
for practical use because they're in the zone between the standard RF spectrum ..."
 2017 IEEE Internat'l Symposium on Radio-Frequency Integration
Technology (RFIT2017), August 30- September 1, 2017, Seoul, South Korea.
RFIT2017 will be held at The K-Hotel, Seoul,
Korea, on August 30- September 1, 2017. This conference is organized and sponsored by the
IEEE MTT-S, and will be supported by IEEE MTT-S Seoul Chapter. The Korean Institute of Electromagnetic
Engineering and Science (KIEES) is a Technical Co-Sponsor of the RFIT ...
 "The FCC granted WorldVu Satellites Ltd., doing business
as OneWeb, permission in June to enter the U.S. satellite market. OneWeb wants to build a
constellation of
720 satellites to provide internet services across the world and expects
to launch its first satellite next year. But it's far from the only company with designs on
space. Despite earlier attempts at satellite businesses that came and went, new entrants want
to take advantage of advancements in technology and give it a go ..."
Monday 28
 Axiom Test Equipment allows
you to rent or
buy test equipment,
repair test equipment, or
sell or trade
 test equipment. They are committed to providing superior
customer service and high quality electronic test equipment. Axiom offers customers several
practical, efficient, and cost effective solutions for their projects' TE needs and is committed
to providing superior customer service and high quality electronic test equipment. Please
check out Axiom Test Equipment today! ...
 Mr. Lothar Stern, of Motorola Semi, published a 3-part
series on
transistor theory in Popular Electronics magazine in 1973. This is part 1. At
the time, transistors had pretty much replaced vacuum tubes in all new electronic products
- if you don't count cathode ray tubes (CRTs) in televisions and some high power applications.
Technical schools were still teaching about vacuum tubes since there was a still a lot of
legacy equipment that needed to be maintained, the the main concentration had switched over
to transistor theory. 1973, the year I turned 15, is right around the time I began seriously
delving into the electrical and electronic realms as an eventual vocation ...
 "For perhaps the
first time in the world, trials taking place in China next month will use
lasers for
street lighting, an innovation aimed at saving energy and eliminating the cost of expensive
cabling infrastructure. David Ho and the Jinjing Co. have developed the new lighting technology
in the city of Fuzhou in China's southeastern Fujian Province. Trials will start next month
in the nearby city of Fuqing. The technology uses laser beams of blue light to transmit energy
across large distances without power ..."
 NuWaves
Engineering, an international Radio Frequency (RF) and Microwave solutions provider, announces
the completion of the IRaD phase for their newest miniaturized 10 watt C-band bidirectional
amplifier (BDA), to be added to their line of NuPower Xtender™ bidirectional amplifier products.
This module will be priced at $2,900/ea. in quantities of one hundred, and will be available
Q4 2017. The NuPower Xtender™ C10RX01 and C10RX02 BDA ...
 42 International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter
and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz
2017), August 27 - September 1, in Cancún, Mexico. Founded in 1974 under the title, International
Conference on Submillimeter Waves and their Applications, today's International Conference
on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz) continues to grow in scope and stature.
The conference and its long standing accompanying monthly publication, now known as the Journal
of Infrared, Millimeter and Terahertz Waves (JIMT), were among ...
Sunday 27
 For the sake of avid cruciverbalists amongst us, each
week I create a new
crossword puzzle that has a theme related to engineering, mathematics, chemistry, physics,
and other technical words. At least 12 clues in this puzzle with an asterisk (*)
are pulled from this past week's (8/21 - 8/25) "Tech Industry Headlines" column on the RF
Cafe homepage (see the Headline Archives page for help). Enjoy! ...
Friday 25
 If only the people whose backyard became the location
for
Apple's 'Spaceship' headquarters had been northern spotted owls, Yosemite
toads, or SF garter snakes, maybe their peaceful existence would not have been interrupted
by 4 years of constant noise and dirt. But, because they are only humans, a 175 acre, 2.8
million sq.ft. monster complex now sits in their backyards, forever destroying the ambiance.
Just as with using Chinese labor to build their devices while paying wages not even Illegals
would work for in the U.S., human rights are defined by Apple's needs to satisfy investors
and top management's pay expectations. ...
 Skyworks has introduced
SKY12239-11, a voltage-controlled variable attenuator (VVA) from our series
of broadband, flat attenuation, high third order input intercept point (IIP3) products. The
device has been designed to operate over the 10 MHz to 1.5 GHz frequency band, and
is specifically optimized for use as a wide dynamic range, ultra-low distortion attenuator.
This VVA is well-suited for use in automatic power leveling or gain control circuits in military
radio, wireless infrastructure, CATV and broad market applications. Features include low insertion ...
 Installing radios in cars and trucks was big business
in the 1930s. Most cars of the day did not include a radio as standard equipment. In fact,
the most challenging aspect of installing a radio in an automobile was the antenna and tuning
mechanism. Electronics magazines of the era - Radio-Craft, Short Wave  Craft, et al - had photos of technicians with equipment
spread all over the public sidewalks next to where the car having the radio installed is parked.
Yep, the car radio installers came to your location like the guys who replace windshields.
This photo of the Crosley Model A-157 Fiver Roamio ...
 Saelig Company has introduced the ComfilePi - an industrial
Raspberry Pi-based touch-panel PC. Leveraging the compact, ubiquitous Raspberry Pi 3 board,
the ComfilePi inherits the Raspberry Pi 3's 1.2 GHz 64 bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor,
a Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU, and 1 GB of RAM. It comes in two screen sizes - 7" (CPi-A070WR) and 10.2"
(CPi-A102WR) both
providing identical capabilities. The displays are 24-bit color LCDs with a resistive touchscreen
and the units provide 22 x ESD-protected GPIO lines, 3 x USB 2.0 host ...
 "New
membrane-based antennas could be nearly 100 times smaller than the most
compact current antennas, a new study finds. These antennas could find use in portable wireless
communications systems, including wearable electronics, smartphones, bio-implantable antennas,
bio-injectable antennas, bio-ingestible antennas, and the Internet of Things, researchers
say. State-of-the-art compact antennas are designed to resonate at specific wavelengths. But
their miniaturization is limited to roughly one-tenth of their resonant ..."
Thursday 24
 "With weapons and communications systems increasingly
relying on connectivity and signal communications, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory is looking
to develop phased array antennas that are light-weight and
jam resistant for the next generation of systems. The NRL is working with
the Tactical Reachback Extended Communications to develop an ultra-wideband phased array antenna
with extended line-of-sight communications capabilities. LOS technology is able to support ..."
 A score of 80% is nothing to brag about, but at least
I got all the easy ones right. A couple ones I guessed at based on how the circuit looks -
like the 'gimmick' coupling. This quiz by Popular Electronics' quizmaster Robert P. Balin
tests your knowledge of
coupling circuits. If it had not been for studying for my Ham radio tests, I would
not have recognized the gamma match circuit. Fewer and fewer people nowadays - at least as
a percentage of those engaged in electronics - are familiar with the detailed level of design.
Entire products can be designed nowadays using just integrated circuits and, usually, a little
software code ...
 These schematics, tuning instructions, and other data
are reproduced from my collection of vintage radio and electronics magazines. As back in the
era, similar schematic and service info was available for purchase from sources such as SAMS
 Photofacts,
but these printings were a no-cost bonus for readers. A Google search for a photo of the Fada
Model 190 only turned up a magazine advertisement that appeared on the RadioMuseum.org website ...
 Triad RF Systems has announces the
TTRM1104, a 2.2 to 2.5 GHz, 15 W
bidirectional amplifier (BDA) with a bypass feature. The TTRM1104 is designed for UAV video,
data link, and C2 applications. It has a selectable gain control to vary the amp output based
on link distance, and can also be placed in bypass mode when the BDA is not required. An analog
RSSI output is also included ...
 "The U.S. Department of Labor (DoL)appears to be moving
forward on an
overtime rule that caught up millions of workers and employers in some
muddy waters last year. Under the Obama Administration, a new requirement had been expected
to take effect would have required an additional 4 million American workers to be paid overtime
if they worked more than 40 hours in a week. Recently, the DoL published a Request for Information
from the public to gather information ..."
Wednesday 23
 The
RF Engineer will help drive new Copper Mountain Technologies (CMT) VNA solutions and support
current ones used by customers all over the world. Our USB VNAs are next generation analyzers
designed to meet the needs of 21st Century engineers. Our VNAs include an RF measurement module
and a processing module, a software application which runs on a Windows PC, laptop or tablet,
connecting to the measurement hardware via USB interface. CMT was awarded innovation and product
leadership awards by Frost & Sullivan in 2015 and 2017. The RF Engineer will be responsible
for identifying new comprehensive test ...
 Maybe what piqued my interest in electronic enough
during my teenage years to eventually enter into the field as a lifelong vocation was wondering
what the heck all those
components were doing that were sprinkled around circuit boards and inside product housings.
The circuits I was building at the time were typical beginning hobbyist types with just enough
capacitors, resistors, inductors, diodes, etc., to make the lamps blink properly or to pick
up a strong local AM radio station. Even in undergraduate college circuit design classes we
rarely went beyond noise bypass capacitors on ICs or counter-EMF-snubbing diodes across solenoid
coils. Having already ...
 While searching for newspaper stories on some old radios,
I ran across this "Don't
Listen to Mr. Shickelgruber" comic that was part of the
War Production Board's appeal for recycling. It appeared in a March 1943
issue of The Harrisburg Telegraph. The
Department
of War needed discarded cooking fat for extracting glycerine for use in making gunpowder.
Schicklgruber was
the original surname of Adolph Hitler's father. References to the little
National Socialist
(aka Nazi) dictator as 'Mr. Shickelgruber'
(and it's various spellings) were frequent in the era.
 "An international team of researchers has developed
a photovoltaic cell based on a combination of magnetic electrodes and C60 fullerenes - sometimes
referred to as Buckyballs -that increases the photovoltaic efficiency of their device by 14
percent over photovoltaics using ordinary materials and architecture. In research described
in the journal Science, scientists from China, Germany, and Spain have taken spin valves—devices
based on giant magnetoresistance ..."
 Lou Frenzel, of Electronic Design, evidently
has a love affair with classic American-made
muscle cars. He wonders whether a future of autonomous vehicles (AVs)
and the weeniefied (my term) cars on the drawing board will hasten the extinction of vintage
Mustangs, Camaros, Challengers, Corvettes,
and the like. Who wants to live in a world where cars with big cams, headers, and traction
bars are no longer found idling erratically at stop lights? Instead you find silent e-cars
with Hal doing the driving while Dave reads the latest online edition of Mother Earth News
to the kids in the back seat. An e-Harley sits silently next to it, devoid of the trademark
syncopated "potato-potato-potato." Aye, 'tis a sad thought.
...
 Who
among us has not had to track down a
mysterious signal displayed on an o-scope, only to discover that the waveform
was not 'real,' but was the manifestation of an improper test setup? This piece by Electronic
Design's Paul Rako is a good tale of such circumstances and how you can avoid being duped
into spending needless effort trying to eliminate signals that don't really exist - or don't
matter, as the title suggests ...
Tuesday 22
 Teledyne e2v introduces the
EV12DS460A,
the world's first K-band capable Digital-to-Analog Converter. This ground breaking DAC provides
an analog bandwidth extending beyond 7 GHz facilitating multi-band, direct digital
synthesis up to K-band (26.5 GHz). A flexible 4:1 or 2:1 input multiplexer enables
guaranteed sampling rates up to 6 GSps with the capability to operate at 7 GSps.
Teledyne e2v's EV12AS350 is set to be the only 12-bit resolution ADC on the market that combines
signal digitization at 5.4 GSps, input bandwidth in excess ...
 "Although maneuvering
nanosatellites in space is a complex procedure, a new micro-propulsion
method features the simplest of ingredients: water. The system from Purdue University uses
tiny nozzles to release precise bursts of water vapor. The development supports future efforts
to steer the miniature 'CubeSats' in space. Nanosatellites, which NASA specifies as having
a mass of 1 to 10 kilograms, have been increasingly employed to perform a variety of tasks,
including high-resolution imaging, Internet services, military surveillance ..."
 If you need a little brushing up on your basic
single sideband (SSB) operational theory versus straight amplitude modulation (AM), then
let this dissertation by Mac to Barney be it. There are no circuit details, just talk about
how power from the carrier and dual sidebands is reallocated to a single sideband, thereby
improving efficiency. I like the 'dried milk' analogy Mac uses in reference to SSB being transmitted
sans carrier (i.e., water), with the receiver being responsible for reintroducing the carrier
in order to demodulate the signal. Although I cannot personally comment as to its validity,
many people familiar with comparing DSB AM to SSB AM say there is a certain je ne sais
quoi that is missing in the tonal quality of SSB ...
 The agenda has been set and registration is open for
the India leg of the seventh annual
AWR Design
Forum (ADF 2017), featuring NI AWR Design Environment suite of high-frequency design tools.
ADF 2017 will visit four cities in India: Bangalore on September 4, Hyderabad on September
6, Ahmedabad on September 6 and New Delhi on September 8. ADF, an open forum that brings together
NI AWR software customers, partners and microwave/RF engineering ...
 As a service to RF Cafe visitors, I will post your company's
tech-related job openings at no cost. Only direct hiring
companies' jobs are posted for free. Recruiters may submit jobs for posting at a cost of $100
per job. If you are responsible for hiring in your company, send me an e-mail with the job
listing information and I'll be glad to post it for you ...
•
Elevate Your Social Media Game for Recruiters •
Age Discrimination: The Hows and the Whys! • JobSite Quiz:
What Is Your Workplace Personality? •
What on Earth Is an Internship Good For? <more...>
 "Researchers at Stanford University in the U.S. have
found two new materials that can extend the life of silicon below 5 nm. Hafnium diselenide
and zirconium diselenide both form stable, high K oxides in layers just a few atoms thick
with a similar band gap to silicon. The new materials can also be shrunk to functional circuits
just
three atoms thick and they require less energy than silicon circuits.
Although still experimental, the materials could be a step toward the kinds ..."
Monday 21
 Francis A. Gicca, manager of Raytheon's Space Communications
Systems, published a very extensive two-part article in Electronics World magazine
in 1969. Part 1 covered Score through Intelsat II satellites which launched between
from December 1958 and December 1968, respectively, in the July 1969 issue. Part 2 begins
with
Intelsat III, which commenced operation in September 1968. Rather than reiterating
the article's contents, I will offer an anecdote about the altitude used by geostationary
satellites, which is 22,300 miles. In the early 1990s, I worked for a few years at COMSAT
Laboratories (famous for involvement in both Intelsat and Inmarsat), in Clarksburg, Maryland ...
 This is an interesting behind-the-curtain infographic
showing "What the Employer Sees When You Click 'Apply' on LinkedIn." It appears
on the YouTern website. "When you complete a LinkedIn profile and use the job search features,
your profile becomes your resume and application. When a posting interests you, simply click
apply and let the automated process go to work. But what does the employer actually see? What
parts of your profile are included in the ..."
 I can definitely relate to this story. The right-hander's
school desk was always an awkward situation in the classroom - no wonder I nearly failed 9th
grade! For that matter, I nearly failed kindergarten because of struggling to use right-hander's
scissors. With all the emphasis the world puts on accommodating everybody's quirky needs these
days, it is amazing that we
south paws are still routinely discriminated against on a daily basis
by a self-serving, thoughtless, sometimes maniacal right-handed majority
(you know who you are). No concern is exhibited for the inconvenience
their comfortable world causes my comrades and me who make up
10% of the population. The 0.0000001% of men that think they are girls
can now use the lady's room at Target, while I still have to tolerate a right-hander's preferences ...
 "By shining laser light at carbon nanotubes containing
special defects, scientists in the US and Japan have taken a step forward in the quest to
deliver
single photons at room temperature and at wavelengths suited to the telecommunications
industry. The technique, which would be a boon for developers of quantum technology, allows
the researchers to tune the light emitted by the nanotubes across a range of infrared wavelengths,
at some of which they showed room-temperature ..."
 It's finally here - the
Great
North American Solar Eclipse of 2017! The amateur astronomy community has been anticipating
and preparing for the event for a couple years. Astronomy magazine dedicated the
entire August issue to providing detailed information on viewing suggestions along the entire
path. Traffic from the Pacific Coast of Oregon to the Atlantic Coast of South Carolina will
probably be a challenge as people vie for positions as close to the centerline as possible.
Those who manage optimal locations will see about 2 minutes and 40 seconds of total darkness.
Others within the 68-mile-wide path of totality will see from a fraction of a second up to
the full extent. According to a calculator on the Vox website, we in Erie will only see a
76.2% eclipse, which will barely darken our skies ...
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