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Sunday the 7th
 This
engineering crossword puzzle for November 7th has no fewer than 8 words and
clues naming the title of this website. Otherwise, all other clues and words are
related directly to RF, microwave, and mm-wave engineering, optics, mathematics,
chemistry, physics, and other technical subjects. As always, this crossword contains
no names of politicians, mountain ranges, exotic foods or plants, movie stars, or
anything of the sort unless it/he/she is related to this puzzle's technology theme
(e.g., Reginald Denny or the Tunguska event in Siberia). The technically inclined
cruciverbalists amongst us will appreciate the effort. Enjoy!
 Empower RF Systems is a global leader in
power amplifier solutions. Empower RF Systems is an established and technologically
superior supplier of high power solid state RF & microwave amplifiers. Our offerings
include modules, intelligent rack-mount amplifiers, and multi-function RF Power
Amplifier solutions to 6 GHz in broadband and band specific designs. Output
power combinations range from tens of watts to multi-kilowatts. Unprecedented size,
weight and power reduction of our amplifiers is superior to anything in the market
at similar frequencies and power levels.
Friday the 5th
 Some of the earliest examples of
communications via light waves include signaling systems used by mariners to
send and receive simple coded messages in ship-to-shore and ship-to-ship modes.
Doing so involved candles or bonfires, depending on how far the signals needed to
be sent. Costal lighthouses have served an optical communications function for centuries.
Even Paul Revere relied on optical communications from the Old North Church in Boston
during his "Midnight Ride" to warn colonists of the impending British invasion -
"One [lamp] if by land, and two [lamps] if by sea." In the 1930s, Elman B. Myers
designed and exhibited the first widely publicized light wave communication system
that modulated a powerful mercury vapor lamp (a la many street lights) with information
provided by a low power source. A photocell on the receiving end captured the optical
energy and converted back to baseband audio...
 When the
wireless (radiotelegraph) was invented, the U.S. Navy saw a possible use
for it. It could be used for communications from shore stations to ships along the
coast. In 1899, the first official naval radio message was sent from ship to shore.
It only traveled a distance of 20 miles but that was a start. The next advance was
in 1916 when the Navy first used radiotelephone between ships. Three years later
the first airborne radio was used to communicate with a ground station. In the early
years, communications was not the best because of poor tuning techniques. Receivers
often did not pick up the signal. This problem was almost eliminated in 1931 when
the first superheterodyne receivers were installed in the fleet. In 1944, another
important event took place. The first successful radio teletypewriter transmissions
between ships were completed. The first successful use of radiophoto (facsimile)
occurred in 1945 with the transmission of the surrender document signing that ended
World War II...
 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
filter models have been introduced - two bandpass and one highpass. Part Number
AE401B11912 is a cavity bandpass filter covering 401-402 MHz, AE1090CB1829
is a ceramic bandpass filter with a 6 MHz bandwidth centered at 1090 MHz,
and AE18000SSH6616 is an 18 GHz suspended substrate highpass filter. Custom
RF power directional coupler designs can be designed and produced when a standard
cannot be found, or the requirements are such that a custom approach is necessary...
 "The International Amateur Radio Union Region
1 Monitoring System (IARUMS) reports in the September issue of the IARUMS newsletter
that the Russian-Ukrainian 'radio
war' on and around 7055 kHz continues to be a major source of frustration. IARUMS
Region 1 Coordinator Peter Jost, HB9CET, said the on-the-air conflict 'has been
bothering us to an unbearable extent for a very long time and is still continuing.'
Earlier this year, IARUMS reported that the Russian-Ukrainian radio war had escalated.
'In June, they used more frequencies than before, affecting our bands very hard.'
Jost recounted. 'It is a great annoyance and a big shame.' Jost has pointed out
that the IARU Monitoring System has little opportunity..."
 I have been scanning and posting schematics
and parts lists like this one featuring the Admiral (full name Admiral Continental
Radio & Television Co., located in Chicago, IL) models
7T06 and 7T12 in graphical format. It appeared in a 1947 issue of Radio News
magazine. Publications of the era provided this service data for the sake of both
professional repairmen and hobbyist do-it-yourselfers because the manufacturers
did not make it available to entities that were not official representatives. Sams
Photofact made more detailed documentation available for sale, but it was expensive.
There are still many people who restore and service these vintage radios, and often
it can be difficult or impossible to find schematics and/or tuning information.
I will keep a running list of all data sheets to facilitate a search. An Admiral
7T06 radio recently came up for sale on eBay...
 Have you heard of an electronic musical instrument
called a Theremin? You can still buy from Moog today the same sort of Theremin that
was described in this
Carl & Jerry episode from a 1961 issue of Popular Electronics magazine.
Ever the early adopters of breaking technology, the teenagers exploit the motion-sensitive
feature of the Theremin in hopes of improving Carl's basketball game. As usual the
boys, in mock dialog, describe the Theremin's operational theory for the benefit
of readers not familiar with the musical instrument. They do not, however, mention
that the device is named after its Russian inventor, Léon Theremin, who patented
the device in 1928. Read on to discover how a Theremin strapped to Jerry's back
was used to help Carl be a better free-thrower...
 New Scheme rotates
all Banners in all locations on the page! RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000
website visits each weekday.
RF Cafe is a favorite
of engineers, technicians, hobbyists, and students all over the world. With more
than 16,000 pages in the Google search index, RF Cafe returns in favorable
positions on many types of key searches, both for text and images. 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. I also re-broadcast homepage
items on LinkedIn. If you need your company news to be seen, RF Cafe is the
place to be.
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. For anyone seeking a way to offload surplus or obsolete
equipment, they offer a trade-in program or they will buy the equipment from you.
Some vintage items are available fully calibrated. Please check out Axiom Test Equipment
today!
Thursday the 4th
 "Electrical
Pipeline" is as apt a layman's description for waveguide as "electrical hose"
is for coaxial cable. What would be a good commoner's name for twin lead? "Ladder
Line" and "Window Line" are descriptive of the type with open regions between supports,
but neither relates to a water analogy that would be familiar to Joe Six−Pack. I'm
open to suggestions. Module 11 of the Navy Electricity and Electronics Training
Series (NEETS), entitled "Microwave Principles," does a very nice job introducing
and explaining how waveguide works. It discusses rectangular, elliptical, and circular
waveguide. Bell Telephone Laboratories, which was responsible for some of the most
profound and world-shaping innovations of the 20th Century, pioneered the use of
waveguide in commercial telecommunications systems...
2022 ARRL Handbook 6−Vol Set Now Available
 ARRL Handbook 2022 (Six Vol. Book Set) The
ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications is your complete guide to radio experimentation,
discovery, and innovation. It is the Handbook -- written by radio amateurs for everyone
with a desire to advance the pursuit of wireless technology. Key Topics include
radio electronics theory and principles, circuit design and equipment, radio signal
transmission and propagation, digital and analog modulation and protocols, antennas
and transmission lines, construction practices. New projects and content examples
are: 3D printing for ham radio construction, downloadable 3D printing projects and
articles, battery selection for portable operation...
 Copper Mountain Technologies, a premier developer
of innovative RF test and measurement solutions for engineers all over the world,
announces a new FREE online seminar entitled, "Full 2−Port VNA Calibration Math Explained." It will be broadcast
on Wednesday, November 10, 2021, at 1:00 pm EST. "12−Term error correction
may seem daunting, but it isn't terribly difficult to understand. The mathematics
are not as neat as the 1-port model but are not impossible to deal with in Python
or some other programming language. This webinar will attempt to explain 2−port
calibration and where it might go wrong." Presented by Senior Engineer Brian Walker.
 This 60-something-year-old design for a
coaxial line RF monitoring instrument uses components still readily available
since it has no vacuum tubes and you can still buy the 1N34 germanium diodes that
are used as detectors. Only 18 components (including jacks, meter, case, and switch)
are used to indicate relative power, modulation percentage, and to monitor the signal
modulation. Sampling is done with a high impedance tap on a through connection so
that the impact on characteristic impedance on whatever coax you are using is negligibly
affected. The article originally appeared in a 1957 issue of Radio & TV
News magazine...
 "'How
incredible would it be if a smartphone could be grown like an apple on a tree?'
So ask physicist Chris Forman and science communicator Claire Asher in their new
book Brave Green World: How Science Can Save Our Planet. As fantastical as it might
sound, they are not just idly imagining such a scenario. The question of how to
build a circular economy inspired by nature’s systems is the focus of the book,
and the possibility of a 'biosmartphone'
forms a case study. Sections at the end of each chapter speculate on how key features,
from the touchscreen to the electronics, might be recreated in more sustainable
ways that would lend themselves to manufacturing and recycling in a closed-loop
system. The authors draw on the full spectrum of fields within science and engineering
to explore..."
 Even in today's world with computing devices
everywhere sporting simulators and component calculating programs, there are still
times when having a good old fashioned
nomograph or chart handy can be very useful while in sitting at a bench selecting
component values for tweaking or troubleshooting a design. The advantage of such
visual aids is that they provide a big picture of what's happening as frequencies,
lengths, widths, core materials, etc. change - being able to see both the trees
and the forest, so to speak. When you are working in bands where the component physical
size is a significant portion of the wavelength, things get more complicated and
a combination of trial and error and calculations / simulations are needed. At the
IC design level, of course, you have no choice but to rely solely on your computer...
 Always wanting to have a
pendulum-driven clock
with a good old-fashioned mechanical escapement movement, I resorted to eBay to
find what I wanted. I'm sure there is a local clock store somewhere around here
that would sell me a clock, but I figured a better deal might be had bidding against
somebody online than trying to talk a shop owner down in price. Besides, I was really
looking for a clock that I could strip down and refinish without worrying about
reducing any collector value that it might have. There is a video of it in action
at the bottom of the page. After a couple weeks of watching the auctions, I settled
on two clocks - one that can sit on a mantel or hang on the wall, and another -
the one shown here - that is purely a wall-mounted regulator type. This clock was
made in China in 1899, according to a paper that was glued to the back plate. Since
this type of clock typically has no real value (they were all cheap imports for
working-class people), I performed the stripping and refinishing without...
 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 object has been built to fit proportionally on the provided
A-, B- and C-size drawing page templates (or can use your own). Stencils 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.
The file format is XML so everything plays nicely with Visio 2013 and later...
 Anatech Electronics (AEI) manufactures and
supplies RF and microwave filters for military and commercial communication
systems, providing standard LP, HP, BP, BS, notch, diplexer, and custom RF filters,
and RF products. Standard RF filter and cable assembly products are published in
our website database for ease of procurement. Custom RF filters designs are used
when a standard cannot be found, or the requirements dictate a custom approach for
your military and commercial communications needs. Sam Benzacar's monthly newsletters
address contemporary wireless subjects. Please visit Anatech today to see how they
can help your project succeed.
Wednesday the 3rd
 An age-old meme is used in the first of these
vintage electronics themed comics from Radio & Television News magazine.
It shows a husband attempting to repair some domestic device (a TV in this case)
in order to avoid being ripped off by a professional repairman. I'm guessing that
the use of the term "gyp," which is a pejorative referring to gypsies, would not
be allowed in today's politically correct environment. In order to "get" the other
comic, you need to know about the stacked plates used in selenium and copper-oxide
type rectifiers that preceded silicon and germanium semiconductor models. Electronics
magazines of the era published many articles about selenium rectifiers...
 Here is the
Emerson Model 20A and 25A Radio Service Data Sheet as featured in a 1933 edition
of Radio-Craft magazine. Note that although both share the same chassis and circuitry,
the 20A is a simple rectangular design with a fancy three-dimensional carved façade
whereas the 25A is a "tombstone" design with a simpler flat cut-out wood face. As
mentioned many times in the past, I post these online for the benefit of hobbyists
looking for information to assist in repairing or restoring vintage communication
equipment...
 "Exploring the properties and behaviors of
strongly
interacting quantum particles is one of the frontiers of modern physics. Not
only are there major open problems that await solutions, some of them since decades
(think high-temperature superconductivity). Equally important, there are various
regimes of quantum many-body physics that remain essentially inaccessible with current
analytical and numerical tools. For these cases in particular, experimental platforms
are sought after in which the interactions between particles can be both controlled
and tuned, thus allowing the systematic exploration of wide parameter ranges. One
such experimental platform are carefully engineered stacks of two-dimensional (2D)
materials..."
 Axiom Test Equipment, an electronic test
equipment rental and sales company has published a new blog entitled "Provide
a True Score on Device Parameters" that informs people about the types of test
equipment available for making precision parametric measurements on various electronic
devices. Semiconductor parameter analysis takes work, but it provides insights that
lead to better devices, processes, even better electronic materials. It is possible
to perform some semiconductor testing with a basic LCR meter, but the accuracy will
suffer even as test leads are jiggled compared to using a higher-level curve tracer
or dedicated semiconductor parameter analyzer...
 Windfreak Technologies designs, manufactures,
tests and sells high value USB powered and controlled radio frequency products
such as RF signal generators, RF synthesizers, RF power detectors, mixers, up /
downconverters. Since the conception of WFT, we have introduced products that have
been purchased by a wide range of customers, from hobbyists to education facilities
to government agencies. Worldwide customers include Europe, Australia, and Asia.
Please contact Windfreak today to learn how they might help you with your current
project.
 Magnetostriction is a term not seen very
often these days. It describes the physical shape change that takes place in certain
ferrous materials when subject to a magnetic field, and is responsible for most
of the familiar "hum" that comes from transformers (the other part comes from attracting
and opposing fields rattling windings). The effect is used in mechanical filters
as transducers between the electronic circuit and the mechanically resonant disks
that define filter bandpass characteristics. Elemental cobalt exhibits the highest
room temperature magnetostriction (units are "microstrains"). Nickel, with about
half the value as cobalt, is cheaper and more abundant and is therefor more commonly
used in modern magnetorestrictive transducers. Way back in the 1980s while working
at the Oceanic Division of Westinghouse Electric, in Annapolis, MD, I built sonar
transducer arrays...
New Scheme rotates
all Banners in all locations on the page! RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000
website visits each weekday.
RF Cafe is a favorite
of engineers, technicians, hobbyists, and students all over the world. With more
than 16,000 pages in the Google search index, RF Cafe returns in favorable
positions on many types of key searches, both for text and images. 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. I also re-broadcast homepage
items on LinkedIn. If you need your company news to be seen, RF Cafe is the
place to be.
 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. Order today, ship today!
Centric RF is currently looking for vendors to partner with them. Please visit Centric
RF today.
Tuesday the 2nd
 You might think that being concerned about
the inefficiency of traditional Edison type incandescent light bulbs is a recent
thing. However, as this 1945 Radio-Craft magazine editorial by Hugo Gernsback
points out, it was known early on that only about 10% of the energy consumed by
those bulbs actually create light while the rest is dissipated as heat. The difference
is that at the time, the "science" was telling us we were headed for a new Ice Age,
whereas nowadays the same science is telling us we're headed for planetary death
by Global Warming. He postulates a world that will someday be powered by the conversion
of solar energy to electricity, and also predicts
communications via visible light rather than radio waves. Vacuum tubes would
operate at and emit visible light signals to eliminate cables...
 "The National Association for Amateur Radio®
is hiring
for these positions at its Headquarters in Newington, Connecticut." Who is the
NAAR, you might ask? A WWW search might leave you wondering, but according to the
HTML "description" meta tag on the
ARRL.org
webpage, "The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the national association for
amateur radio, connecting hams around the U.S. with news, information and resources."
Hence, NAAR=ARRL. Positions include: Lab Engineer EMC/RFI Specialist, Administrative
Assistant, Director of Information Technology, Marketing Communications Associate,
Public Relations & Outreach Manager, Social Media Strategist...
 "Han and Leia. George and Amal. Kermit and
Miss Piggy. Gomez and Morticia. History's greatest
couples rely
on communication to make them so strong their power cannot be denied. But that's
not just true for people (or Muppets), it's also true for lasers. According to new
research from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, recently published in Nature
Photonics, adding two lasers together as a sort of optical 'IT couple' promises
to make wireless communications faster and more secure than ever before. Most laser-based
communications - think fiber optics, commonly used for things like high-speed internet
- is transmitted in the form of a laser beam traveling through a cable. Optical
communications is exceptionally fast but is limited by the fact that it must travel
through physical cables..."
 Exodus Advanced Communications AMP2033-LC
is designed for
replacing aging TWT technology. A broadband, rugged EMC Class A/AB linear design
for all modulations & industry standards. Covers 6.0-18.0 GHz, produces >100 W
Minimum, 50 W P1dB, with a minimum 50 dB gain. Designed for EMI/RFI, lab,
CW/pulse and all communication applications. Excellent flatness, optional monitoring
parameters for forward/reflected power, VSWR, voltage, current & temperature
sensing for superb-reliability. Exodus Quiet-Cool technology in our compact 5U-chassis
weighing a nominal 75 lbs. Exodus is a multinational RF communication equipment
and engineering service company serving both commercial and government entities
and their affiliates worldwide...
 The 1950s was a time of transition in the
television watching business. Broadcasters were experimenting with
pay-TV systems to replace or supplement over-the-air service. Much as people
today think that everything on the Internet should be free, the same mindset prevailed
then regarding television programming. Early coding and decoding schemes seem really
hokey by today's standards, using computer-type punch cards. I remember the area
around Annapolis, Maryland, where I grew up, had both over-the-air and cable-based
subscription services in conjunction with the open broadcasts. I spent at least
a little time playing with the horizontal and vertical picture sync settings on
the back of the TV set that, if lucky...
 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.
The file format is XML so everything plays nicely with Visio 2013 and later...
 ConductRF is continually innovating and
developing new and improved solutions for RF Interconnect needs. See the latest
TESTeCON RF Test
Cables for labs. ConductRF makes production and test coax cable assemblies for
amplitude and phased matched VNA applications as well as standard & precision
RF connectors. Over 1,000 solutions for low PIM in-building to choose from in the
iBwave component library. They also provide custom coax solutions for applications
where some standard just won't do. A partnership with Newark assures fast, reliable
access. Please visit ConductRF today to see how they can help your project!
Monday the 1st
 Electronics has dominated our lives ever
since the first commercially available radios became available in the early twentieth
century. It was a mysterious miracle science then and still is today. Most people
have no understanding of electronics; they just know that life without it is unimaginable.
Fantastic new applications for electronics are continually being introduced to supplement
or replace mechanical devices. Sensing and control are prime applications for electronics
that improve functionality and safety. This promotion of the MIT-Sperry Detonation
Indicator, aka the "Knock−O−Meter,"
is a good example. It appeared in a 1945 issue of Radio−Electronics magazine, near
the end of World War II. Today, such a name invokes chuckles and usually implies
a joke of a product, but not so at the time...
 The synchronous motor in my vintage
General Electric Model 7-4305C Roll-Down Number Clock Radio began making grinding
noises. An investigation showed it was the 3.6 rpm AC synchronous motor. It
was tightly sealed, so I carefully drilled an 1/8" hole in the housing (being sure
not to get metal debris inside), inserted a few drops of 3−in−1 oil and shook it
around, then re-installed it, plugged it back in and voila - no more noise! (see
photos). BTW, if you can even find these motors on eBay, they cost more than an
entire clock-radio. Fortunately, I found another 7-4305C at a yard sale so I have
a spare...
 "Most of us
control light
all the time without even thinking about it, usually in mundane ways: we don a pair
of sunglasses and put on sunscreen, and close - or open - our window blinds. But
the control of light can also come in high-tech forms. The screen of the computer,
tablet, or phone on which you are reading this is one example. Another is telecommunications,
which controls light to create signals that carry data along fiber-optic cables.
Scientists also use high-tech methods to control light in the laboratory, and now,
thanks to a new breakthrough that uses a specialized material only three atoms thick,
they can control light more precisely than ever before. The work was conducted in
the lab..."
 Balsa is one of the lightest woods available,
and in many respects has the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any wood - even
oak. The chart at the right gives a comparison of a few familiar wood types. Hobby
grade balsa is harvested in the jungles of Ecuador, kiln dried, cut into large blocks,
and shipped to the U.S. for final cutting and sanding. Most balsa from hobby shops
is in the 8-10 lbs/ft3 realm. The rock-hard stock that nobody wants is sent to the
airplane kit manufacturers ;-) The vast majority of the balsa wood I use for building
model airplanes comes from Sig, Midwest, and Balsa USA. Other suppliers have materialized
in the past few years. Since the rise of mammoth wind turbines for electricity generation,
balsa's use as a core material for blades has caused a severe shortage in the modeling
realm. Balsa prices have skyrocketed in the past decade...
 The
Boy Scouts
of America was formed in 1910 in conjunction with The Boy Scouts Association
in the UK. Per their 2007 website statement, "The aim of the Association is to promote
the development of young people in achieving their full physical, intellectual,
social and spiritual potential, as individuals, as responsible citizens and as members
of their local, national and international communities." Part of being a Boy Scout
is earning merit badges by performing certain community services and by demonstrating
proficiency at defined tasks. Radio proficiency is one such merit badge. In order
to earn the Radio merit badge, along with certain other projects the Boy Scout must
participate in either Amateur Radio, Broadcast Radio, or Shortwave Listening. This
article reports on amateur radio activities across the globe. The Scout oath is,
"On my honor I will do my best To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the
Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight..."
 RF Cascade Workbook 2018 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 2018 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. An intro video takes you through the main features...
 Copper Mountain Technologies develops innovative
and robust RF test and measurement solutions for engineers all over the world. Copper
Mountain's extensive line of unique form factor
Vector
Network Analyzers include an RF measurement module and a software application
which runs on any Windows PC, laptop or tablet, connecting to the measurement hardware
via USB interface. The result is a lower cost, faster, more effective test process
that fits into the modern workspace in lab, production, field and secure testing
environments.
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