 Thursday the 21st
 By 1966 the dominance of vacuum tubes, particularly
in new products, as stated by Electronics World magazine editor William Stocklin,
"...is gradually passing behind us." The
Transistor Replacement Problems highlighted in this article refer primarily
to finding second (or third or more) sources for transistor types already designed
into existing products as semiconductor manufacturers move on to new and better
(often much better) devices. There was little motivation for companies to dedicate
scare resources to making low volumes of legacy devices just to service radios,
televisions, phonographs, etc., which, to be honest, they probably preferred owners
would abandon after breaking down and replace them with a newer model. Of course
that mentality was nothing new since all manufacturers prefer a throw-away mindset
since it serves two primary objectives: selling new products and disposing of products
already in the field so as to not have to service them. Mr. Stocklin worried
that the situation could get even more serious once integrated circuits entered
widespread service...
 "Motors are ubiquitous in our everyday lives
- from cars to washing machines, even if we rarely notice them. A futuristic scientific
field is working on the development tiny motors that could power a network of nanomachines
and replace some of the power sources we currently use in electronic devices. Researchers
from the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin created
the first ever
solid-state optical nanomotor. All previous iterations of these light-driven
motors reside in a solution of some sort, which limited their potential for the
majority of real-world applications. This new research was published recently in
the journal ACS Nano. The scientists envision using these motors to power a wide
variety of things. They could be useful for air quality measurement, as the spinning
motion could pick up dust and other particles..."
 If you are considering filing for a patent,
then you might benefit from this short article by Damien Howard and Vlad Teplitskiy
entitled, "How
to Decide Where to File Patent Applications." Some people believe if you are
granted a patent in your home country that protection conveys worldwide, but that
is not the case. Says the authors: "Realistically, you can't protect your invention
everywhere. How do you decide where to obtain patent protection for your invention?
Imagine that you have developed a groundbreaking electronic product. Your product
is going to revolutionize the industry and take the world by storm. You don't want
your competitors to copy the product, compete with you, or undercut the price. At
the very least, you want them to pay you compensation for making their competing
product. You know that if you want to protect the product, you should file a patent
application. So, you hire a patent lawyer and file a U.S. patent application. Problem
solved, right?..."
 What do General Curtis LeMay, Arthur Godfrey,
Herbert Hoover, Arthur Collins all have in common? They were
Ham radio operators. A lot of famous people were/are Hams, with these and a
few other notables mentioned in this March 1958 edition of Popular Electronics magazine.
Conspicuously missing is one of modern day's most renowned Hams, and that's Walter
Cronkite, KB2GSD (died in 2009). His broadcast career stretched back to World War
II, so he was definitely around long enough. Maybe the author just didn't know;
after all, he couldn't just look it up on the Internet or in an FCC computer database.
By now you probably know that actor Tim Allen, star of the Home Improvement
and Last Man Standing television shows, holds a amateur radio license.
His character, Mike Baxter, on Last Man Standing, had call sign faux KA0XTT.
Tim Allen's (full name Timothy Allen Dick) call sign is KK6OTD...
 The
medical x−ray machine shown here reminds me of the "Illudium Q-36 Explosive
Space Modulator" contraption Marvin the Martian wanted to use in "Hare-Way to the
Stars" to disintegrate the Earth (because it blocks his view of Venus). Of course
our hero Bugs Bunny thwarts his plan, whereupon Marvin asks, "Where's the kaboom?"
Can you imagine being fraught with cancer and getting strapped into a chair with
that huge hypodermic-needle-looking thingy pointed at you, as shown in this 1959
issue of Popular Electronics magazine? The Caduceus sword in the pic doesn't help
matters, either. The trauma of such an experience might have been worse than the
treatment for some people. As usual the pioneers took the arrows so that we can
benefit from the treatments enjoyed today, and the equipment does not look nearly
as intimidating. See also "After Class: X-Rays" for more info...
 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!
Wednesday the 20th
 In 2012, while moving a heavy safe down some
stairs (using a hand truck),
something
snapped in my lower back that resulted in debilitating leg pain for a month.
Hydrocodone was required to enable normal locomotion around the house, and I couldn't
lift anything. After about three months, things returned to normal, with occasional
relapses. Since that time, I have tried to be careful to not overexert myself, and
kept up a regular regime of isometric and low weight, low impact exercise. Maintaining
muscle tone is essential for keeping the skeleton in proper alignment. As time went
on, I became a little bolder in terms of lifting, pushing, and pulling heavy objects,
and got away with it until early March of this year when I foolishly used a long
pry bar to tip over a huge tree stump. The stump finally broke loose, and so did
my back. This time, the pain was so bad that I couldn't walk more than a couple
feet without needing to recover, and finding a comfortable position to relieve the
hurt was nearly impossible. Even hydrocodone barely touched it. I have always avoided
taking any sort of medicine, even ibuprofen or acetaminophen, so at trip to a back
surgeon† ensued. An x-ray showed a few bone spurs on some of the vertebrae impinging
on my spinal cord, but nothing deemed severe enough to cause the level of pain I
was experiencing. My doctor likely thought I was exaggerating, so I requested that
he order an MRI...
 Long before there was a World Wide Web for
getting the latest weather report and the local time for setting your clocks, there
were phone numbers set up with recordings of the sought after information. As a
kid in the 1960s and 1970s, I called the weather forecast number,
WE6-1212
("WE" for weather), multiple times daily during the winter in hopes of hearing a
forecast for snow, and during the summer in hopes of favorable conditions for flying
model airplanes and launching Estes rockets. An obsession with time and watches
and clocks had me calling the time phone number,
TI4-1212
("TI" for time), so often that my father used to refer to the lady on the recording
that updated the time every 10 seconds as my girlfriend. Those two phone numbers,
even though it has been many decades since I've called them, will be forever emblazoned
on my mind. I lived just south of Annapolis, Maryland, and it never occurred to
me that the phone numbers might be something else for people in other parts of the
country. It turns out that the same two numbers were reserved in many cities...
 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.
 What drew my attention with this
P.R. Mallory & Company advertisement appearing in a 1947 issue of
Radio News magazine was not one of the actual electronic components for
which they are most noted - potentiometers, capacitors, switches, metal alloys,
and of course batteries (later renamed Duracell). Rather what interested me was
the huge variety of standard potentiometer and rotary switch extension shafts Mallory
manufactured. Unlike modern electronics where pots and switches are typically mounted
to the enclosure with wires running to the circuit assembly, many older radios and
televisions had all components mounted on a metal chassis with control extensions
reaching to front-panel mounted dials and knobs. As an aside, Philip Rogers Mallory
began his company manufacturing tungsten wire for lamps...
 If you can abide the reverse-discrimination
woke conditions of working for the Federal Government, what appears to be a great
job position is open for a Telecommunications
Specialist at the FCC's High Frequency Direction Finding Center (HFDF) in Columbia,
MD. The HFDFC provides direct support to the public safety community and other federal
partners by locating interference sources, and HFDFC ensures public safety and security
of the HF radio spectrum by providing assistance and technical expertise to the
FCC and its licensees. It also provides interference resolution to FCC licensees
and federal government agencies, and supports the enforcement and management of
the HF Spectrum. Duties are described as: "The incumbent performs 'watch duty' and
serves as a technical authority providing technical assistance and guidance to communication
systems users to resolve radio interference complaints and problems; and collects
radio signal analysis information..."
 Something about the moniker "plumber's delight"
for
homebuilt antennas always appealed to me. In the early days of radio it referred
to antennas built with threaded galvanized or soldered copper plumbing pipe or threaded
black gas pipe. Today, it also includes structures that incorporate sections of
cemented PVC pipe (with wire elements strung along or within them). A major issue
with using threaded pipe is the potential for passive intermodulation products (PIMs)
being generated at the dissimilar metal junctions (various degrees of oxidized metals).
With as spectrally "dirty" as many transmitters as there were in the day, PIMs probably
paled in comparison to what was spewed as a matter of course. The presence of PIM
products, unless severe, is not usually noticeable in CW or phone operations, but
with digital communications (very common in modern Ham radio), the bit error rate
(BER) can be profoundly impacted by them...
 Modelithics has just published their
New Product Blast for July 2022. Modelithics, Inc. is the industry leader specializing
in RF, microwave and millimeter-wave measurements and measurement-based modeling
of RF and microwave components and semiconductor devices. Software products include
libraries of high-accuracy passive and active component models. Product offerings
include the Modelithics Complete Library ,Modelithics Complete+3D Library , mmWave &
5G Library, and System Components Library™. This promo features Modelithics Global
Models for Amotech capacitors, Modelithics COMPLETE Library non-linear models for
two Infineon Schottky diodes and for Smiths Interconnect's resistor series, and
New models for multiple Kyocera-AVX and Kemet capacitors...
/jobs.htm" target="_top">
 RF
Cafe's raison d'être is and always has been to provide useful, quality content for
engineers, technicians, engineering managers, students, and hobbyists. Part of that
mission is offering to post applicable /jobs.htm"
target="_top">job openings. HR department employees and/or managers of hiring
companies are welcome to submit opportunities for posting at no charge. 3rd party
recruiters and temp agencies are not included so as to assure a high quality of
listings. Please read through the easy procedure to benefit from RF Cafe's high
quality visitors...
 Anritsu has been a global provider of innovative
communications test and measurement solutions for more than 120 years. Anritsu manufactures
a full line of innovative components and accessories for
RF and Microwave Test and Measurement
Equipment including attenuators & terminations; coaxial cables, connectors &
adapters; o-scopes; power meters & sensors; signal generators; antenna, signal,
spectrum, & vector network analyzers (VNAs); calibration kits; Bluetooth &
WLAN testers; PIM testers; amplifiers; power dividers; antennas.
Tuesday the 19th
 Hugo Gernsback, publisher of Radio-Electronics
magazine (and others), made the following prediction in a 1952 issue, "Microwaves
for industry and commerce are bound to expand enormously in the foreseeable future."
That might seem a little obvious at this point, but as with nearly all emerging
technologies, there were a lot of naysayers who believed the relatively limited
range and high infrastructure cost of microwave communication relay systems would
prevent it from being widely adopted for anything other than specialty applications
(i.e., those with large budgets like defense and research). Fortunately, enthusiasts
persisted and the microwave industry blossomed, just as was the case when cellular
telephone system infrastructure started in the 1990's. If you are interested in
the history of wireless communications, this piece will be an interesting read.
 "A curious thing happened when MIT researchers
Adam Vernon and Ronald Garcia Ruiz, along an international team of scientists, recently
performed an experiment in which a sensitive laser spectroscopy technique was used
to measure how the nuclear electromagnetic properties of indium isotopes evolve
when an extreme number of neutrons are added to the nucleus. These nuclei do not
exist in nature, and once created, their lifetimes can be as short as a fraction
of a second, so the team artificially created the nuclei using a particle accelerator
at the CERN research facility in Switzerland. By using a combination of multiple
lasers and an ion trap, the team isolated the isotopes of interest and performed
precision measurements of atoms containing these exotic nuclei. In turn, it allowed
the extraction of their nuclear properties. When measuring a nucleus with a certain
"magic" number of neutrons -
82 - the magnetic field of the nucleus exhibited a drastic change, and the properties
of these very complex nuclei appear to be governed by just one of the protons of
the nucleus..."
 As mentioned in the past, one of the many
great aspects of the Internet, and in particular having a website with its contents
easily found on a search engine, is occasionally being contacted by people mentioned
in one of the vintage magazine articles I have posted on RFCafe.com and AirplanesAndRockets.com,
and/or by people related to someone mentioned. Readers of Popular Electronics
magazine in the 1950's through 1970's (including me) looked forward to Carl Kohler's
many humorous electronics-related stories and illustrations a few times each year.
Carl's leading man was one of print media's first DIYers, and his wife suffered
his often less than successful escapades in a sporting manner. A few days ago, none
other than
Christoverre
Kohler, Mr. and Mrs. Carl and Sylvia Kohler's number two son (of four),
contacted me to provide some background on his parents. Christoverre happened upon
a couple of his father's articles on RF Cafe while doing a search. He was motivated
to write in response to the story entitled, "I Married a Superheterodyne!," where
I asked whether the Kohlers might have at one time lived in Syracuse, New York.
It was due to a mention of General Electric's famous Electronics Park (which is
no more). Christoverre set me straight on that matter, and provided some amazing
additional information on his parents. His father's talents were not limited...
 If
Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was still in existence today, undoubtedly
it would be running an advertisement mentioning not just radio and television in
their list of wireless communications accomplishments, but also cellphones, satellite
navigation (GPS), cable television, and Wi-Fi. Founded in 1919, RCA was bought by
General Electric in 1986 and then subsequently broken into components and sold off
to other companies like Sony, NBC (National Broadcasting Company), and Comcast.
This RCA advertisement heralding Marconi's Morse code message "first forged in 1901
from the mere sound of three dots" appeared in a 1952 issue of Radio & Television
News magazine...
 Source Today published their list
of the
Top 50 Electronics Distributors for 2022. As with
last year, the date shows May, but it just appeared now in July. Arrow Electronics
retained the top position, and Avnet dropped from second to third place. Now in
second place is WPG Holdings, which did not appear anywhere in last year's list.
According to the company website, "WPG Holdings the largest electronics distributor
in Asia and the world, headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan. WPG is operating through
four leading semiconductor components distributors (WPIg, SACg, AITg, and YOSUNg)
serves as a franchise partner more than 250 worldwide suppliers." WPG Holdings was
founded in 2005, so where was it last year and how did it make such a huge premier
appearance on Source Today's list? I thought maybe they had swallowed up
some of the other top contenders, but not so. Most of the remaining companies in
the list either shifted down by one place because of the WPG Holdings addition,
or lost or gained a place or two, but no other real shake-up occurred.
 The
microwave klystron was invented in 1937 by brothers Russell and Sigurd Varian.
If you have been in the microwave design business for a couple decades, you undoubtedly
recognize the company name of Varian Associates, especially if you worked in the
aerospace or defense electronics business. There is a video on YouTube of a segment
on Varian done sometime around 1990 by Walter Cronkite. There is also a historical
piece on Varian Associates on the Communications & Power Industries website.
This circa 1952 article covers the fundamentals of klystron operation and reports
on the increasing use of klystrons in high frequency applications - including by
amateur radio operators exploring the top end of the bands. Part 2 of this
article appeared in the May 1952 issue of Radio & Television News magazine...
 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 or
so 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. Check them out!
 Triad RF Systems designs and manufactures
RF power amplifiers
and systems. Triad RF Systems comprises three partners (hence 'Triad') with
over 40 years of accumulated knowledge of what is required to design, manufacture,
market, sell and service RF/Microwave amplifiers and amplifier systems. PA, LNA,
bi-directional, and frequency translating amplifiers are available, in formats including
tower mount, benchtop, rack mount, and chassis mount. "We view Triad more as a technology
partner than a vendor for our line-of-sight communications product line." Please
check to see how they can help your project.
Monday the 18th
 In 1957, when these
communications-themed comics appeared in Radio−Electronics magazine,
home-based entertainment electronics was a big deal. Installing a major media setup
with a stereo system and/or a television served to prove your technical prowess
and hopefully set you up as the neighborhood expert. That fad continued for a few
decades, but by now even the most sophisticated equipment is self-configuring and
requires little more effort for success than setting it where you want it in the
room. Artificial intelligent (AI) uses Bluetooth and WiFi to evaluate the surroundings
and adjust accordingly. Your typical Walmart system might not have that capability,
but if you're shopping at Walmart for your media gear, you're not really qualifying
your setup as high end. These comics do a pretty good job of conveying the mood
of the era...
 In today's throw-away society, most people
would never consider attempting to
repair a loudspeaker if it were to develop a tear or a puncture. Why should
you bother when a replacement is so inexpensive? Well, there are few reasons you
might want to affect the repair yourself. First, the speaker might be integrated
into the system in such a manner that replacing it would be difficult or even impossible.
Second, some speakers are actually pretty darn expensive, especially large diameter
models and high quality models regardless of size. Third, a replacement might not
be available, as with a vintage radio or television. Fourth, maybe you just want
the challenge and satisfaction of repairing the speaker rather than adding its bulk
to a landfill. This article from a 1955 issue of Popular Electronics magazine
offers a short tutorial on loudspeaker repairs. It was written before foam cones
became available, but adapting other repair media and adhesive for foam should not
be a big barrier to undertaking such a task. Be sure to choose a glue type that
exhibits some flexibility once cured, which means standard cyanoacrylate (CA / superglue)
would probably be a poor choice. Special formulations for bonding foam are available
and should work well...
 There are not many of us left who remember
the "duck and cover"
nuclear attack drills in elementary school back in the 1960's. Now, six decades
later, all of a sudden Public Service Announcements (PSA's) are appearing in New
York City advising people what to do in the case of a
nuclear bomb attack, or in the words of the presenter, "if the big one has hit."
I thought it was another Internet spoof, but evidently it is real. Do the people
in NYC know something we don't? Our "leaders" appear to be bent on stoking the Russia
/ Ukraine fire until someone detonates a nuke somewhere. It might even be China
against Taiwan - why not while the world is in turmoil? The people in charge are
crazy and evil.
 "ARRL The National Association for Amateur
Radio® is seeking a
Public Relations & Outreach Manager for employment at its headquarters in
Newington, Connecticut. The manager will be responsible for increasing the awareness
and value of the Amateur Radio Service to the public at large, for promoting the
value of ARRL and the contributions of its member-volunteers, and for developing
outreach opportunities that support awareness and growth of amateur radio. The ideal
candidate will be a storyteller who is adept at writing content and developing campaigns
to convey ARRL's message to various audiences. This professional must possess the
know-how to train and motivate grassroots volunteers, and the ability to develop
and sustain long-term relationships with external media. ARRL is also seeking a
Social Media Strategist who will be responsible for developing and administering
social media content that is aimed at engaging users and creating an interactive
relationship with members, the wider amateur radio community, and prospective hams."
 An update has been provided by Michael M.
with more information about the Earth-Space propagation calculation DLL provided
free of charge by the French organization Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES,
National Centre for Space Studies). The
PROPAGATION dynamic
link library (DLL) contains functions to compute propagation losses according
to ITU−R P.† recommendations. Versions are available for both 32- and 64-bit
Windows and Linux operating systems, as well as for the C and Visual Basic programming
languages. Very conveniently, the DLL functions can be referenced from within an
Excel spreadsheet as well. A full list of the functions is given below, including
ones for gaseous, cloud and rain attenuation that factors in temperature, precipitation
intensity, and atmospheric noise, as well as for inputting geographic location...
 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 12,000 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.
 Please take a few moments to visit the
everythingRF website to see how they can assist
you with your project. everythingRF is a product discovery platform for RF and microwave
products and services. They currently have 267,269 products from more than 1397
companies across 314 categories in their database and enable engineers to search
for them using their customized parametric search tool. Amplifiers, test equipment,
power couplers and dividers, coaxial connectors, waveguide, antennas, filters, mixers,
power supplies, and everything else. Please visit everythingRF today to see how
they can help you.
Sunday the 17th
 This custom
Ham Radio themed Crossword Puzzle for July 17th, 2022, is brought to you by
RF Cafe. All RF Cafe crossword puzzles are custom made by me, Kirt Blattenberger,
and have only words and clues related 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!
 ASC designs and manufactures hybrid, surface
mount flange, open carrier and connectorized amplifiers for low, medium and high
power applications using gallium nitride (GaN), gallium arsenide (GaAs) and silicon
(Si) transistor technologies. ASC's thick film designs operate in the frequency
range of 300 kHz to 6 GHz. ASC offers thin film designs that operate up
to 20 GHz.
Friday the 15th
 I have to confess that I do not recall having
heard of
Professor Amos Emerson Dolbear (aka A.E. Dolbear) prior to seeing this "Inventors
of Radio" piece in a 1959 issue of Radio−Electronics magazine. Per the article,
"In 1882, just 10 years after Loomis' patent was granted, Prof. Amos E. Dolbear
demonstrated what he called an electrostatic telephone before the Society of Telegraph
Engineers and Electricians meeting in London, England. This occasion - March 23,
1882 - was probably the first time the human voice was transmitted by radio." Prof. Dolbear
was a contemporary of other early electrical communications pioneers like Alexander
Graham Bell and Guglielmo Marconi...
 "Geochron, headquartered in Oregon City,
Oregon, has donated a
Geochron
Atlas 2 4K - a digital Geochron world clock - to ARRL The National
Association for Amateur Radio®. Geochron Owner Patrick Bolan arranged the donation
for installation at the ARRL Headquarters station, W1AW. The Atlas 2 was reviewed
in the February 2022 edition of QST. 'The Geochron Digital Atlas 2 4K displays
the Earth with sunrise and sunset rendered in real time,' wrote reviewer Pascal
Villeneuve, VA2PV. 'The device is a small computer that plugs directly into any
HDM...'"
 Believe it or not, there was a time when the Internet did not exist
and getting quality information could be difficult. Perhaps more notably today,
bad information is far too easy to get online because there is no qualified peer
review of content. Waaaaayyyyyy back in the 1970s and 1980s when I was new to the
electronics design world, offices, cubicles, laboratories, company technical libraries,
even hallways, were piled high with reference books, magazines, component books,
applications notes, datasheets, white papers, and every other form of information
that might be useful. Now, of course, the preferred source for information is the
Internet, particularly from trusted sources like universities, book publishers,
RF Cafe, etc. The problem is that a lot of the old data that was uniquely useful,
has not been archived on the Web. Such is the case with an exceptionally useful
set of
Tech-Notes that appeared in the Watkins Johnson parts catalogs of yore...
 As someone interested in the history of
technology and the evolutionary path taken from initial concept to modern day equipment,
this "Oscilloscopes
Evolve from Humble Displays to Powerful Tools" article by Alix Paultre on the
Electronic Design website is of interest. It begins: "From the early CRT-based
tools to the latest multifunctional powerhouses, the venerable oscilloscope has
long been a mainstay of electronic design. Able to graphically display a range of
electronic circuit performance information as a two-dimensional plot over time,
oscilloscopes produce waveforms too fast and transient to be perceived by the human
eye alone. Not only is it a primary tool for the electronic design engineer, the
oscilloscope also can be found in mil/aero, science, medicine, and telecom, among
other spaces. Waveform analysis of properties such as amplitude, frequency, rise
time, time interval, distortion..."
 Just as the test and measurement equipment
manufactures scrambled to produce lines of spectrum, network and communications
analyzers, oscilloscopes, power meters, electromagnetic field sensors, and many
other types of products specifically for the cellphone and Wi-Fi industries, companies
were scrambling to provide for the needs of FM radio and television development
labs and production lines. This 1947 advertisement from
Radio
Corporation of America (RCA) Test & Measuring Equipment division is an example
that appeared in a 1947 issue of Radio News magazine. In fact, TV was so new that
just a few months later, in September of 1948, editor Hugo Gernsback changed the
publication's name to Radio & Television News. BTW, did you even know RCA made
test equipment? It shows up on eBay occasionally...
 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 (EIA 19", ETSI 21"), and more. Test equipment and racks are built at a 1:1
scale so that measurements can be made directly using Visio built-in dimensioning
objects. Page templates are provided with a preset scale (changeable) for a good
presentation that can incorporate all provided symbols...
 The
Wireless Telecom Group,
comprised of Boonton, CommAgility, Holzworth, and Noisecom, is a global designer
and manufacturer of advanced RF and microwave components, modules, systems, and
instruments. Serving the wireless, telecommunication, satellite, military, aerospace,
semiconductor and medical industries, Wireless Telecom Group products enable innovation
across a wide range of traditional and emerging wireless technologies. A unique
set of high-performance products including peak power meters, signal generators,
phase noise analyzers, signal processing modules, 5G and LTE PHY/stack software,
noise sources, and programmable noise generators.
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