|
 You know you've gotten old when you have
an "I remember when..." line for just about every kind of product or process mentioned
in a magazine article, video, or conversation. Here is mine for microwave ovens.
I remember that it was sometime around 1977-79 that my father gave my mother a
microwave oven for Christmas. It was the most expensive gift anyone in our household
had ever received. According to this 1971 Radio-Electronics magazine article,
household microwaves had only been on the scene for about a decade. A look at the
wiring diagram shown for this International Crystal microwave...
 Reading through this article reminds me
of studying for the amateur radio exams. In fact, the information presented in this
1940 QST magazine piece does not seem to be lacking anything that contemporary
discussions include. My point is that a great amount of knowledge had already been
amassed about earth's
upper atmosphere a mere four decades after the first transatlantic
radio communications were accomplished by Marconi on December 12, 1901 from Poldhu
in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada. Considering that at the time no instrumented
sounding rockets had been launched into the extreme upper layers (F1 & F2, beginning
at around 120 mi | 200 km), a lot had been discerned about characteristics as they
pertain to radio communications. Balloons were...
 "We've seen the writing on the wall for
awhile that data centers need fiber and lots of it. Research from RVA LLC has now
done the math and worked out that providers need to build about
92,000 new route miles in the next five years to support that demand. Suffice
to say, the pressure is on for suppliers. 'Everybody talks about the constraints
of power, cooling, land and chips and so forth, but fiber is also a constraint,'
said RVA Founder and CEO Mike Render at a Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) webinar
Wednesday. He noted a single cable can contain 'hundreds or thousands' of fiber
strands and that cabling will only get smaller..."
 These three
electronics-themed comics appeared in the November 1948 issue
of Radio & Television News magazine. You don't need to be of the era
in order to appreciate the humor, but Millennials might need a little assistance
with the second one. That contraption sitting the desk is called a "turntable,"
and it used to play audio media called "records" by spinning them at a certain rate
(33-1/3 rpm, 45 rpm, 78 rpm), while that horizontal lever called
a 'tone arm' held a piezoelectric needle in the grooved tracks of the record. The
joke here is the guy having to spin his head while trying to read the printed label.
I'm just joshing the Millennials, of course, since they use spinning disks called
CDs and DVDs for listening...
 These are
close-up photos of common household objects. Your mission, should you decide
to accept it, is to identify each one. Most are fairly easy, but a couple are a
little outdated since they appeared in a 1939 edition of Boys' Life magazine.
Answers are way down at the bottom of the page. BTW, this January issue is the one
Ralphie Parker is reading in the movie A Christmas Story...
Exodus AMP20110,
0.5-6 GHz, 150 W SSPA
 Exodus Advanced Communications, is a multinational
RF communication equipment and engineering service company serving both commercial
and government entities and their affiliates worldwide. Exodus'
AMP20110 is a rugged, ultra-broadband solid state power amplifier (SSPA) designed
for all applications. Frequency range of 500 MHz-6.0 GHz (P-, L-, S-band),
150 W minimum, and 53 dB gain. Excellent power/gain flatness as compared
to other amplifiers. Forward/Reflected power monitoring, VSWR, voltage / current
/ temperature sensing...
 This 1971 Radio-Electronics magazine
article provides a comprehensive technical overview of
laser theory and practical application. It explains that laser action requires
a population inversion within a medium, typically contained in an optical cavity
with reflective surfaces to amplify coherent light through stimulated emission.
The author distinguishes between three-level systems, such as the ruby laser, and
four-level systems, exemplified by the helium-neon gas laser. Advanced techniques
like Q-switching are described as methods to achieve high-power pulses by interrupting
the cavity. Beyond core physics, the text explores the diverse utility of lasers
in engineering and biology...
 Next Spring I will be installing an old-fashioned
(but newly manufactured)
Channel Master television antenna on a short tower with a rotator.
Here in Erie, Pennsylvania, under certain conditions I can receive broadcasts from
Erie and many of the cities that border close to Lake Erie like Toronto and Waterloo,
Canada and even Detroit. AM radio stations are easily pulled in from the same areas,
but FM does not do quite so well. I plan to also integrate some form of FM antenna
on the installation. There is something insulting about paying for cable or satellite
TV and then having to suffer the deluge of commercials as well (I have neither).
Nobody likes sitting through commercials, but at least if the programming is being
delivered at no cost, it is not unreasonable for the broadcast...
 "Just when you thought it was safe to go
back into the networking waters, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) throws
a curveball. This one is directed squarely at the consumer-grade router industry.
The FCC on Monday announced that all
consumer-grade routers produced in foreign countries are banned from sale in
the United States – unless the supplier applies for and receives a 'Conditional
Approval' from the Department of War (DoW) or the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS). Existing Wi-Fi routers and those that were previously approved by the FCC
can continue to be operated and sold..."
 Before most people listened to radio and
television programming via cable, satellite, and/or the Internet, broadcasts were
received over the air, usually from local stations. A common problem in the days
of vacuum tube Ham transmitters back in the day was inadvertently causing
broadcast interference (BCI) or specifically in the case of television, TVI,
due to insufficient filtering, shielding, or design. Nowadays, we generally refer
to all such unintentional and incidental radiation as radio frequency interference
(RFI). Lots of articles were written on the subject in the 1940s through about the
1970s. Some RF spectrum is shared by more than one entity per FCC and other countries'
band plans, with primary and secondary allocations assigned...
 I have always been a stickler for creating
neat, orderly arrangements when building any type of circuit assembly. Many moons
ago when starting out as an electrician, I made a point of installing straight runs
of Romex type cable with no twists, evenly spaced staples, and keeping the identification
marking to the outside. Conduit was precisely bent and installed, again with organized
parallel runs and even spacing where possible. Circuit breaker panel wiring looked
like something seen in an Apollo space capsule. Electrical inspectors often complimented
my work. Moving on to an electronics career, the habits carried over when prototyping
and even when directing layout for production PCBs or chassis assemblies, including
cabling. The greatest enjoyment I had was when laying out runs of
waveguide...
 If you wanted to review a patent back in
1971, when this "Patent
Talk" article appeared in Radio-Electronics magazine, you would need
to submit a written request to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in Washington,
D.C., and submit a payment to cover the cost. Sometime in 1999, the Patent Full-Text
and Image Database (PatFT) was made available on the World Wide Web (WWW, aka the
Internet), in a TIFF graphical file format. Google Patents came along around the
end of 2006; it was a much more user-friendly search system (still is). The USPTO
has put a lot of effort into making the patent application process simpler - even
approachable by non-lawyers. Hiring a patent application law firm is probably the
easiest - even the best...
 "A team of international researchers have
developed a breakthrough way to observe what is happening inside electronic chips
while they are operating - without touching them, taking them apart, or switching
them off. The new technique uses
terahertz waves, a safe and non-ionizing form of electromagnetic radiation,
to detect tiny movements of electrical charge inside fully packaged semiconductor
devices. For the first time, this allows scientists and engineers to monitor electronic
components as they function in the real world. The study, published in the IEEE
Journal of Microwaves, involves researchers from Adelaide University in Australia,
U.S. technology..."
 Here is Part 1 of a three-part article on
attenuator pad and impedance matching articles that appeared in
Radio-Craft magazine. Although the focus is on audio frequencies, the principles
apply in general. It is interesting to read about wavelengths expressed in units
of miles versus feet and meters like we are used to seeing for radio frequencies.
Keep in mind that most of the decibel formulas used here are for voltage and not
for power. As a reminder, the decibel representation of a ratio is always 10 * log10 (x).
If you have a voltage ratio of V1/V2 = 0.5, then 10 * log10 (0.5) = -3.01 dB.
If you have a power ratio of P1/P2 = 0.5, then 10 * log10 (0.5) = -3.01 dB.
Does that mean that -3.01 dB of voltage attenuation is the same as 3.01 dB
of power attenuation...
 Before there was radio, it really didn't
matter much how much electromagnetic energy at any frequency was spewed into the
air and into electric wires as long as the amplitude was not great enough to physically
damage affected equipment. There was no need for an FCC or unintentional radiation
limit regulations. It was not long after radio came along that the presence of
electromagnetic interference (EMI) made itself painfully obvious
due to its presence on audio as static. Motor brush arcing, electrical atmospheric
phenomena (lightning, meteors), switching on and off of circuits, intermittent connections,
nearby radio spurious emissions, high voltage transformers, and in this case, neon
lighting were among...
 Complex numbers have served the function
of weeding out prospective electronics technician and electrical engineer degree-seeking
people for a long time. I do not recall ever seeing such a beast until taking college
courses. In high school and USAF tech school, we calculated reactive circuit parameters
using well-established formulas that already accounted for the "imaginary" part
of
complex impedance. You can only go so far with circuit analysis without complex
number math, though. All of the electronics magazines at some time (often every
couple of years) ran articles introducing readers to the manipulation of the real
and imaginary parts of reactive impedance. I have posted many of them here on RF
Cafe...
 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics'
Inflation Calculator, this
Crosley
"Fortyfive" tabletop radio advertisement appearing in a 1932 issue of Radio-Craft
magazine which was priced at $45 (which coincidently happened to be the name of
the model) at the time would cost more than a kilobuck in 2025 dollars. That's
a lot of money for a tabletop radio - even for a fine quality floor model console
- but after all it was a newfangled superheterodyne model containing seven vacuum
tubes. The superhet feature made tuning a lot easier since baseband filters could
remain fixed. Cheaper models were available at about half the price, but even that
was a lot of dough to lay out for entertainment. Radios were considered a luxury
item - like a third car is today...
 "A new ultrathin photodetector captures
light across the full spectrum in just 125 picoseconds, opening the door to faster,
smarter imaging technologies. Engineers at Duke University have built the fastest
pyroelectric photodetector ever demonstrated, a device that senses light by
capturing the heat it produces when absorbed. This ultrathin sensor can detect light
across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. It runs at room temperature, requires
no external power, and can be integrated directly into on-chip systems. The technology
could lead to a new generation of multispectral cameras with applications in skin
cancer..."
 By the early 1930s when this
Stenode vacuum tube article appeared in Radio-Craft magazine, commercial
broadcast stations were still working out what would be the best combination of
channel bandwidth and spacing to enable a maximum number of adjacent transmissions
while achieving sufficient selectivity to enable acceptable reception. 5 kHz
was deemed reasonable to reproduce the human voice as well as musical instruments.
An accompanying 10 kHz channel separation (still in effect today) was adopted
to accommodate upper and lower sidebands that amplitude modulation creates. Interestingly,
if you read carefully, the Stenode's high level of selectivity, made possible
by an integrated crystal, was intended to remove modulation sidebands and thereby
significantly narrow the required bandwidth...
 2.1 GHz (5.6-inch, or 14 cm wavelength)
radio waves were an almost totally unexplored realm in 1930, with it and higher
frequencies being the domain of theoretical research laboratories. Signals generators
capable of producing much more than a few hundred megahertz were rare even in commercial
applications. As reported here,
centimeter-length electromagnetic waves were "according to the
theories of Barkhausen and Kurz, [the] result of purely electronic vibrations, whose
frequency was determined only by the operative data of the tube and was not dependent
on any internal or external oscillation circuit." A half-wave receiving antenna
picked up the transmitted signal with a simple diode detector to enable, after a
couple...
 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.
 <-- This is the colorized and enhanced
AI-generated version of one of the drawings in the story. John Frye routinely used
his Carl and Jerry column in Popular Electronics magazine to mix various
assortments and portions of science, humor, adventure, ham radio, and human nature
in what I have dubbed a technodrama. Sometimes the topics are a little off-beat,
as with this "Parfum Elektronique" story - that's French for "Electronic Perfume,"
although you probably already guessed that. The pair of high-school-aged electronics
experimenters enlisted the assistance of classmate Norma, a babe who often agreed
to help them with boy-girl relationship pranks, to try out their odor-producing
contraption. Integral in Mr. Frye's lesson is that there are seven categories
of odors...
 This week's engineering crossword puzzle
features the names of some of the
world's oldest electronics companies. Many of them began life
with a primary business focus other than electronics, then ended up being known
universally for their high tech products. If you're like me, until now you had no
idea that one of the world's leading cellular equipment makers originally was a
wood pulp mill, and another made playing cards. Clues with asterisks (*) are the
featured companies...
 "This article series on
gallium nitride (GaN) fundamentals described crystal structures and the formation
of the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG), along with material figures of merit
and the transition from depletion-mode to enhancement-mode GaN HEMTs. Part 2 will
outline hybrid structures and the RDS(on) penalty, as well as provide further details
on GaN HEMTs and substrate choices for GaN. It will also make the case for the path
to monolithic integration while showing how ohmic contacts, metallization, and packaging
advantages are facilitating this design roadmap. An alternative to monolithic enhancement-mode
GaN transistors is the hybrid cascode..."
 Included in this first of a series of the
"Simple Mathematics for the Serviceman" articles that ran in
Radio-Craft magazine is another "cheat sheet" full of oft-used formulas.
It begins with basic Ohm's law, resistance, inductance, and capacitance, then builds
from there. What was valid in 1930 is still valid in 2022. Prior to a smartphone
in every pocket, notes were pinned to a lab wall or kept in a hand-written notebook...
 NASA
(and its predecessor NACA), and private and public operators have been monitoring
solar events in the optical realm for many decades while attempting to correlate
terrestrial phenomena with it. Auroral light displays in the extreme polar regions
have long been known to be caused by solar flare and
coronal mass ejections
(CME). With the advent of radio, the electrical nature of the upper atmosphere became
evident when static (AM) and long range propagation affected long range communications.
Extreme CME activity eventually was associated with behavior of the electrical power
grid; indeed, massive blackouts and brownouts are to blame for many. Last but not
least came concern for sun-sourced electrons regarding satellites...
 This 1958 Popular Electronics magazine
article provides practical instructions for constructing high-gain antennas to receive
108 MHz satellite signals, detailing four designs ranging from simple folded
dipoles to complex Yagi arrays. The author emphasizes that success requires precise
impedance matching, careful orientation, and weatherproofing, often utilizing modified
television hardware to capture weak transmissions from early space vehicles. While
the fundamental RF physics of signal gain and directivity remain unchanged,
"listening" to satellites today has shifted from manual, labor-intensive construction
of metal arrays...
|
 • UK, US, Others
Set
6G Security Principles
• AI
Boom Drives Memory Shortage
• FCC
Deauthorizes Chinese Testing Labs
• How Ukraine
Electrical Engineers
Fight a War
• U.S.
Outspends Europe on Wireless
 The
RF Cafe Homepage Archive
is a comprehensive collection of every item appearing daily on this website since
2008 - and many from earlier years. Many thousands of pages of unique content have
been added since then.
 Occasionally an unbuilt vintage Heathkit
item appears on eBay with really nice photos of the contents. Recently, a
Heathkit
SA-2060A Deluxe Antenna Tuner kit appeared. It tunes the entire 160 to 10 meter
range. Dual wattmeters measure forward and reverse power. The guy who listed it
says, "These tuners are the apex of the Heathkit tuner kits; I already have a built
one and it's my main tuner in the shack. Full legal limit 1500+ watts across the
HF bands, roller inductor tuner." This is a manual tuner with lots of mechanical
parts as well as electronic parts. Take a look at all the dial and knob extender
shafts, standoffs, mounting brackets, and attachment hardware. Wouldn't you love
to have something like this to spend a few hours assembling? Per the 1987 Heathkit
catalog, the SA-2060A was priced at $269.95 ($639.67 in 2021). That is not too far
off the price for a contemporary 2 kW tuner, such as the Palstar AT2K (6 to
160 meters) retailing at $595.99...
 This
Electronic Menu Quiz appeared in the August 1963 edition of Popular Electronics
magazine. Robert Balin created many such quizzes for Popular Electronics
over the years. It challenges you to match the common food-related term for a device
with its picture. If you've been around electronics labs and/or read electronics
hobbyist magazines for a while, chances are you have run across most of the terms.
I suggest you click on the image to get a full-size view of the drawings to be able
to see all the detail. A couple of the names I have to admit not being familiar,
so they seem rather 'corny'... get it?
 I always look forward to another of John
Frye's "Mac's Radio Service Shop" techno dramas. They are always an entertaining
mix of interaction between Mac and his sidekick technician Barney, and a meaningful
lesson on troubleshooting circuits, dealing with customers, or interpreting electronics
industry news. Often it is a combination thereof. This installment entitled "Barney
Has a Birthday" appeared in the June 1948 issue of Radio News magazine;
it was one of the earlier stories. In fact, it is now that Barney is promoted from
a mere shop hand to a
fledgling electronics technician. Mac has been preparing him for the duty with
mentoring and assigning reading material. Mind you Barney is no rank amateur at
electronics because, in fact, he is a full-fledged radio amateur - a Ham operator...
 This is another Radio Service Data Sheet
that appeared in the March 1936 edition of Radio-Craft magazine. I post
this schematic and functional description of the
Belmont Model 578 Series A, 5-Tube A.C. Superheterodyne radio manufacturers'
publications for the benefit of hobbyists and archivists who might be searching
for such information either in a effort to restore a radio to working condition,
or to collect archival information...
 Dr. Lee DeForest might have had something
like National Public Radio (est. 1970) in mind when he penned this article in 1933.
In it, the famous vacuum tube amplifier inventor lamented and criticized the commercialization
of broadcasts because of all the paid product announcements (aka commercials) that
had been steadily increasing over the years. He also was critical of the "hit-or-miss,
higgeldy-piggeldy mélange program basis" of programing; i.e., the same station playing
a mix of jazz, opera, swing, syndicated story-telling, etc. The good doctor did
not elaborate on where funding for such dedicated, uncorrupted broadcasts would
originate if not from paying advertisers, and I do not recall ever reading about
a DeForest Radio Network paid for by his vast fortune. I don't like commercials
any more than the next person, but a company deserves time to pitch its products
and/or services if it helps deliver...
 The year 1935 could be considered the beginning
of a new paradigm in communications thanks to the introduction of
metal-encased vacuum tubes. They facilitated a move into higher frequency circuit
design and denser component placement (smaller volume). Prior to then, vacuum tubes
were almost exclusively encased in a glass envelope with no innate guard against
the emission or absorption of electromagnetic fields from nearby components. Metal-encased
tubes provide benefits like better heat dissipation, smaller physical size, ruggedness,
inherent RF shielding, and lower parasitic values of capacitance and inductance
due to smaller plate areas and shorter lead lengths, respectively. The highest barrier
to widespread adoption of metal tubes, history would show, was the higher cost of
production that made consumer products more expensive at a time when not every household
saw the need for a radio or, eventually, a television...
 Rauland (aka Rauland-Borg) has today on its
History webpage that it was founded in 1922 as the Rauland Company, by inventor
and
radio enthusiast E. Norman Rauland. Soon thereafter he became a pioneer
in the radio broadcast industry by launching the Chicago-based radio station, WENR
(which eventually became the well-known WLS). In 1941 Norm Rauland and George Borg
entered a partnership, and a year later acquired Baird Television of America. Rauland
developed cathode ray tubes (CRT) and became an important supplier of communications
and radar equipment during WWII. After the war, Rauland began manufacturing CRTs
for 10" and 12" televisions. They were so successful that in 1948, Zenith Radio
Corporation purchased them to get the CRT technology. This circa 1953 Rauland advertisement
ran in Radio-Electronics magazine to pitch their breakthrough aluminizing process
that produced CRTs with brighter pictures and greater contrast with relatively low
anode voltages, which was a big deal at the time due to concern over high levels
of x-rays...
 Wind down the week with these four
electronics-themed comics from a 1970 issue of Radio-Electronics
magazine. As mentioned before, radio and television technology was a big deal in
the era. People hadn't been born into a world of transistorized microcircuit media
devices that perform nearly every conceivable function - phone, TV, radio, computer,
heart rate monitor, voice recorder, remote control, camera, compass, game, social
media, etc., etc., etc. Unlike today's electronics products that typically don't
break with normal use and do not require periodic alignment, folks from my demographic
were used to turning on a TV or radio and having to readjust it or have it repaired...
 Whoa! Take a look at the
RF feedthrough and lightning arresting choke on the feed line on the original
Voice of America transmitter in Munich, Germany. Now that is serious stuff. This
story from a 1959 issue of Popular Electronics reports on the extreme lengths
to which the Soviet bloc went in order to prevent its countrymen from hearing radio
signals broadcast by the Voice of America and other non-state-approved beacons.
Quarter megawatt transmitters sent messages of freedom that could be picked up by
even the most remote crystal sets that didn't have the advantage of amplification.
Ground-wave, sky-wave, and short-wave jamming techniques were employed to ensure
the only signal that could be received was a buzz-saw type noise. Not so long ago,
and certainly in 1959, America was viewed as a beacon of freedom, both figuratively
via word-of-mouth and underground newspapers, and literally via high powered radio
broadcasts directed into cordoned off countries ruled by Communist rulers. Herculean
efforts were made by the likes of Stalin, Khrushchev, Castro, Kim Il-sung, Pol Pot,
and various other despots to prevent any form of communications with the outside
world. I remember back when my grade school classmates and I were practicing hiding
under our desks in the event of a nuclear bomb attack...
 As far back as 1966 electronics hobbyists knew
that silicon bathtub caulk was an excellent flexible insulator for electronics. It originally
went by the name "Silastic,"
which is a portmanteau of "silicone" and "plastic," and is a type of RTV (room temperature
vulcanizing) compound. It has a typical voltage withstanding of over 400 V/mil,
or 400 kV/inch, which is why it is used extensively on high voltage connections.
Dow Corning, its inventor, still sells various compounds of Silastic both as an insulator
and as a molding compound. I used it at Westinghouse Electric in the 1980's to seal metal
molds for overmolding towed sonar transducer arrays...
 As with so many aspects of electronics, physics,
economics, medicine (well, maybe not medicine), the basics do not change a whole
lot since first being discovered. If you are a newcomer to the world of electronics
and are trying to come up to speed on
transistor fabrication and operation, even this article that appeared
in a 1958 issue or Radio-Electronics magazine will be useful to you.
Figure 1 reminds me of a situation I witnessed while working as a technician at
Westinghouse Oceanic Division, in Annapolis, Maryland. If you've heard this
before, please indulge me. One of the managers there, who was not a degreed
engineer (although he held the title), one day while in the lab actually
soldered a pair of 1N4148 diodes together back-to-back per Figure 1 and tried
biasing it to function like a transistor. A "real" engineer, whom I greatly
admired, stood watching with his mouth agape as he watched. Before he could
politely explain why the diode pair is not the same as the intimate PN junctions
of an actual transistor...
 As with so many topics in electronics, nomenclature
has changed since the time when commercializable solar cells first came on the scene.
Vintage magazines usually referred to them as "solar
batteries," which was really a misnomer since they do not actually store energy
like a battery. In this 1954 edition of Popular Electronics magazine (the
premier issue), solar-to-electricity conversion efficiency rates of 6% are heralded
as wonderful, enough to cause the author to claim "...a wafer-thin slab of crystal,
4 ft. x 15 ft., either resting on or built into the roof of a house, could supply
enough current to operate all the lights, stove, refrigerator, and other appliances
in the house - 24 hours a day." Even with today's efficiencies in the 20-25% realm,
you couldn't power much of a house on a 4x15 foot array. Maybe they meant the number
would be useful if you had gas-powered lights, refrigerator (yes, they exist), and
stove...
 "Nuclear" this and "nuclear" that were big
attention getters after the dropping of the uranium and plutonium bombs that ended
World War II in August of 1945. Science was at the cusp of its foray into understanding
and manipulating atoms at the nuclear level - a realm that at the time was not directly
observable. "Shadows" of elementary particles were successfully imaged, but many
theorized that it would never be possible to directly "see" an electron, proton,
or neutron. One cause of the inability to image such a small entity was a lack of
a stable enough reference source that could resolve tiny features. Short wavelengths
(i.e., high frequencies) are needed, and the current standard - piezoelectric crystals
- could not be fabricated thin enough to function reliably (or at all) in the microwave
spectrum. Fulfilling the old adage of "necessity
is the mother of invention," scientists developed the first atomic clocks that
exploited a very stable and repeatable frequency reference based on electron energy
level transitions of the ammonia atom. Doing so allowed the earliest measurements
of sub-microscopic physical features of materials. This story details some of the
history...
 This is another example of one of those
advertisements you likely would not see in a modern electronics magazine. There
is nothing fundamentally problematic about its content or message, but politically
correct standards would condemn any depiction of a woman expressing such excessive
appreciation for a man's efforts. It might, after all, convey the idea that all
television antenna servicemen should expect such treatment from all women. It also
implies that only men can be TV antenna servicemen / servicepersons. If that sounds
nutty, well, what can I say. It's the world we live in as evidenced by news items
of late. Keep firmly in mind that what is accepted as a social norm today might
be considered to be a crime in a few decades, so exercise caution in all you do
in the presence of witnesses be it written, videoed, spoken, or acted out...
 SMSgt. John Pensko (ret.) contacted me with his service info as
a USAF radar tech. John served from 1976 through 1997, with duty ranging from line
Technician to Branch Chief and Career Field Manager. Was was exposed to a very wide
assortment of equipment including mobile and fixed ground-based primary radar, IFF
secondary radar, video mappers, UHF and VHF radios. It is one of the most extensive
lists of assignments ever received! John says he will be sending photos - stand
by...
 Here is an excellent example of how scientific
evaluations performed by two independent subject experts can result in significantly
different conclusions. James Gupton, Jr., reports on what previously had been considered
secret military technology - an
active, electrically small receiving antenna. This particular example, dubbed
the Mini-Tenna, is designed for use on the FM radio band. After building and testing
his antenna, Mr. Gupton offered it to two Radio-Electronics magazine
editors for investigation. Each used a carefully considered method in what are generally
similar environments - urban dwelling with strong signals and opportunity for multi-path,
connected to a commercial FM radio receiver. The divergent results were not commented
upon by the author. As a side note, I still have a 1980s vintage active FM radio
antenna from Radio Shack...
 Banner Ads are rotated in all locations
on the page! RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000 visits each
weekday. RF Cafe
is a favorite of engineers, technicians, hobbyists, and students all over the world.
With more than 17,000 pages in the Google search index, RF Cafe returns in
favorable positions on many types of key searches, both for text and images.
Your Banner Ads are displayed on average 225,000 times per year! New content
is added on a daily basis, which keeps the major search engines interested enough
to spider it multiple times each day. Items added on the homepage often can be found
in a Google search within a few hours of being posted. If you need your company
news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be...
 One of the interesting aspects of reading
through vintage magazines is finding current-at-the-time accounts of industry happenings
with people and companies still familiar to contemporary people in the realm. In
this June 1961 instance in Radio-Electronics magazine,
Dr. Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductors is mentioned. Most people
today associate him with the founding of Intel. The Microcircuit Flipflop was one
of Fairchild's early integrated circuits, housed in metal TO-5 and TO-18 cans. The
FCC had just approved a method of "stereo multiplex" on the FM radio band that facilitated
coexistence of monaural (mono) and binaural (stereo) broadcasts. Hard to believe
that was more than sixty years ago (I was three years old). Also, sadly, news of
Mr. Paul Crosley's - of radio, car, and home appliance fame - passing was announced.
Atmospheric effects on VLF, and use of ultrasonics for welding plastic also made
the editors' cut... |
