|
 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...
 The name
Ernst Frederick Werner Alexanderson (1878-1975) might not seem
overly familiar to you, but he is credited with designing the first high frequency
alternator for transmitting longwave audio modulation over long distances. His device
preceded the spark and arc type transmitters that infamously spewed harmonics and
noise all over the spectrum and were therefore a great nuisance when broadcast at
high power levels. It was a relatively (for the time) narrowband scheme that permitted
more stations to be co-located in a given service area. He went on the develop one
of the first successful television projectors as well. Read a short biography on
Mr. Alexanderson in the "Men Who...
 The National Association for Amateur Radio®
(ARRL) is seeking talented individuals
to join our team and help advance the Amateur Radio Service. We are currently hiring
for several impactful positions: • RFI Lab Engineer Support ARRL's mission
to protect and enhance spectrum access by managing and resolving Radio Frequency
Interference (RFI) cases • W1AW Station Manager This is a rare opening and
exciting opportunity to lead operations at W1AW • Public Relations & Outreach
Manager • Awards Program Supervisor • Development Associate • IT
Support Specialist • Logbook of The World Support Associate • Membership
Manager...
 December is traditionally the issue for
magazines to sum up accomplishments of the ending year and make predictions for
the next year. Radio-Craft magazine was no exception, but in 1936 they
went ten steps farther and prognosticated a decade into the future - all the way
to 1946! It is actually a tongue-in-cheek reprint from Pathe News magazine.
However, note the drawing of "professor teaches 2 million pupils," where he is instructing
via television and the railroad company boss checking in on the conductors en route
via wireless teleconferencing. It might have seemed like a pipe dream
in 1936, but now it is commonplace. Not only do we now have live classroom broadcasts,
but millions of YouTube videos of instruction for performing...
 Once transistorized computers made desktop-sized
systems a reality, the sure eventuality of
humans being replaced by their electronic equivalents became a
popular theme of media pundits. News reports and "special features" on TV at the
same time scared citizens concerned for their jobs and assured them that by the
year 2000, humans wouldn't need to work anymore anyway because computers and robots
would be doing everything for them. The millennium crossover occurred a quarter
of a century and a half ago, and looking back it is true that computers and robots
have usurped a lot of what used to be done manually, but, as Mac presciently predicts
in this story...
 You have been warned not to believe anything
you see, hear, or read anymore, because of the ability of AI (artificial intelligence)
to alter and/or create just about anything. I offer in support of that thesis the
two photos shown here. The black and white image was scanned from a 1958 issue of
Popular Electronics magazine. I fed it exactly as shown to
Gemini 2.5 Flash, along with these simple instructions: "Please clean up
the 1958 magazine photo to remove noise, sharpen, and colorize it." You see the
result. The AI beast not only perfected the picture, but interpreted its content
(an amateur cyclotron, per the article) as a science laboratory scenario and added
the appropriate background. Yikes!
 Writing about "outdated" methods of radio-based
facsimile machine implementation in 1934 seems a bit incredible considering how
relatively new both technologies were at the time. Nevertheless, Radio-Craft
magazine editor Hugo Gernsback reported on the new era of
fax machines that were on display at the 1933 World's Fair in
Chicago. Of course fax machines of that time were not exactly desktop models that
could be located in a corner of your office or cubicle (not that cubicles were common).
If you substitute transistors for vacuum tubes, stepper motors for simple DC motors
and solenoids, and solid state lasers and LEDs for incandescent light sources, the
fundamentals have not...
 "It's not too early to gear up and get ready
for ARRL
Field Day! Field Day 2026 takes place June 27 – 28 and will bring together more
than 30,000 amateur radio operators for one of the most popular on-the-air events
in the US and Canada. This year's Field Day theme is 'Amateur Radio: A National
Resource.' Combined with the ARRL Year of the Club, it provides the perfect opportunity
for radio clubs to set up stations in public places to demonstrate ham radio's science,
skill, and service to our communities and our nation. All of the information you
need to get started..."
 New York City has forever, it seems, been
the place to be for street vending. A famously large pedestrian populace creates
an ideal venue for hacking goods of all sorts to passers-by. A phenomenon in radio
was created in the early 1930s with the rapid advances in technology and high volume
manufacturing techniques, coupled with increasingly efficient transportation of
goods on interconnecting roadways and delivery trucks. The photos included in this
Radio-Craft magazine story illustrate the level of enthusiasm by the public for
radio. A plethora of
replacement components for repairing malfunctioning sets and for
scratch-built sets at fantastically low prices helped fuel the fire. An offer of
"aluminum chassis" with pre-punched and drilled holes was really surprising not
because of the holes, but for...
 This week's
Wireless Engineering crossword puzzle contains the usual collection of science,
math, and engineering terms. Also included are a couple topics that have been in
the technical news headlines lately and the names of two new companies advertising
on RF Cafe. 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...
 Once again, the undaunted, indefatigable
husband of "friend-wife" - maybe even the alter ego of story-teller and artist Carl
Kohler - embarks on another
grand and glorious electromechanical project, always meeting with near - but
never total - success. This time around, the subject of his passion is a giant radio-controlled
model cruiser. In the 1950s and 1960s, the great size of such a boat was perfect
for the great sizes of model engines and model R/C systems. Vacuum tubes and rather
large, leaded resistors and capacitors comprised the electronics of both transmitters
and receivers, and at least two batteries were required for power...
 While working on vacuum tube based USAF
air traffic control radar and radio systems, and having seen many tube television
and radio sets I never recall seeing one of these form-fitting
metal shields. All the ones I've seen are simple cylinders that
slide over the tube and either twist into a receiving rim slot or they have spring
metal fingers that grab the glass envelope. As you might guess, utilizing a metal
shield around a tube for anything other than a low frequency application like an
audio amplifier or poser supply requires circuit design that takes into account
the capacitive effects of the large metal plates...
 "Venus
is often described as Earth's twin, but that comparison quickly falls apart at the
surface. With temperatures hot enough to melt lead and pressures that rival the
deep ocean, Venus's harsh environment has required NASA and other space agencies
to orbit the planet, studying it remotely while sustained surface exploration has
remained elusive. If NASA intends to deploy landers capable of operating for days
or even weeks on Venus, it must rely on a fundamentally different class of sensing
and control systems. Exploration would require
high-temperature ceramic sensors built from wide-bandgap materials and advanced
structural ceramics..."
 As with so many topics, the basics of topics
like
harmonic distortion (and other forms of distortion) in an amplifier circuit
has not changed much - if at all - over the decades. Test equipment and circuits
being measured get more advanced, but, especially if you are new to the concept,
articles like this one on audio-frequency distortion from a 1941 edition of
Radio-Craft magazine are as useful today as it was when it was written. When
studying, in particular, harmonic distortion, having a knowledge of the Fourier
series for common waveforms like triangle waves, sawtooth waves, square waves, and
even a semi-circle- shaped wave is especially enlightening since it explains a lot
of waveform shapes where harmonics are present...
 A
vertical antenna can have a significant advantage over a horizontal
antenna from a maintenance perspective, since, depending on how high the antenna
is mounted off the ground, the "business end" where electrical connections are made
are more accessible. The configuration shown here would be difficult to implement
if a mast rotator is to be used because of the stabilizing guy wires on the lower
frame. Although it should be possible to achieve the necessary rigidity without
guys by using an aluminum or fiberglass tubing frame rather than wood, preventing
weathervaning in strong winds could prove difficult. A nifty feature of this "reversible
beam" antenna is that reciprocal directivity is implemented simply by swapping out
a short...
 A 1958 report in the Russian journal Radio
detailed early scientific findings from Sputnik I and II, marking a significant
advancement in space-based electronics. Analysis of Sputnik I's radio transmissions
revealed
complex propagation patterns, including refraction and reflection off the ionosphere's
F2 layer, which allowed signals to travel far beyond direct visibility and occasionally
produce a round-the-world echo. These observations provided researchers with critical
data regarding how radio waves behave in relation to atmospheric layers and satellite
positioning. Furthermore, the article discussed findings from Sputnik II concerning
solar radiation intensity beyond the earth’s atmosphere. The researchers utilized
actinometry - the science of measuring electromagnetic radiation, particularly solar
radiation...
|
 • How Ukraine
Electrical Engineers
Fight a War
• U.S.
Outspends Europe on Wireless
• 6G Coming - with
Connectivity & AI
• 5G
Americas Dissolves in 2026
• Taiwan
Exports to U.S. More Than China
 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.
 Electronics magazine editor Lewis H.
Young dedicated a series of issues in 1965 to reporting on the state of
electronics research and production in Japan. The December 13
edition had many articles on the subject. The world was still in the early phase
of a major transition from vacuum tubes and discrete components to transistors and
integrated circuits. Japan was at the leading edge of that effort - and it was very
successful. Ample evidence of the not-quite-there-yet status of the transition is
all the advertisements in this edition of the magazine. Products showcased by manufacturers
were discrete, not integrated - that applies to both electronic and mechanical subjects.
When you look at those components and assemblies, you get feel for what made them
work because the individual parts are in view. Many modern products are integrated
into packaged and tested subassemblies that are ready to be integrated...
RF Cascade Workbook is the next phase in the evolution of RF Cafe's long-running
series, RF Cascade Workbook. Chances are you have never used a spreadsheet
quite like this (click
here for screen capture). It is a full-featured RF system cascade parameter
and frequency planner that includes filters and mixers for a mere $45. Built in
MS Excel, using RF Cascade Workbook is a cinch and the format
is entirely customizable. It is significantly easier and faster than using a multi-thousand
dollar simulator when a high level system analysis is all that is needed...
 Here is a story of one Ham's experience in
determining how the performance of his
Yagi antenna
compared to his identically configured (number of elements, height off of the ground,
etc.) cubical quad antenna. His location was a farm field in Tennessee, back in
the mid 1960s, so there was really not much in the way of obstacles to perturb signals
arriving at one antenna versus the other, except of course when the direction of
operation happened to have the antennas in line with each other. Both antennas were
tuned for optimal performance at 14.22 MHz, which is in the high frequency
(HF) band. Today's radio operator has software tools at his disposal for predicting
the performance of single and multiple antenna setups that can save a lot of time
and money. EZNEC* antenna software is a good example where for as little as...
 Here are three more
technology-themed comics from vintage of Radio & Television New magazines.
Some issued had multiple comics, but these three had just one apiece, so I combined
them onto a single page. There is a huge list of previously posted comics at the
bottom of the page. With many of these comics, you might need to be familiar with
the mindset of the electronics world back in the day. Today it considered hilarious
today to see a video of someone walking into a street lamp pole while staring obliviously
into a smartphone. In the middle of the last century, fun was made of wives not
understanding their hubbies' hobbies, dealings with servicemen, and and goofy things
do-it-yourselfers of the era were doing.
RF Cascade Workbook is the next phase in the evolution of RF Cafe's long-running
series, RF Cascade Workbook. Chances are you have never used a spreadsheet
quite like this (click
here for screen capture). It is a full-featured RF system cascade parameter
and frequency planner that includes filters and mixers for a mere $45. Built in
MS Excel, using RF Cascade Workbook is a cinch and the format
is entirely customizable. It is significantly easier and faster than using a multi-thousand
dollar simulator when a high level system analysis is all that is needed...
 Farmers must be a lot smarter than we tend to
give them credit for being. These
math and
logic puzzles that appeared in the 1961 Old Farmer's Almanac are not a duffer's task
to complete. Be careful to consider units of measure based on the venues. Puzzle I is
a relatively simple trigonometry problem, although the wording of the problem statement
is very confusing; it took some head scratching to figure out what was meant. Puzzle
III required me to opt for a graphical solution since I could not come up with enough
independent equations for the number of unknowns. If you look at the OFA page scan...
 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...
 With more than 1000
custom-built stencils, this has got to be the most comprehensive set of
Visio Stencils
available for RF, analog, and digital system and schematic drawings! Every stencil
symbol has been built to fit proportionally on the included A-, B-, and C-size drawing
page templates (or use your own page if preferred). Components are provided for
system block diagrams, conceptual drawings, schematics, test equipment, racks, and
more. Page templates are provided with a preset scale (changeable) for a good presentation
that can incorporate all provided symbols...
 For two decades, I have been creating custom
engineering- and science-themed crossword puzzles for the brain-exercising benefit
and pleasure of RF Cafe visitors who are fellow cruciverbalists. This December 1st
puzzle uses as part of its grid the common schematic symbol for a MOSFET dual gate,
n-channel, depletion mode transistor. A database of thousands of words is used which
I have built up over the years and contains only clues and terms associated with
engineering, science, physical, astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, etc. You will
never find a word taxing your knowledge of a numbnut soap opera star or the name
of some obscure village in the Andes mountains. You might, however, encounter the
name of a movie star like Hedy Lamarr or a geographical location like Tunguska,
Russia, for reasons which, if you don't already know, might surprise you...
 Far more than electronics went into the
development of
color television. Extensive research into how human beings perceive color, combined
with the color-producing ability of suitable chemical compounds ultimately determined
how color picture tubes would be manufactured, and the electronic circuits which
would activate them. Most people are not aware that the very earliest color television
schemes were electromechanical contraptions that either spun a transparent color
wheel in from of a modulated light beam, or used an oscillating mirror to direct
colors to the appropriate position on a display screen. Fortunately, the fully electronic
version won. Even so, there were retro-fit kits sold and installed to convert black
and white (B&W) sets to color using the spinning color wheel system (upper left).
As recently as the late 1960s there were commercials selling a screen to place over
the front of your B&W set that was tinted green at the bottom, red in the middle,
and blue at the top...
 The world is full of geniuses who have ideas
with the potential to introduce history-making products and services to mankind.
Thankfully, many of them manage to draw the attention to themselves and make their
contributions available. Some of those same people have the talent to prepare their
inventions and concepts for distribution, while others require the know-how of others
- nowadays known as manufacturing engineers - to figure out how to mass produce
a product with enough efficiency to make things affordable. Thomas Edison, Henry
Ford, George Westinghouse, Lee de Forest, and other recognizable inventors
depended on assistance for ultimate success. I will soon be posting stories of de Forest's
long, hard-fought path to success with his Audion tube which will make you wonder
how people can have the fortitude to continue...
 This is the first of a three-part series
on
radio detector circuits by Mr. Robert Scott. It appeared in the August 1945
issue of Radio-Craft magazine. He begins in this article with describing
diode action and progresses to uses in various types of signal detectors in radio
receivers. A discussion of modulation and distortion sources is included as well.
The strange-looking round schematic symbols are vacuum tubes, which used metallic
elements separated by space as functional elements rather than fused sand containing
traces of impurities. Don't be intimidated, though; just think of them as field
effect transistors (FETs) where the plate is the drain, the grid is the gate, and
the cathode is the source. The next article in the series discusses hi-fidelity
triode detectors; the plate rectifier, infinite-impedance detectors, grid rectification,
and regenerative circuits...
 September 13th's custom
Radio & Wireless themed crossword puzzle contains only only words from my
custom-created lexicon related to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry,
physics, astronomy, etc. (1,000s of them). You will never find among the words names
of politicians, mountain ranges, exotic foods or plants, movie stars, or anything
of the sort. You might, however, find someone or something in the otherwise excluded
list directly related to this puzzle's technology theme, such as Hedy Lamarr or
the Bikini Atoll, respectively. The technically inclined cruciverbalists amongst
us will appreciate the effort.
 The General Electric TDY-2 was one of the
earliest American
anti-radar electronic countermeasures (ECM) systems. Having been highly secret
technology during World War II, its existence and some details of its operation
were revealed in a 1946 issue of Radio-Craft magazine. Declassification of much
advanced technology in the post-war years fueled the boom in both commercial and
consumer markets, including electronics, communications, automotive, boating, aircraft,
appliances, construction, and even manufacturing and distribution. Interestingly,
the time taken to get products into the marketplace was longer than a lot of people
anticipated, and it caused consternation amongst those hoping to benefit...
 Since 2000, I have been creating custom
technology-themed crossword puzzles for the brain-exercising benefit
and pleasure of RF Cafe visitors who are fellow cruciverbalists. The jury is out
on whether or not this type of mental challenge helps keep your gray matter from
atrophying in old age, but it certainly helps maintain your vocabulary and cognitive
skills at all ages. A database of thousands of words has been built up over the
years and contains only clues and terms associated with engineering, science, physical,
astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, etc. You will never find a word taxing your knowledge
of a numbnut soap opera star or the name of some obscure village in the Andes mountains.
You might, however, encounter the name of a movie star like Hedy Lamarr or a geographical
location like Tunguska, Russia, for reasons which, if you don't already know, might
surprise you...
 This custom RF Cafe
electronics-themed crossword puzzle for May 7th contains words and clues which
pertain exclusively to the subjects of electronics, science, physics, mechanics,
engineering, power distribution, astronomy, chemistry, etc. If you do see names
of people or places, they are intimately related to the aforementioned areas of
study. Being that "G" is the 7th letter of the alphabet, it is used as the first
and/or last letter of many words in today's crossword puzzle. As always, you will
find no references to numbnut movie stars or fashion designers. Need more crossword
RF Cafe puzzles? A list at the bottom of the page links to hundreds of them dating
back to the year 2000. Enjoy.
 Most amateur operators know that
"YL" is Hamese for "young lady," meaning a female operator. Less well known
these days is "XYL" which decades ago, referred to an ex-young lady, implying either
an older woman or the wife of a Ham. According to the FCC's Universal Licensing
System (ULS) online call sign lookup service, Popular Electronics' poet laureate
K8AOU call sign is no longer assigned to anyone, so it's up for grabs. If there
is a YL out there wanting a notable call sign, this might be worthy of your consideration.
When I first posted this article in 2014 (it has been colorized and updated), the
call sign had been assigned to an OM ("old man;" i.e., male operator)...
 Mr. Lothar Stern, of Motorola Semi, published
a 3-part series on
transistor theory in Popular Electronics magazine in 1973. This is
part 1 (here is Part 2). By that time, transistors had pretty much replaced
vacuum tubes in all new electronic products - if you don't count cathode ray tubes
(CRTs) in televisions and some high power applications. Technical schools were still
teaching about vacuum tubes since there was a still a lot of legacy equipment that
needed to be maintained, and the main concentration had switched over to transistor
theory. 1973, the year I turned 15, is right around the time I began seriously delving
into the electrical and electronic realms as an eventual vocation. I distinctly
remember being bewildered and amazed the first time I was told, in a USAF classroom,
that a PN junction held to a fairly constant voltage (~0.7 V for silicon) regardless
of the current through it - within the specified operational range... |
