|
 Prior to the advent in 1963 of high frequency
solid state devices like
Gunn diodes, working at or above a couple GHz - even at low power - required
the use of cavity oscillators such as klystrons and magnetrons. They were bulky,
expensive, and electrically very inefficient. This 1969 Electronics World
magazine article outlines the theory of bulk oscillators as developed by Dr. John
A. Copeland, of Bell Labs, and points out the peculiarities of the LSA (limited
space-charge accumulation) mode that makes it possible to obtain 20 milliwatts
of power at 88 GHz. Use of gallium arsenide (GaAs) enabled designers to construct
receiver circuits into the mm-wave region without the need for klystrons, thereby
reducing cost, size, and power requirements...
 "Researchers have engineered a pioneering
material that harnesses unique spin-related properties by
twisting layers of graphene and tungsten selenide. This innovative technique
in the field of spintronics could revolutionize the development of advanced electronic
devices, enhancing the integration of magnetic memories into processors and overcoming
current limitations in handling spin currents. In conjunction with research staff
from the Charles University of Prague and the CFM (CSIC-UPV/EHU) center in San Sebastian,
CIC nanoGUNE's Nanodevices group has designed a new complex material..."
 The
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) traces its origins
to the late 19th century with the establishment of the American Institute of
Electrical Engineers (AIEE) in 1884, a time when the United States was rapidly
industrializing, and electricity was emerging as a transformative technology.
The AIEE was founded by some of the most notable figures in electrical science
and engineering, including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and others, as
a professional organization dedicated to advancing electrical engineering and
promoting the exchange of technical knowledge. The AIEE focused on the
burgeoning fields of telegraphy, electric power... (be sure to read about the
IEEE logo's meaning)
 LadyBug
Technologies' new
LBSF09A is a true RMS, high sensitivity, high accuracy RF & microwave power
sensor has frequency coverage from 1 MHz to 9 GHz and an 83 dB dynamic range
making ideal for EMC applications, general purpose average power and scalar
measurements. The sensor features a fast measurement speed, a broad dynamic
range, and the widest set of options for programmatic and embedded applications
in the industry. The sensor is useful in research & development, manufacturing &
service applications including radar, satellite, and telecommunications.
LadyBug's PMA-12 Power Meter Software is included with each sensor. The software
provides full control of the sensor's functions from basic setup to triggering,
logging, offset tables, and more. The software package also includes an
Interactive IO program with...
 The newest addition to RF Cafe's spreadsheet
(Excel) based engineering and science calculator -
Espresso
Engineering Workbook™ (click to download) is a
collection of surface area and volume calculators for many geometric solids. RF Cafe
Espresso Engineering Workbook™ is provided at no cost, compliments of my generous
sponsors. All of the original calculators from years ago are included, but with
a vastly expanded and improved user interface. Error-trapped user input cells help
prevent entry of invalid values. An extensive use of Visual Basic for Applications
(VBA) functions now do most of the heavy lifting with calculations, and facilitates
a wide user-selectable choice of units for voltage, frequency, speed, temperature,
power...
 Two somewhat clichéd sayings come to mind
when reading this 1962 Radio-Electronics magazine article on
cathode emission research: "A picture is worth a thousand words," and "settled
science" is only a temporary thing. Author Dr. Aurelius Sandor was in on the
early (1930's) research of cathode rays, having been a (younger) contemporary of
Hans Geiger, of the eponymously named counter fame. Basic assumptions and practices
applied by researchers for two decades inhibited investigations into alternate means
of generating, controlling, and displaying fine detail of millimicron features.
The techniques presented here...
 Hans Wilhelm Geiger, born on September 30,
1882, in Neustadt an der Weinstraße, Germany, is best known for inventing the Geiger
counter, a pivotal device in the field of nuclear physics for detecting ionizing
radiation. He grew up in an intellectually stimulating environment, as his father,
Wilhelm Ludwig Geiger, was a prominent philologist and professor at the University
of Erlangen, where he specialized in Indo-European languages. His mother, Hedwig
Geiger (née Höhler), also came from a well-educated family, and together his parents
fostered a household where academic inquiry was highly valued. Geiger's childhood
was marked by a strong sense of discipline and a keen interest in scientific exploration.
He attended secondary school in Erlangen, where his father had taken a professorship,
and developed an early passion for mathematics and physics. This passion guided...
• FCC to Refund
Rural 5G Connectivity Program
• NC
Flood Victim Quartz Supplier to Recover in 3 months
• Huawei
Explores Use of 5G RedCap
• Is Intel
Too Big to Fail?
•
ARRL Club Grants Will Be Awarded in November
 Akin to how the National Company ran a long
series (a couple hundred altogether) of infomercial type ads in the ARRL's QST magazine
from the 1930s through the 1950s, Mallory had its "Tips
for Technicians" run in Electronics World (and maybe other electronics magazines
of the era). Being a major capacitor manufacturer, its ads featured brief tutorials
on various types of capacitors, their characteristics, and how they should be used
in circuits - both for new design and when replacing capacitors in existing equipment...
 Werbel Microwave is a manufacturer of RF
directional and bidirectional couplers (6 dB to 50 dB) and RF power dividers
/ combiners (2- to 16-way) with select models operating up to 26.5 GHz and
100 W of CW power (3 kW peak). All are RoHS and REACH compliant and are
designed and manufactured in our Whippany, NJ, location. Custom products and private
label service available. Please take a couple minutes to visit their website and
see how Werbel Microwave can help you today.
 Charles Babbage, born on December 26, 1791,
in London, England, was one of the foremost mathematicians and inventors of the
19th century, best known for his pioneering work on the concept of a programmable
computer. He was the son of Benjamin Babbage, a banker, and Betsy Plumleigh Teape,
who hailed from a relatively affluent family. His upbringing was comfortable, allowing
him access to an education that would later foster his intellectual pursuits. His
father's wealth enabled Charles to attend some of the finest schools of the time,
although his formal education started somewhat later than usual due to early childhood
illness. Babbage's schooling began at a local academy in Alphington and later at
the King Edward VI Grammar School in Totnes, Devon. He was a highly curious child...
 "Yesterday, NASA successfully launched the
Europa Clipper, the largest spacecraft the agency has ever built for a planetary
mission. Clipper is now successfully on its multi-year journey to Europa, bristling
with equipment to study the Jovian moon's potential to support life - but just a
few months ago, the mission was almost doomed. In July, researchers at NASA found
out that a group of Europa Clipper's
transistors would fail under
Jupiter's extreme radiation levels. They spent months testing devices, updating
their flight trajectories, and ultimately adding a warning “canary box” to monitor
the effects of radiation as..."
 The October issue of Electronics World
magazine included many articles written by
printed circuit board (PCB) industry leaders regarding the state of the art.
Multi-layer PCB technology was still in its infancy at the time, with most prototype
and production boards being 1- or 2-sided. As with the switch from vacuum tubes
to transistors, there were hold-outs who resisted the change to PCBs - for good
reason in some cases. A list of advantages and disadvantages is presented both for
and against, respectively, use of printed circuit boards. One of the biggest advantages
to point-to-point wiring (i.e., in the PCB disadvantage list) was that circuit modifications
in production was more easily accommodated, unless the change was simply...
 Along with the advent of FM (frequency modulation)
radio came an entirely new variety of
antenna shapes and configurations, compared to primarily a simple long, straight
wire for AM (amplitude modulation) radio antennas. Amateur radio operators (Hams)
of course had been designing, tuning, and using such antennas (as FM) for decades,
but the average radio listener was facing a whole new world of options for getting
the most out of his receiver. It is not that AM radio cannot benefit by similar
antenna configurations, it is just that the relatively long wavelength of AM station
frequencies (540 to 1,700 kHz) compared to FM station frequencies (88 to 108 MHz)
represents a two-order-of-magnitude...
 "Researchers have developed a novel
graphene-germanium hot-emitter transistor using a new hot carrier generation
mechanism, achieving unprecedented performance. This advancement opens new possibilities
for low-power, high-performance multifunctional devices. Transistors, the fundamental
components of integrated circuits, encounter increasing difficulties as their size
continues to shrink. To boost circuit performance, it has become essential to develop
transistors that operate on innovative principles. Hot carrier transistors, which
harness the extra kinetic energy of charge carriers, offer the potential to enhance
transistor speed and functionality..."
 When this was originally published, it was
Labor Day in the USA, so most people were off work (which seems antithetical to
the "labor" part of the holiday name). For those unfortunate enough to be at work,
here is a bit of vintage electronic comic relief from a 1969 Electronics World
magazine for your office-bound condition. Actually, during my years of working for
someone else, I used to work the holidays (except Christmas) if I could get another
day off instead. With very few managers around, those of us at work would enjoy
what we termed "IPV," or "In-Plant-Vacation." Very little work got done on those
days, and lunches and break-times were pretty long. I was always surprised the scheme
never caught on more widely...
 Exodus Advanced Communications, is a multinational
RF communication equipment and engineering service company serving both commercial
and government entities and their affiliates worldwide. We are pleased to announce
the model
AMP2083P-2KW solid state pulse amplifier (SSPA) is designed for Pulse/HIRF,
EMC/EMI Mil-Std 461/464 and radar applications in the C-band, 4.0-8.0 GHz frequency
band. Providing superb pulse fidelity and up to 100 μsec pulse widths. Duty
cycles to 6% with a minimum 63 dB gain. Available monitoring parameters for
Forward/Reflected power in watts & dBm, VSWR, voltage, current, temperature
sensing for outstanding reliability and ruggedness in a compact...
 By the time most of us who even remember
cathode ray tubes (CRTs) were first introduced to them, the technology and manufacturing
processes had been pretty much perfected - especially for the standard 525-line
(or 625-line outside the U.S.) resolution type. The National Television System Committee
(NTSC) published a standard for black and white (B&W) television in 1941 and
then for color in 1953. This "Picture Tubes" article in a 1955 issue of Popular
Electronics provides a look inside a CRT manufacturing plant at General Electric.
For some reason the photos in the magazine were very poor quality (maybe for secrecy).
If you want one of the best explanations I have ever seen on how a TV picture scan
is implemented, check out this video entitled
What is 525-Line Analog Video? If you don't understand raster scanning after
watching it, you never will. You might be surprised to learn that there were not
actually 525 lines of picture information...
 The March 1962 "News Briefs" feature in
Radio-Electronics magazine was chock full of interesting developments.
Space flight was a big deal in the day, not that it isn't today, but the difference
is everything about it was new then. Fundamental technology was in the process of
being developed, and then continual improvements would be made during the ensuing
decades until we get to where we are today with a permanent presence of men in orbit,
interplanetary science probes, space-borne telescopes, Earth environment sensors,
and space weapons, and thousands of active
communications satellites. The sky is awash with manmade objects. In other news,
satellite TV was quickly gaining in capability (including live transmissions and,
gasp, "Living Color" per NBC)...
 The distinction between
direct conversion, heterodyne, and superheterodyne receivers represents a significant
evolution in radio technology. Each type of receiver plays a crucial role in the
development of modern communications, and their invention marks important milestones
in the history of radio engineering. To understand these differences, we will explore
the invention history, technical descriptions, and practical implementations of
each type, including their inventors, patents, and notable applications. A direct
conversion receiver (also known as a "zero-IF receiver") represents the simplest
type of radio architecture. It was first conceptualized in the early 20th century
as a way to simplify radio designs by eliminating the intermediate frequency (IF)
stage...
 Dealing with the problem of
lightning strikes was of concern long before electronic equipment needed to
be protected from its effects. Fires that were the result of lightning have always
been a problem in nature, but they were really catastrophic to civilization once
cities crowded with close-quartered wooden buildings became the norm. Benjamin Franklin
observed that when the many lightning-induced fires of Philadelphia were sparked
(pun intended), it was almost always the tallest structures in the area that were
hit. Those fire often spread to neighboring buildings and burned down entire city
blocks. It was a devastating and frequency...
 "By observing
spintronic magnetic tunnel junctions in real-time, researchers found these devices
fail at unexpectedly low temperatures, offering valuable insights for improving
future electronic designs. Next-Generation Electronics Degradation A new study led
by researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities is providing new insights
into how next-generation electronics, including memory components in computers,
breakdown or degrade over time. Understanding the reasons for degradation could
help improve efficiency of data storage solutions. The research is published in
ACS Nano, a peer-reviewed scientific journal and is featured on the cover..."
 Arthur C. Clarke's writings and contributions
to science are vast and influential, intertwining his imaginative narratives with
profound scientific concepts. Clarke is credited with proposing the idea of
geostationary
satellites in a paper he published in the October 1945 issue of Wireless World
magazine. Titled "Extra-Terrestrial Relays: Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio
Coverage?," he described the concept of using a network of geostationary satellites
to provide global radio coverage. Geostationary satellites are satellites that orbit
the Earth at the same rate as the Earth rotates, so they appear to stay in the same
place in the sky relative to a fixed point on the Earth's surface. This makes them
ideal for telecommunications and broadcasting, as they can provide constant coverage
of a particular area without the need for multiple satellites or complicated ground
infrastructure...
 Here we go with three new "What's
Your EQ?" challenges from the July 1961 issue of Radio-Electronics
magazine. Readers submit the problems, which typically involve creating a circuit
to perform a specified function, or determining how a given circuit works. The first
of these is more of a puzzle, since the author shows you how to go about arriving
at the answer. Since incandescent light bulbs are not overly familiar to a lot of
people these days, it might be to the advantage of pre-Millennials who grew up using
them and are acquainted with their properties. The second is an old-fashioned Black
Box challenge that some readers will solve without much...
 "Japanese operator SoftBank announced that
the Sunglaider, its large-scale solar-powered uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) designed
for
High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) stratospheric telecommunications, was
utilized in a field trial conducted by AeroVironment and the U.S. DoD in New Mexico,
the U.S. During the trial, carried out in early August, Sunglider succeeded in achieving
stratospheric flight, the Japanese operator said. With a wingspan of 78 meters and
the capability to carry payloads weighing up to 75kg, the Sunglider is larger than
other publicly announced HAPS UAS..."
 Monday (any day, for that matter) is a good
day for Carl and Jerry stories, Mac's Electronics Service Shop sagas, Hobnobbing
with Harbaugh, electronics-themed comics, electronics quizzes, and other forms of
nerd entertainment. Here is another of Robert P. Balin's great challenges titled,
"Diagram
Quiz," this one from a 1966 issue of Popular Electronics magazine.
Most RF Cafe visitors will easily identify eight or nine of the ten diagrams. Relatively
few will be familiar with the Rieke diagram (hint: power amplifier designers will
know about it). The Biasing diagram is a bit misnamed IMHO, and could cause confusion...
 Anatech Electronics offers the industry's
largest portfolio of high-performance standard and customized RF and microwave filters
and filter-related products for military, commercial, aerospace and defense, and
industrial applications up to 40 GHz. Three new ceramic bandpass filters have
been announced for October 2024 - a 2275 MHz center frequency filter with a
bandwidth of 250 MHz, a 2275 MHz center frequency filter with a bandwidth
of 250 MHz, and a 6245 MHz center frequency filter with a bandwidth of
360 MHz. Custom RF power filter and directional couplers designs can be designed
and produced with required connector types when a standard cannot be found, or the
requirements are such that a custom approach is necessary.
 When you read this 1963 Electronics
World magazine article's title, I doubt you immediately assumed it would be
about a vacuum tube circuit, or even one that uses discrete transistors to implement
the circuit. Rather you most likely though it would be about an integrated circuit
(IC).
Operational amplifiers (opamp) are building blocks characterized (ideally) by
their infinite input impedance, zero output impedance, infinite open-loop bandwidth
and gain, zero input offset voltage, amongst other defined parameters. The first
commercially produced integrated circuit (IC) opamp came to market in 1964 via Fairchild
Semiconductor (the µA702, brainchild of Bob Widlar)...
 Nickel-cadmium (NiCad) batteries have a
long and significant history in energy storage, with their invention attributed
to Swedish engineer Waldemar Jungner in 1899. Jungner's work laid the foundation
for an electrochemical power source based on nickel oxide hydroxide and cadmium,
leading to the development of the rechargeable NiCad battery. It was a pioneering
breakthrough because it represented one of the earliest forms of rechargeable energy
storage systems. This battery technology found widespread use in various industries
due to its robust performance and ability to be recharged multiple times. At its
core, the chemistry of NiCad batteries involves the reaction between cadmium (the
negative electrode) and nickel oxide hydroxide (the positive electrode), with potassium
hydroxide as the electrolyte. During...
 These two
tech-themed comics from the September 1969 issue of Electronics World
magazine are pretty good. I especially like the one where the guy's wife entered
his printed circuit board layout in an art contest. PCBs were just starting to gain
momentum in production electronics as they replaced the old point-to-point wiring
method. Also popular in that era was high fidelity stereo equipment. Owning a system
with speakers that operated from 1 Hz through 30 to 40 kHz was major evidence
of an audiophile's technical savvy, even though the human ear con only detect frequencies
in the 30 Hz to 20 kHz range. Dogs can hear frequencies up into the 45 kHz
range. Porpoises can hear up to 150 kHz. A ferret can hear from 16 Hz...
 TotalTemp Technologies offers advanced
and innovative methods for meeting and optimizing your thermal testing requirements.
We specialize in benchtop thermal testing because small batches are typically the
most cost-effective approach. We offer heat transfer by conduction with thermal
platforms, forced convection as in traditional temperature chambers, combined systems,
and thermal vacuum for Space Simulation.
Thermal testing of Traveling Wave Tube Amplifiers and other devices with dramatically
uneven power dissipation can easily be achieved with a dual zone thermal platform.
Managing the heat produced by the electron gun side allows for the RF outputs side
to be tested at various required temperatures. The Dual Zone Thermal Platforms allows
the user to maintain safe controlling...
• Ham
Radio Serving Southeast U.S. Recovery Efforts
• Radio
"A Godsend for So Many" in Helene's Aftermath
• Estate
Planning for Hams
• Intel's Woes Damaging
U.S. Chip Indpendence
• Is
Gen-Z Low Car Ownership a Threat to Radio? (they
can't afford cars due to massive inflation - not because they don't want a car)
 Amrad, American Radio & Research Corporation,
was based in Medford Hillside, Massachusetts and was founded in 1915 with funds
from J. Pierpont Morgan. The company's first manager, Harold James Power, was an
amateur radio enthusiast and built a research laboratory. In 1916, Amrad made its
first broadcast to J. Pierpont Morgan Jr., who was aboard the ocean liner "Philadelphia."
Amrad received orders for military radio equipment during World War I, but discontinued
these orders after the war ended. To keep the company afloat, Amrad produced items
such as electric egg beaters and cigar lighters. In 1919, Amrad was awarded a contract
to make 400 SE1420 receivers, and it began advertising components for amateur radio
enthusiasts...
 This "Which
Dry Battery for You" article is a follow-on from the previous month's "Dry Cell
Battery Types" in Radio-Electronics magazine. It was a time long before the dominance
of rechargeable lithium batteries. In 1963, battery-powered devices were nowhere
near as widespread and diverse as they are nowadays. Hand tools like drills, saws,
routers, planers, and screwdrivers got their power either from a wall outlet or
the user's arm and hand muscles. Lawn mowers, grass and hedge trimmers, chain saws,
and snow blowers were powered mostly by gasoline, although some models plugged into
the wall. Those devices which did use batteries most often had no built-in...
 "Researchers have developed a new architecture
for optical computing called
diffraction casting, offering power-efficient processing by using light waves.
This method promises better integration and flexibility for high-performance computing
tasks and could be used in fields like AI and machine learning. As artificial intelligence
and other complex applications demand ever more powerful and energy-intensive computers,
optical computing emerges as a promising solution to enhance speed and power efficiency.
However, its practical application has faced numerous challenges..."
 The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was established
in 1946 as a result of the Atomic Energy Act, signed into law by President Harry
S. Truman. This legislative decision marked the United States' formal entry into
managing and controlling atomic energy, a rapidly advancing field that had been
essential in concluding World War II through the development and use of nuclear
weapons. The AEC was conceived to handle not only military applications of atomic
energy but also to develop peaceful uses, such as energy production, medical research,
and industrial applications. The creation of the AEC emerged from the Manhattan
Project, the secret wartime effort to develop atomic bombs. The Manhattan Project
brought together prominent scientists like J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi,
and Niels Bohr. After the war, however, the question arose...
|
 In the days before people were so easily
offended by light-hearted poking, it was not uncommon to find magazine articles
written by the wives of hobbyist husbands lamenting the habits and proclivities
of their matrimonial mates. Over the years I have read many such treatises in model
and full-scale airplane, electronics, and Ham radio publications. As with "A
Radioman's Wife Puts in a Good Word" from a 1951 issue of Radio-Electronics,
they typically start by expressing frustration of having lost their once-doting
husbands to alternative loves in the form of hobbies (I once saw a boat named "The
Other Woman"). Determined to win back the devotion of their sweethearts, they make
a sincere attempt to learn about and be part of whatever hobby or hobbies is/are
the cause of abandonment of wife and children. It usually doesn't take long for
Friend Wife, as Popular Electronics' Carl Kohler addresses his better half, to decide
that try as she may, engendering a sufficient...
 Collins Radio Company (later on Rockwell Collins
and now Collins Aerospace) has been around since 1933. Like the vast majority of
U.S. companies during the World War II era, they - management and employees - took
great pride in doing their part for the war effort. Unlike today, when a relatively
few people actually know someone on active duty in the armed forces, workers were
very likely to have a brother, son, father, or husband in the service. Here is an
advertisement that I scanned out of my copy of the April 1945 QST
magazine. It mentions that many of the employees are amateur radio operators.
During the war, a call went out for surplus equipment from all sources,
including amateurs, so some sacrificed their personal equipment for the good...
 Are you a project builder? If so, then you
probably make a point of reading
hints and tips offered by fellow do-it-yourselfers. Even with the ready availability
of just about anything you need already pre-manufactured, there are still times
that you either just want to figure out a better way of doing something or happen
to have a challenge that does not have a solution that can be purchased from a catalog
or on eBay. I have posted a few DIYer features from some of the vintage electronics
magazines, many of which are still relevant, or might at least give you an idea
for how to accomplish your goal...
 This
passive
limiter is a simple combination of cascaded "T" type resistive attenuators that
are switched in and out of the circuit based on the power level in the line. The
design takes a bit of thinking due to needing to retain a reasonable impedance match
at the input and output throughout various stages' conduction states. Arriving at
an optimal value for resistors would require a circuit simulator with a mathematically
based optimizer, but, especially for amateur radio work, close is good enough. That
is not to say Hams are a bunch of slackers - they're not - it's just that component
and software resources are not as readily available (aka "prohibitively expensive")
for doing the analysis and testing. In 1966 when this article was published, software
did not even exist for people without access to university or corporate computers.
For most users these days, it is cheaper to buy a limiter for 2- to 3-score dollars...
 As with my hundreds of previous
science and engineering-themed crossword puzzles, this one for March 8, 2020,
contains only clues and terms associated with engineering, science, physical, astronomy,
mathematics, chemistry, etc., which I have built up over nearly two decades. Many
new words and company names have been added that had not even been created when
I started in the year 2002. 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.
 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+ 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...
 "Micro" as applied to electronics is relative,
depending on which decade you reference. In the 1940s, a micro-size electronic assembly
might have included "peanut" vacuum tubes and even some sort of printed circuit
board. That was a huge step down in size from standard size tubes with point-to-point
wiring between tube sockets and solder lugs on switches, potentiometers, variable
capacitors, etc. Fixed value leaded resistors, capacitors, and inductors, and transformer
wires connected to those lugs as well as to many terminal strips installed specifically
for making connections. Once transistors came on the scene in the 1950s, a new round
of
miniaturization took place based on not just a significantly smaller size of
solid state transistors and diodes, but their lower voltage and current requirements
meant ancillary components could be made smaller as well due to lower voltage...
 According
to a 2001 paper published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST, formerly National Bureau of Standards, NBS), "The end of the era of quartz
frequency standards began in 1949 with the development at NBS of the world's first
atomic frequency standard based on an ammonia absorption line at 23.87 GHz."
Further, "The Bureau supported work on both technologies for the next decade, but
the rapid advances in the accuracy of atomic frequency standards could not be matched
by
quartz devices, and the work on quartz frequency standards was
stopped in 1959." This article from a 1957 edition of Popular Electronics
claims that the "master of all master-clocks" resided at the U.S. Naval Observatory
at the time - not quite accurate from what my research indicates ...
 The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of
the eleventh month - November 11th, at 11:00 am - that is when the armistice (cease
fire) began in 1918, unofficially ending World War I. This music video
Veteran's Day tribute is by Canadian citizen
Terry Kelly. It was written after an experience he had on Veterans Day in 1999.
Terry went blind at an early age, but has excelled as an athlete and a musician.
"A Pittance of Time" is done in the finest Celtic tradition. Per the U.S. Department
of Veteran Affairs website: "World War I – known at the time as 'The Great War'
- officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in
the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting
ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities,
between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of
the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally
regarded as the end of 'the war to end all wars...'"
 Mac McGregor, owner of
Mac's Radio Service Shop, can always be counted on to provide
his apprentice technician, Barney, with a lesson from his own life-long attendance
at the School of Hard Knocks. Barney is your stereotypical young buck whose level
of seriousness needs occasional alignment, just as do the radio and television sets
he services. In this episode, I can't find where Mac actually solved the intermittent
electrical condition believed to be causing the problem - weird. The "Mac's Radio
Service Shop" series ran in Radio & Television News magazine for many
years prior to a similar electronics story series called "Carl & Jerry" that
appeared in Popular Electronics. Both were created by consummate storyteller
John T. Frye.
 This
Radio Technology Theme crossword puzzle for January 17th contains
only words and clues related to engineering, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and
other technical words. 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., Hedy Lamarr or the
Bikini Atoll). The technically inclined cruciverbalists amongst us will appreciate
the effort. Enjoy!
 I checked out the printed circuit board maze
and, as implied, all those beginning paths lead to $. RCA (Radio
Corporation of America), along with other companies like NRI (National Radio Institute),
CIE (Cleveland Institute of Electronics, all had a unique angle. Every company attempts
to pique interest in its products and/or service by creating buzzwords such as,
in RCA's case,
AUTOTEXT. AUTOTEXT is "a system of programmed instructions, a
method of learning proved with thousands of students. This beginning source in electronics
is accurately planned so that as you read a series of statements, questions, and
answers, you learn almost without realizing it. It's fast! It's easy! It's fun!"
Learning by osmosis. What more could an aspiring technician ask for?...
 According to an FCC document "11th Annual
Report, Federal Communications Commission, Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1945," Chapter
VIII - War Activities, "The
Radio Intelligence Division, established in 1940 to give America wartime protection
from misuse of the ether lanes by spies or other illegal operators, discovered
46 unlicensed stations during the fiscal year, investigated 1,445 complaints of
suspicious transmission and of interference. These complaints were received from
the general public, commercial communication companies, Government agencies, and
the military. During the year, the RID furnished fixes to 283 planes which were
in distress. A total of 996 requests for assistance of all types to planes was received.
The RID took 85,031 bearings. A number of alerts originated totaled 25,000. This
figure represents the number of instances in which an origination was made by each
monitoring station equipped with long-range, high-frequency direction-finding facilities
for the purpose of obtaining synchronized bearings from a net of direction...
 If you think the ISM (Industrial,
Scientific, and Medical) unlicensed bands were a relatively new spectrum allocation,
you might find this 1960 Electronics World news piece interesting. Individual
countries generally acknowledge the ISM emissions specifications set forth by the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU), which created the bands in 1947. The 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz,
and 5.8 GHz WiFi bands are well known to most people. 24 GHz is gaining traction
as current spectrum gets more and more crowded and high bandwidth data channels are needed.
Interestingly, the first few ISM bands are integer harmonics of the lowest (6.78 MHz,
center of band 1). To wit: 2 * 6.78 = 13.56 MHz (band 2), 4 * 6.78 = 2 * 13.56 =
27.12 MHz (band 3), 6 * 6.78 = 2 * 13.56 = 40.68 MHz (band 4)...
 RF Cafe visitor Cris Schulze saw the Design
News article I linked to titled, "EMI Emissions Testing: Peak, Quasi-Peak, and Average Measurements,"
and has given permission to reprint his brief response to it (originally posted
on LinkedIn). The included notebook image includes an excerpt from Wikipedia's quasi-peak
detector page, and he illustrates a block diagram of the test chain with de Forest's
audion circuit that provides the fast rise-time and slow fall-time that characterizes
it. A table of actual test data compares quasi-peak measurements to average measurements...
 This is the first article I have posted from a
magazine called, simply, Electronics. It is very different from all the other
vintage electronics magazines I have used in the past. Electronics is much more
focused on military, space, and fundamental research. New issues were published bi-weekly
by McGraw-Hill from 1930 until 1988. About half the editions (this is not one of
them) had two to three times as many pages as the other half, with most of the extra
pages being advertisements. The publishers must have made a fortune on advertising revenue.
My guess is that the vast majority of the companies appearing in the early 1960s issues
I bought on eBay do not exist anymore, having either gone out of business or having been
acquired by bigger...
 If you believe this 1953 advertisement in
Radio & Television News magazine, engineering at Bell Telephone Laboratories
invented the
wire-wrapping process. A little additional research shows that indeed it
was a Bell Telephone engineering team led by Arthur Keller who developed the
method and a wire-wrap tool to do the job. Field technician needed a fast,
durable, and reliable electrical connection when making hundreds or thousands of
splices at relay stations and while up on telephone poles. The key to making a
good wire-wrap connection is sharp corners on the wrapping post so that the
corner pushes through any oxidation or contaminant on the bare wire. NASA and
the DoD have exacting workmanship standards to guarantee...
 Raise your hand if you have ever owned a
CB (Citizens Band) radio. Waaaaay back before everyone carried a cellphone (pre-late-1990s),
the most common form of
unlicensed communication was CB radio. Actually, up through the mid 1970s you
were supposed to purchase a license from the FCC, although no test was required
as it was for amateur radio. My first CB was a 23 channel job that I installed in
my 1969 Chevy Camaro SS, during my senior year in Southern Senior High School.
It was right in the middle of big CB radio craze with CW McCall's "Convoy" song
topping the U.S. Billboard charts. My self-appointed 'handle' was "RC Flyer." Most
people had no idea what it referred to (radio-controlled model airplanes). Now that
all cellphones use internal antennas, almost nobody even thinks of them as being
radios. CB radios reminded you of their true nature by requiring that a 1/4-wave
vertical antenna (typically with a loading coil to keep it shorter than its 27 MHz
operational frequency...
 When I originally tagged this Electronics
magazine article for posting, it was before Golden State Warriors guard Stephen
Curry tapped into his immense cerebral power to inform us all that NASA has been
faking its accomplishments in space - notably all the moon landings. Now, based
on such unimpeachable authority, I'm not so sure this story should even be posted,
lest it potentially perpetuate a long-running ruse. In the manner of contemporary
news pieces reporting on criminal activity while avoiding legal claims of libel
or character assassination, please mentally preface all of the claims here with
"alleged" or "allegedly." The world's first successful spacecraft rendezvous, accomplished
by
Gemini 6 and Gemini 7, happened on December 15, 1965.
Both astronaut crews participated in many communications experiments that included
radio, visual, and laser media...
 Radio-controlled flying drones are commonplace
today - so much so that the FAA has enacted legislation to strictly limit who can
fly them, where they can be flown, how big they can be, what type of payloads can
be carried, how far from the pilot they can be flown, etc. - the typical kind of
overreaching and overregulating that governments promulgate (especially in the last
few years). Sport model airplane flying has suffered loss of freedoms because of
it by getting lumped in with multirotor drones. The military, of course, has been
using radio-controlled drones for decades, as highlighted in this 1945 Radio-Craft
magazine article. Author Louis Bruchiss extolls the advantages of being able to
guide an ordinance payload after being released from an aircraft of after being
launched from the ground. Even vehicles like the German V-2 rocket with its gyroscopically
stabilized guidance...
 Jules Antoine
Lissajous was a French mathematician who in the days before oscilloscopes concerned
himself with patterns (waveforms) that would be generated as the result of two separate
functions (signals) driving both the x- and y-axes. Lissajous used mechanical vibration
devices connected to mirrors to bounce light beams onto a projection surface, so
his results were not merely hand-drawn plots on graph paper. He was probably as
mesmerized with them as we are today when they appear. Sci-fi movies have used Lissajous
patterns in the background to 'wow' the audience into thinking it is witnessing
futuristic, cutting-edge technology. When troubleshooting analog circuits, it is
very advantageous to have seen and recognize many different types of waveforms so
that you have a better chance of picking out patterns ...
 Audio crossover networks have the same fundamental
mission as RF multiplexer filters in radio systems, which is to separate and steer
specific bands of frequencies into two or more signal paths. While simple in concept,
implementation in hardware can be a major challenge depending on requirements for
channel separation, feedthrough, phase and group delay, amplitude equalization,
distortion, and other factors. This article discusses some of the decisions used
by crossover network designers when considering where to make band breaks, while
leaving actual circuit design rules to other authors. I built a set of custom speakers
many moons ago and went through the frustrating process of deciding where to place
the breaks and which speakers to use...
 One of the best ways to learn about how something
work is to build and operate it yourself. This article from a 1974 issue of Popular
Electronics magazine presents a
voice scrambler that exploits a simple spectral inversion technique to create
a mirror image of the original voice spectrum. Spectral inversion occurs whenever
the difference frequency is taken during a mixing process, so that low frequencies
are translated to the high end of the band and high frequencies are translated to
the lower end of the band. The result in the case of audio (voice) is garbled sounding
speech. It is probably the simplest form of scrambling that is easily unscrambled,
but it serves as a good learning tool ...
 Here is installment #3 of the four sets of reader
submissions of inane remarks (ostensibly) uttered by
electronics-challenged nincompoops. One of the funniest - and even believable - is
about 300-ohm twin lead antenna wire flattening out the picture with color television.
If you have funny anecdotes you would like to have published, send them to me and I'll
be glad to add a few seconds to your lifetime allotment of 15 minutes of fame...
 Here is an editorial excerpt from a 1965
issue of Electronics magazine that could be from a contemporary news publication:
"If U. S. manufacturers continue to abandon their engineering and production for
Japanese products, they are headed for oblivion because they cannot
compete with the purely merchandising organizations such as Sears, Roebuck &
Co. and Montgomery Ward* which buy Japanese products too." Of course you could easily
substitute South Korea, China, Taiwan, or any other now-prominent technology company
in place of Japan. American economic "experts" assured us in the 1990s that we no
longer needed to manufacture anything; rather, we would become a service and retail
economy. That worked out real well, eh?...
 The neighborhood where I grew up in the 1960s
and 1970s was about 25 to 30 miles from the "big three" network television broadcast
stations (ABC, CBS, NBC) in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. That is considered a
fairly long distance in the over-the-air TV realm. Knowing what I know now, I am
somewhat surprised that those in our area were able to receive programs as well
as we did when all the homes I recall had just a single, standard multi-element
antenna on the roof. If anyone had stacked, phased array setups like this
Finco Co-Lateral TV Antenna installed, I certainly do not remember any. Most
of the antennas in Holly Hill Harbor and the surrounding communities did not even
have an antenna rotator, yet evidently were pulling in signals satisfactorily -
and without needing to be mounted on a tall tower. That said, about the time I was
16 years old and was seriously into adopting any and all technology I could afford
(which wasn't much), I took it upon myself to add an Alliance Tenna-Rotor to my
parents' rooftop antenna...
 So much time has passed since an average
home garage mechanic could service his car or truck with standard tools - combination
wrenches, screwdrivers, socket sets, timing light, and a multimeter - that asking
"remember when?" is passé. That era pretty much ended in the late 1980s as computerized
cars were becoming the industry norm. A good percentage of people nowadays have
never and will never service their own vehicles. In the mid 1940s, the electronics
world was lamenting a similar situation with diminishing ability to build and modify
electronic components like coils and stacked plate capacitors because of the increasingly
higher frequencies being used in communications (way up into the UHF band!). This
article introduces the
klystron tube, having been around for less than a decade at the time, as being
one of the culprits that was enabling the disturbing trend...
 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...
Longtime RF Cafe visitor, electrical engineer, and occasional contributor Alan H.
Dewey sent me a note yesterday saying a book for which he helped provide a large amount
of research data has been published by authors Iain Dey and Douglas Buck. "The Cryotron Files:
How the Inventor of the Microchip Put Himself in the KGB's Sights," is an
extensive delve into the background of Dr. Dudley Allen Buck, whose son,
Douglas, conducted an extensive investigation into his father's mysterious death
that happened to coincide with the death of his colleague and two other
scientists just days after being visited by Soviet computer experts. Dr. Buck
was a superconductivity researcher during his short, highly productive life. A
cryotron, BTW, is a superconducting switch that would make for very low power
supercomputers if it could be made practical in IC form...
 The announcement of the
merging of Radio-Craft and Radio & Television magazines
into a single publication was made on the eve of America's entrance into World War II.
Knowing the visionary talents of publisher Hugo Gernsback, he probably did so at
least partly due to what could be predicted as a severe contraction of the domestic
electronics appliance market once the war machine gears began cranking. It turns
out that he was in fact prescient, because history shows that the government did
direct all critical production to military equipment. Buying a new model radio,
television, washing machine, and to some extent car grew increasingly difficult
from about 1942 through 1945... |
