|
 The December 1969 issue of
Radio-Electronics magazine's "New & Timely" column reported that at the
National Electronic Association conference,
technicians reported burns and eye damage caused by X-radiation from color TV
sets under repair. Night vision scopes for commercial use were introduced by
Raytheon, suitable for law enforcement, industrial security, and nature study. A
joint U.S.-Indian plan planned to beam TV directly to millions of Indian
villagers via a stationary applications satellite in 1972. The French Atomic
Energy Commission used a superpowerful laser to create minute thermonuclear
explosions, fusing deuterium...
 Anatech Electronics offers the
industry's largest portfolio of high-performance standard and customized
RF and microwave filters and filter-related products for military,
commercial, aerospace and defense, and industrial applications up to
40 GHz. Three new filter models have been added to the product line in April,
including a 5500 MHz WiFi cavity bandpass filter, a 3437-3537 MHz ceramic
duplexer filter, and a 1425 MHz cavity bandpass filter. 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...
 This article published in a 1955 issue of
Popular Electronics magazine is a really good primer on the history and
working principles of the
electron microscope. It also explains why such a device is needed;
i.e., why an optical microscope cannot do the job when really high levels of magnification
are required. As object dimensions are spaced at distances near to or less than
the optical wavelength being observed, it becomes impossible to resolve into separate
features. Accordingly, when observing at the upper end of the visible light spectrum
at around 400 nm, under ideal conditions you would not be able to clearly discern
two feature less than about 800 nm apart. Current (2019) CMOS gate thicknesses
run about 5 μm, so visible light cannot be used to image those structures.
Another resolution limiting factor is aperture size, which, depending on the wavelength
causes diffraction patterns of two objects to overlap...
 If you are a seasoned vintage electronics
equipment aficionado, restorer, hobbyist, etc., then you most likely already have
your own list of supply sources for vacuum tubes. Contrary to what others might
think, there is still a healthy stock of tubes available from private websites like
Pacific T.V. (hat tip to Bob Davis), as well
as collective sites like eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and vintage electronic
equipment forums. Prices for common tubes are surprisingly low if you shop around.
If you need an output power amplifier for a commercial radio station, be prepared
to shell out major wampum, though. Many NOS (new old stock) varieties in original
boxes can be had, as well as used tubes. Most have been tested for specification
compliance.
 Westinghouse is yet another bulwark company
of America's foundational industrial age, beginning in the late 19th Century. George
Westinghouse founded eponymously-named company,
Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, in 1886, during the time
he was working with Nikola Tesla (I wonder whether any of the current-day anti-Tesla
nimrods are stupid enough to vandalize NT statues and monuments?) to institute a
commercial electrification infrastructure. Mr. Westinghouse began his life
of fame and fortune with a locomotive air brake design. During World War II,
Westinghouse's many locations designed and manufactured many types of products to
facilitate troops in all Theaters of Operation. This 1943 issue of Popular Mechanics
magazine carried a full-page...
 This set of three circuit analysis challenges
appeared in the January 1963 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine. Readers,
staff, and even come companies submitted the "What's
Your EQ?" (EQ = Electronics Quotient) content. As an example of the latter,
Cleveland Institute of Electronics provided "Draw the Waveform." Don't let the diode
vacuum tube deter you from the puzzle. Just mentally replace the tube with a solid
state diode symbol with the anode at the top where the tube's plate (anode) is shown.
The negative element of a tube is called the cathode, same as the solid state diode.
"Capacitor Charge" is easy enough. "Another 2-Box Light"...
 "Despite increasingly intense competition
for skills across all sectors of industry and a growing appetite amongst engineers
for a new challenge, engineering salaries appear to have stagnated over the past
12 months. This is just one of the key findings of The Engineer's tenth
annual salary survey, which is published in full on The Engineer's website
in a new interactive digital format. Attracting responses from 621 engineers working
across 12 different sectors, this year's survey was carried out between December
2024 and January 2025. As ever, the results provide a fascinating insight into
UK engineering salaries and how engineers are feeling about their careers..."
 In this 1963 issue of Radio-Electronics
magazine, editor Hugo Gernsback reflects on the early days of television, noting
that the first regular daily TV broadcast began on August 13, 1928, over radio stations
WRNY and W2XAL, which were associated with his former publication, Radio News.
Initially, these
broadcasts were silent, featuring only moving images the size of a postage stamp,
and it wasn't until 1931 that TV broadcasts included sound. Gernsback critiques
the slow progress in improving the audio quality of television receivers, pointing
out that despite advancements in high-fidelity and stereo audio technology, most
TV sets still lacked these features due to regulatory restrictions by the FCC. He
expresses hope that recent petitions to the FCC...
 Exodus Advanced Communications, is a multinational
RF communication equipment and engineering service company serving both commercial
and government entities and their affiliates worldwide. Exodus' model
AMP20081 high power solid state power amplifier (SSHPA) is ideal for broadband
EMI-Lab, communications, and EW applications. Class A/AB linear design accommodates
all modulations & industry standards. It covers 80-1000 MHz, producing
600 W nominal, with a 500 W P1dB and 56 dB minimum gain. Excellent
flatness, optional monitoring parameters for forward/reflected power, VSWR, voltage,
current & temperature sensing for superb reliability and ruggedness...
 In that these
comics from Radio-Craft magazine have an electronics
theme, you can claim looking at them is work-related. The themes of the comics reflect
common scenarios of the 1944-1945 era in which they were published, but with not
much modification can be applied to today's environment. People will always expect
more features from products, will be critical of everything presented to them, and
will want to haggle for the best deal from the used camel salesman. You might consider
using one of them for your next conference or project status presentation. There
is a list of many more similar comics at the bottom...
 In a groundbreaking announcement that will
forever transform global communications, QentComm®©™ (Quantum Entanglement Communications)
has unveiled the world's first
commercially viable quantum entanglement communication system. Dubbed QeG®©™
(Quantum entanglement Generation, pronounced kwee-gee), supplementing the traditional
4G, 5G, and 6G nomenclature, this revolutionary technology eliminates the limitations
of traditional radio-based systems, delivering instantaneous, unlimited connectivity
across any distance without reliance on satellites, cell towers, or fiber optics.
Under the leadership of Kirt Blattenberger, QentComm (pronounced kwent-kahm) has
created a system that defies conventional physics by utilizing quantum entanglement
for real-time, secure communication between devices anywhere in the universe - including
here on Earth...
 In this "Carl & Jerry" technodrama from
a 1957 issue of Popular Electronics magazine, the two boys start out enjoy a casual
day of kite flying, using a homebrew radio-controlled camera attached to the kite
to capture an aerial view of Round Island in a lake. After successfully taking a
picture, they develop the film and discover two men and an odd setup on the island.
Curious, they return the next day, find a hidden tunnel, and stumble upon an illegal
liquor still. As you might expect, the teens run into a heap of trouble when the
moonshiners nab them. Using their combined ingenuity and knowledge of communications
methods common to Ham radio operators of the era, contact was made and help was
on the way. Read about Carl and Jerry's exploit and exactly what it was that saved
the day - and their hides!
 "In late January 2025, 17 students and staff
members from Las Animas High School (LAHS) in Colorado visited the
Deep Space Exploration Society Radio Telescope (DSES) located at the Plishner
Radio Astronomy and Space Sciences Center near Haswell, Colorado. They also got
an introduction to amateur radio. 'This first field trip visit of high school students
reflected the dreams of Michael Lowe, former DSES board president, who sought to
create a center for radio astronomy and space science education in southeast Colorado,'
said DSES President Myron Babcock, KL7YY..."
 Making format changes to magazines after
many years of an established standard always ruffles the figurative feathers of
a significant portion of regular readers. Two magazines I read monthly, Model
Aviation and QST, recently underwent a format change - both of which
I considered very nice. However, reader comments in the aftermath showed a few who
were not impressed. Popular Electronics magazine in 1966 made announcements
regarding plans to adopt some of the
newer base units for physical measurements, including this one for beginning
to use "Hertz" (Hz), along various numerical prefix forms, instead of "cycles per
second" (cps). The editors give sound reason...
 The
Beverage Antenna, very familiar to amateur radio operators, is
a simple but efficient, highly directional, non-resonant antenna that consists of
a single straight wire of one or more wavelengths that is suspended above the ground.
It is orientated parallel to the direction of intended reception. One end is terminated
to ground through a resistor, and the other is connected to the receiver. The following
quote comes from the patent (US1,81,089) text: "In accordance with theoretical considerations,
if an antenna were to be freely suspended and if the surface of the earth constituted
a perfectly conducting parallel plane, current waves would travel through...
 This letter was sent to Hugo Gernsback,
publisher of Radio-Electronics magazine, in response to the "30-Day
Record Response" article penned by noted scientist and inventor Mohammed Ulysses
Fips. In it, Stephen A. Kallis, Jr. heaped laud upon the "Most Revered and Esteemed
Fips" for his long-term recording device (remember, 1961 was many decades before
microminiature terabyte memory and microprocessors) were available, and chastises
Mr. Gernsback for evidently calling into question the authenticity of the recorder.
Kallis, a self-proclaimed stereo enthusiast, bolsters Fips' case by citing "A Proposed
Listening Area," by the Institute of Synergistic Statics Proceedings...
 Raise your hand if you're old enough to
remember doing printed circuit board layout using
Rubylith tape. My hand is up. Back in the early 1980s, I did prototype
PCB designs in an engineering development lab at Westinghouse Electric's Oceanic
Division. Most of it was for analog and RF substrates that would be photographically
reduced in size for use with bare integrated circuit die and surface mount passive
components (Rs, Ls, and Cs), upon which I would later epoxy-mount those components
and wire-bond everything using 1-mil gold wire. However, there were projects where
full-size leaded components were used on a through-hole PCB that used not only the
Rubylith tapes but also sheets with special electronics shapes for solder pads around
the holes for components leads, ground and power planes, board-edge connectors...
 "Quantum systems don't just transition between
phases - they do so in ways that defy classical intuition. A new experiment has
directly observed these
dissipative phase transitions (DPTs), revealing how quantum states shift under
carefully controlled conditions. This breakthrough could unlock powerful new techniques
for stabilizing quantum computers and sensors, making them more resilient and precise
than ever before. A new frontier phase transitions, like water freezing into ice,
are a familiar part of everyday life. In quantum systems, however, these transitions
can be far more extreme, governed by principles like Heisenberg's uncertainty..."
 In
this November 1940 issue of the Boy Scouts Boys' Life magazine, amateur
radio operators, or "hams," are described as having the ability to communicate across
vast distances, connecting far-flung locations such as Goulds, Florida, Cali, Colombia,
Cairo, Kenilworth, England, Bombay, and Brisbane. These operators, licensed by the
Federal Communications Commission, engage in various activities such as talking
to distant stations, participating in contests, and providing emergency communication
during natural disasters. With call letters assigned by international treaty, these
stations use a combination of code and phone to make contact, exchanging reports
and QSL cards. The
Radio merit badge was first offered in 1918 and has been...
 ConductRF is continually innovating and
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and phased matched VNA applications as well as standard & precision RF connectors.
Over 1,000 solutions for low PIM in-building to choose from in the iBwave component
library. They also provide custom coax solutions for applications where some standard
just won't do. A partnership with Newark assures fast, reliable access. Please visit
ConductRF today to see
how they can help your project!
 The date approacheth when, according to
Western customs, every body needs to stand a vigil against the attempt of another
body to make him or her a fool. That date is of course April 1st, aka, April
Fools' Day. Many of the technical magazine we grew up with - and some still today
- engage in the ruse. Innovator and publisher Hugo Gernsback, who's long list of
accomplishments includes this Radio-Electronics magazine, often contributed
his own wit to the April editions. The usual scheme is to make the article just
authentic enough to be possibly real, while including features outrageous enough
to clue the read that he is being "had." Experienced subscribers knew that the Mohammed
Ulysses Fips byline was sure to deliver an April Fools delight. Here, Mr. Fips
expounds on the newfangled "Electronics
Razor..."
 "Quantum computing has long struggled with
creating
entangled photons efficiently, but a team of researchers has discovered a game-changing
method using metasurfaces - flat, engineered structures that control light. By leveraging
these metasurfaces, they can generate and manipulate entangled photons more easily
and compactly than ever before. This breakthrough could open the door to smaller,
more powerful quantum computers and even pave the way for quantum networks that
deliver entangled photons to multiple users..."
 Here is a chart you don't see every day
- "Temperature Rise in Rigid Waveguide." The company, Engineering
Antenna Systems, of Manchester, New Hampshire, that published the chart in a 1965
edition of Engineering magazine, does not exist anymore. They were probably
bought by someone else, but I could not even find an honorable mention of them in
a Google search. Given the very low attenuation of properly sized and installed
waveguide, it is hard to imagine a temperature rise of 500°F; however, when megawatts
are pumped into it even a couple tenths of a decibel of attenuation per 100 feet
results in a lot of power loss. Noted is how attenuation - and therefore temperature
rise - is greater for frequencies at the lower end of the waveguide's operational
range. Temperature rise numbers are for natural convection in free air...
 Here is an inspiring interview of
Werbel Microwave's Ernest Werbel - a case of pulling oneself up by one's own
bootstraps --- everything RF recently interviewed Ernest Werbel, the Chief Design
Engineer of Werbel Microwave. He is from Livingston, NJ, and got his associates
in EE Technology, at County College of Morris. Ernest completed his Bachelors in
Electronics and Computer Engineering Technology from NJ Institute of Technology.
He founded Werbel Microwave in 2014. Q. Can you tell us about Werbel Microwave?
When did you start the company and how has it evolved over the years? Ernest Werbel:
Firstly, thank you for the opportunity to participate in the everything RF community.
I appreciate everything that Raghav and his team have done for us since the beginning,
getting our products listed on everything RF and featuring our products in the email
blasts... As a child and teen in the 90s, I was always interested in electronics.
When I was very young, a radio was a magical box with a voice. Later, when my grandparents
passed in '97, my parents and I were cleaning out their home in Brooklyn. Among
other things were many old and broken consumer electronic items...
 Today we have
missing persons notices printed on milk cartons and computer-aged
pictures of missing kids on bulletin boards at Walmart, and of course the Internet
with all its various forms of publicity. In 1935, evidently, an electronics magazine
was a proper venue for placing a missing person ad. At the time there was no convenient
and accessible way for family members to reach out to a nationwide audience other
than to place ads in magazines and/or newspapers in remote locations. I thought
it odd to see such a placement in this edition of Short Wave Craft magazine,
but considering the aforementioned, doing so is entirely reasonable for a worried
family. I wonder how much it cost to place the notice? It's heartbreaking, really...
• 2025 Tech Jobs Expected
to Take Off
• Semiconductor
Industry Faces a Seismic Shift
• 76% of
News Consumers Still Use AM/FM
• FCC
Spectrum Rules to Support Advanced Flight Technologies
• Radio
Attracts High Purchasing Power Consumers
 I'm always aware of the old saying that
it is better to remain silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove
all doubt, but I'll take the risk here. The ARRL's QST magazine has for
decades in the April issue published at least one unannounced "April Fool" item.
I think I found at least two for 2025. While enthusiastically reading "Turn Your
Vertical Antenna into a Rotatable Beam," (p60), it didn't occur to me that this
was the April issue, and I was in awe of Jay Kolinsky's (NE2Q) intuition and creativity
in devising a scheme to get directivity from his standard vertical whip antenna.
By sliding a carbon fiber tube with a narrow slit along the length over top of the
antenna, a 14 dB increase was realized in the direction of the slit. NE2Q has
named his invention the Loof Lirpa Slot (LLS). What's in a name -
Juliet?.
Is a patent in the works?
 The other suspect is the CW Corp. of America's
"Snappy
Training Key," reported on page 95 by Ellwood Brem (K3YV). You need to log in
to read the articles, or borrow a hard copy from a Ham friend.
|
 1821: Linus Yale, inventor and manufacturer of locks, including the cylinder or pin-tumbler lock known by his name, was born. 1826: Zenobe-Theophile Gramme, inventor of the Gramme dynamo, was born. 1850: The city of Los Angeles was incorporated. 1876: Alfred Nobel... more
 RACEP (Random Access and Correlation for Extended
Performance), was an early form of frequency hopping spread spectrum (HFSS)
devised by the Martin Company (now Lockheed-Martin). It was used for secure voice
communications and worked by sampling speech in small 'slices' and then transmitting
each slice modulated onto a carrier whose frequency was determined by a predetermined
sequence of center frequencies. A receiver with a matching sequence key would then
decode the speech and, with appropriate filtering, reassemble it into its original
content. President John F. Kennedy had such systems at his disposal whether on the
road or in the Oval Office. General Electric (GE) had a different idea it dubbed
'Phantom' that spread the signal over a very wide bandwidth. Today, we refer to
it as Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) ...
 This is another installment of the "Hams
in Combat" series that the ARRL's QST magazine ran during WWII. I enjoy
vicariously waxing nostalgic of a time before I was born, at time when there was
still honor, courage, selflessness, and pride of country. During World War II, it
was an ingrained part of most citizens, whether or not they happened to be serving
in the military. Our modern day troops still have it, but sadly fewer and fewer
people see their own country as any place special in the world. Many don't believe
it ever was. Sure, as General William Tecumseh Sherman famously said, "War is hell,"
but then again so is witnessing the tearing apart of your country from forces within...
 Having been out of the RF system design realm
for a few years, I do not have much cause to think about
mixer spurious products anymore. I wonder these days how many designers even do much
in the way of frequency planning in conversion systems? Are the RF, IF, and baseband
frequencies as so well defined for most of what is done in the wireless world that all
the spurious product issues have been solved and there are few people who need to calculate
mixer spurious product frequencies and powers? If there is a need, what methods are currently
being used? Do you still cobble together spreadsheets and/or MATLAB worksheets using
equations like those presented here, do you have a favorite smartphone app, a compact
program on your computer, or are you using one of the two or three uber
sophisticated and super expensive design engineering programs...
 It appears that maybe Abraham Lincoln had a son
who was an electrical engineer working at Motorola Semiconductor back in the 1960's.
Put glasses on Honest Abe (I did) and author Irwin Carroll's a spitting image of the
Great Emancipator. Seriously though, this article is a great introduction to the fabrication
and use of variable
capacitance (aka varicap and varactor) diodes. They have been - and still are - used
widely for electrically tunable oscillator and filter circuits. Topics such as temperature
and figure of merit ("Q") are discussed as well. This edition of Electronics World
ran a series...
 Sylvania was yet another bedrock American
technology innovation company that in the last few decades has been bought by foreign
concerns*, while retaining at least some semblance of its original identity - mostly
for brand loyalty purposes. Along with pioneering lighting products, Sylvania produced
vacuum tubes and semiconductors for use in its line of radios and televisions. Sylvania
engineers published a lot of articles in electronics magazines introducing transistors
and early integrated circuits to laymen, hobbyists, and professionals, some of whom
were fledglings to the field and others who were transitioning tubes types. This
particular article suggests methods for verifying operation of PNP and NPN
bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) and for troubleshooting basic circuits ...
 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...
 Here are a couple more of the much-liked
"Radio
Term Illustrated" comics, these appearing in the May 1947 issue of Radio-Craft
magazine. I probably spend way more time on colorizing these comics than I should.
You might think it's easy to just fill in areas with color, but most of the comics
are drawn in a manner where outlines of larger objects do not terminate against
another line. Being able to use a fill tool requires sealing off the area first.
Then there's the case of where an area uses a series of closely spaced lines or
cross-hatches. An area fill tool doesn't work well there, either, so the best way
I've found is to outline the area with a Bezier curve tool and copy / paste it over
itself so it is a separate object, then use a color transform tool to shift the
entire area to the chosen color. Even with all that work, the comics rarely turn
out the way I'd like them to...
 Everyone who is interested enough in microwave
diodes to read this article surely knows* what IMPATT, GUNN, and PIN diodes are, but
have you heard of Read-effect, TRAPATT, LSA, or QMD diodes? If not, it is likely because
you entered the microwaves field long after 1969 when this edition of Electronics
World was mailed to subscribers. Device improvement and obsolescence accounts for
familiarity with the former and unfamiliarity with the latter, respectively. The article
below by two Sylvania Electronic Products engineers describes the properties of various
up-and-...
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...
 Admittedly, I needed to look up the meaning of
"connubial"
when seeing the title of this tongue-in-cheek article by Carl Kohler in the July 1969
issue of Popular Electronics magazine. Nobody knows for sure whether the over-enthusiastic
starring male in the series of techie stories that ran in Popular Electronics magazine
in the 1950s was actually Carl himself or an alter ego version of himself. Carl was also
the artist of numerous tech-related comics. This episode deviates a bit from the already-married
type to report on the exploits of born loser Otto Tronix...
 When
color televisions hit the stores in 1954, most households could not afford one.
For that matter, most households could not afford a black and white TV, either.
By 1959 when this article appeared in Popular Electronics magazine, TV
in general was still a novelty to most people. It is amusing to read about how much
more lifelike everything would appear when broadcast in "living color." Well, duh.
It's as if it never occurred to anyone that the images previously did not contain
color like the real world did. I was born in 1958, and remember that my family's
was last of all the households I knew of to own a color television set. We never
even had a console floor model, just small tabletop pieces of junk. It was a big
deal the day I, at about age 16, bought and installed a remote rotor for the rooftop
antenna so we could receive more than three stations. There was no cable TV service
in our neighborhood...
 Here is a nifty little exercise that appeared
in the April 1960 edition of Popular Electronics. It has 10 different
light bulb circuits and challenges you to figure out which bulb would burn the
brightest. All are intuitively obvious to most of us who have been in the field
for decades, but do you remember how to do a circuit mesh analysis to prove your
"gut?" One way to help figure out what is going on is to re-draw the circuit to
eliminate crossing lines, if possible, as in circuit numbers 2, 4, 6, and 10. Also
try drawing electrically common nodes as a single connection point, as in circuit
#2 where the two nodes in the upper left and right corners are actually the same
point. Finally, try to re-arrange the circuit branches into obvious parallel and
series paths to make clear any interdependencies ...
 Whether or not this is a true story does
not matter- it is
both instructive and funny, especially if you catch the import of the closing
statement. Electronics magazines from the era of repairable entertainment electronics
devices like radios, television, and phonographs often carried stories of the woes
experienced by servicemen. Tales of in-home work were the most interesting, especially
when the homeowner tried to bilk the poor technician out of paying or accusing him
of purposely inflating the bill with unneeded parts and service charges. This 1941
issue of Radio News magazine is a good example of how frustrating the business
could be.
 Hello. My name is Kirt, and I'm a
vintage magazine and newspaper addict. This affliction has had a hold on me for two
decades now. Call it my middle age crisis. At sixty years old, there is no sign of abatement
in enthusiasm. Nearly every day I still find myself reading and commenting on articles
and advertisements from mid-last-century magazines, newspapers, and catalogs. Maybe I'm
hopeless and will never be able to kick the habit. I'm not alone, though, based on some
of the feedback received from RF Cafe visitors. For that reason and others, maybe, in
truth, I've grown comfortable with my addiction. While perusing a few vintage newspaper
editions from the World War II era looking for relevant stories, I ran across this
November 1, 1940 (exactly 78 years ago) special section in the Harrisburg Telegraph
titled, "Radio Industry Marks 20th Anniversary...
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...
 Half a decade after Texas Instruments (Jack
Kilby, 1958) and Fairchild Semiconductor (Robert Noyce, 1960) produced the first
semiconductor integrated circuits, General Electric must not have been too confident
that the newfangled technology was going to take hold. This 2-page spread from a
1964 issue of Electronics magazine, promotes their "Compactron" integrated circuit vacuum tubes. The Compactron is
a building block concept where standardized stages of diodes, triodes, pentodes,
etc., are encapsulated in a single vacuum tube package with necessary input and
output pins for connecting external components. The incentive was smaller
volume, lower parts count, lower power supply current, simpler chassis wiring or
circuit board layout, and greater ruggedness. One source I found showed the
availability in 1962 of 24 distinct Compactron models...
 An article with instructions relating to
subjects like overthrow, balance, friction, and cleaning could very well be about
a country's revolutionary struggles. In this case, it is an article about how to
rejuvenate a persnickety or inaccurate mechanical (aka analog)
meter movement. W.R. Triplett, relative (I assume) of meter manufacturer Ray L.
Triplett, is the author (Triplett is now owned by Jewel Instruments). There are
a lot of analog meters around in labs, workshops, and garages. Unless they have
been burnt out, most probably still work like new. Occasionally, however, the movements
get sticky because of accumulations of dirt and dust, bug filth, or even from corrosion.
This article offers some great tips for making them serviceable again...
 Whether you are new to the subject of noise
figure or are just looking for a quick review, this "Hot
and Cold Resistors as UHF Noise Sources" article in a 1976 issue of QST
magazine is a good source. Author Benjamin Lowe, K4VOW, does a nice job of explaining
the concept of electrical noise, and then presenting equations governing the calculation
of noise factor and noise figure. Actual numerical examples are provided to demonstrate
how the formulas work. Using this method, you can make a fair measurement of
the noise figure of a receiver without the need for expensive test equipment.
 If you read the physics and geographic news
of the day, most likely you have seen articles on the rapidly increasing
migration rate of the geomagnetic "north pole" over the past few decades. Magnetic
north has never exactly lined up with geometric north (as borne out in geological
samples of rocks), and neither has it ever been uniformly distributed across the
globe. Ancient explorers on terra firma and at sea knew that a magnetic compass
needle did not align with the same stars, moon, or sun position for every location,
after accounting for difference in longitude. That is because the earth's magnetic
field is very nonuniform in strength and does not follow straight lines from pole
to pole as they more generally do from outer space. A correction factor must be
applied to any magnetic north indication based ...
 In keeping with a very common practice of
using water flowing through a garden hose as a teaching aid analogy for newcomers,
the title of this chapter of the NAVPER 10622 Basic Navy Training Courses, "Generators - Electrical Pumps," is likening electrical generators
to water pumps. It is an apt analogy, but whereas a water pump can cause water pressure
and flow of a physical substance already on-hand, electrical "pumps," aka generators,
literally creates its "flow" from thin air (even a vacuum with no air). An electrical
generator exploits the phenomenon discovered by (or at least credited to) Michael
Faraday whereby a conductor moving through a magnetic field - or a magnetic field
moving past a conductor ...
 For the sake of avid cruciverbalists amongst
us, each week I create a new crossword puzzle that has a theme related to engineering,
mathematics, chemistry, physics, and other technical words. As with all RF Cafe
crossword puzzles, this November 15th
Electronics Engineering crossword puzzle 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.
, movie star unless he/she was involved in a technical endeavor (e.g., Hedy Lamarr)... |
