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Homepage Archive August 2013
AWR White Paper: Design Flow for PA MMIC Design
A new white paper from AWR, "RF/Microwave EDA Software Design Flow Considerations for PA MMIC Design," examines a gallium arsenide (GaAs) pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor (pHEMT) power amplifier (PA) design approach from a systems perspective. The design flow and its essential features for most PA design projects is illustrated through the design of a simple, Class A GaAs pHEMT monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) PA using AWR's Microwave Office® high-frequency design software.
IEEE USA: Today's Engineer
IEEE USA also sends out their "today's engineer"
newsletter on Fridays. Here are some items that strike my fancy.
Hiram Percy Maxim's Gravesite in Hagerstown, Maryland
Isaac
Newton famously said, "If I have seen farther it is from standing on the shoulders
of giants." His statement was figurative, of course, but I can now say literally
that I have stood on the shoulders of a giant. Somewhere recently, I don't recall
where, I read that although American Radio Relay League (ARRL) founder
Hiram Percy Maxim was born in New York and spent most of his adult
life in Connecticut, he was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery located in Hagerstown,
Maryland. That just happens to be where Melanie and I stop a couple times each year
to visit her mother. We lived there ourselves for about three years in the early
1990s. That day, I surely stood if not exactly atop Mr. Maxim's shoulders, then
very nearly so as I maneuvered to take this picture of his grave marker. Why is
he buried in Maryland, you might ask? That is where his...
More Good Stuff from LinkedIn
Here a few new headlines for you from LinkedIn,
in case you don't receive their weekly update. They usually have some pretty good
stuff. I'm not big into the social media scene, but LinkedIn is kind of like Facebook
with a brain required for participation.
Thanks to Electro-Photonics for Continued Support!
Electro-Photonics LLC is a global supplier of RF & Microwave components. Their products include SMT hybrid couplers, wire bondable passive components, coaxial products, test fixtures and very useful test boards for evaluating components. The Electro-Photonics team can support your small R&D design requirements with RF & Microwave test fixtures and save you valuable design and characterization time.
Get in the Scrap!
An extraterrestrial threat to existence, be
it an impending asteroid strike or an intelligent being's announced intention to
do harm to the earth, would probably be required these days to invoke the sort of
voluntary personal sacrifices of today's average citizen that was exhibited in the
enthusiastic, patriotic response by Americans to the
'V' for Victory campaign during World War II. You
no doubt have seen pictures of kids pulling wagons filled with metal scrap, rubber
tires, and glass milk and pop bottles collected for the war effort, and pickup trucks
piled high with sections of pipe, car parts, and retired furnaces. Resources were
relatively scarce at the time, and material was being consumed very quickly in the
effort beat back the aggressive advances of Axis forces throughout Europe, northern
Africa, and the South Pacific. This article from a 1942 edition of Radio Retailing
Today encouraged radio repairmen to check with customers during service calls...
Triplett Instruments Advertisement circa 1942
Triplett is a well-know name amongst electronics
technicians and engineers who have been in the business for any length of time.
Triplett meter movements (aka panel meters) were considered to
be top-of-the-line product in the days before digital meters and displays. They
were used in industrial instrumentation, in military equipment, and in amateur radio
gear. Triplett is still in business today but it appears they no longer sell just
meter movements, although there is a large supply (new and used) available on eBay
and Ham radio websites and swap meets. This advertisement for Triplett Thin-Line
Instruments appeared in the September 1942 edition of Radio Retailing Today
magazine.
Skyworks Intros Differential Attenuator
Skyworks Solutions, Inc. unveils a new device
for cellular infrastructure, VHF/UHF military and public safety radios. The SKY12408-321LF
is a 50-600 MHz, 6 dB
differential attenuator that is pin-for-pin compatible with its 12 dB SKY12407-321LF
attenuator, but ideal for IF radio applications requiring lower overall attenuation
and gain control. The new solution also offers a novel differential I/O design and
fast settling time for applications that down convert to a low Intermediate frequency.
From Whence Came the Term "Bug?" You'll Be Surprised, Too
It was one of those, "Well, huh!," moments
for me when I read in a story from the IEEE that claims the first recorded use of
the term 'bug' in reference to a problem in hardware was not by U.S. Navy Admiral
Grace Hopper and her colleagues, as popular belief (including mine) goes. Their
finding of a dead moth - a 'bug' - in
a Harvard University computer is legend, but evidently was not the first known instance.
Instead, it was none other than Thomas Edison who may have originally used the term.
Before you go accusing the respected Institution of waging a War on Women (a popular
indictment of convenience these days) for denying credit where credit is due, nobody
is implying that she purloined Mr. Edison's term. According to researcher Dr. Paul
Israel, editor of the
The Papers
of Thomas A. Edison, and the IEEE History Center, Edison regularly referred
to technical problems as bugs. "In 1873 Edison first confronted what he later called
a bug when he began developing a quadruplex telegraph
Electro-Photonics Intros HP 2-Way SMD Divider/Combiner
Electro-Photonics
LLC announces the availability of Y2D-900R, a
high power 2-way SMD
power divider / combiner. Our new Y2D-900R power divider/combiner
operates from 700-1000 MHz and can dissipate up to 350 W in a small 480 mil
x 650 mil package. This power divider offers excellent isolation, low
insertion loss, and good phase balance for most critical applications. The
Y2D-900R requires an external 100 ohm resistor for operation. Power will
only be limited by the size and power ratings of the chosen resistor.
Please Thank Colby
Instruments for Support
Colby Instruments designs and manufactures the world's finest high-precision Programmable Delay Line (PDL) instruments and modules. All instruments are fully programmable via GPIB interface, and are suitable for use in high frequency RF signal applications as phase shifters or where an extremely high precision and accurate amount of delay is required. Colby Instruments has been helping deliver RF Cafe since 2009.
TPN-19 Radar Photos & MPN-13 Radar Model
USAF
radar technician Elbert Cook just sent some photos of the
TPN-19 radar units that were based with him at the 3rd Combat
Communications Group (aka 3rd MOB, aka 3CCG) at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma. He also sent
the first couple pictures of a scale model of the
MPN-13 radar
unit that he has begun. Stay tuned for project updates.
VidaRF Intros High Power
30 dB Coupler for 2 to 4 GHz
VidaRF has introduced a
high power 30 dB coupler
with a 2-4 GHz frequency range (other coupling values available). Average power
is 500 W, with a Peak of 8 kW. Loss is 0.25 dB (excluding coupled
power), directivity is 18 dB, and VSWR is 1.30:1. Connector type is "N" Female
on all ports. Custom designs available upon request. VidaRF offers a wide selection
of Directional Couplers, Dual Directional Couplers and Hybrid Couplers, designed
to cover 0.1 GHz to 20 GHz.
Fortune Telling & Reliability? An Expert Testimony Enigma
A
fair number of people who visit RF Cafe have at some point been involved as an Expert
Witness for a court case involving product liability and/or IP ownership or infringement.
They quickly learn how important it is to
have
competent and renowned legal representation.
IMS ExpertServices is a law firm specializing in expert witness
cases. Every month or so they send me an article about specific court cases that
could be of interest to RF Cafe visitors. This particular article is titled "Fortune
Telling & Reliability? An Expert Testimony Enigma." It illustrates how dicey
the process of selecting appropriate Expert Witnesses can be for legal teams - especially
given the subjective nature of judges who decide on admissibility of evidence.
DongJin Intros Composite DIN 7/16 Connector
DongJin Technology Innovation announces the immediate
availability of very affordable composite DIN 7/16 connectors. The body material is a composite
plastic black with silver-plated bronze contacts, as opposed to a standard brass
body and beryllium-copper (Be-Cu) contacts. This newly developed 7/16 connector
is seeing a steep increase in use in leading countries like Japan, Germany, and
the USA.
Please Welcome Parsec Technologies as a Sponsor
A former comrade contacted me recently to say he, too, had moved on from where we used to work. He is a very capable RF engineer and is now retired from his 20+-year stint as a communications officer in the Air National Guard. Parsec Technologies is now the beneficiary of his know-how. He recommended that they try advertising on RF Cafe and the result is this announcement. Thanks Conrad! Parsec's LNAs have been designed to optimize GaAs for the ultimate combination of noise figure, gain, and IP3. We are redefining what high performance amplifiers are in today's market for low voltage, low power amplifiers with low noise, high gain and high IP3 normally found on amplifiers that consume much more power.
A 1955 Portable Phone - the 'Portaphone'
Sending texts must have been a real challenge
on this early portable phone. Aside from having to type out your message on a standard
telephone keypad (oh, the humanity), the baud rate must have been snail-like. The
article doesn't mention whether dropped calls were a big issue and whether there
was a massive marketing plan with a bespectacled "Can You Hear Me now?" guy. I'm
just kidding, of course. This news item appeared in a 1955 edition of Air Trails:
Hobbies for Young Men. Before you laugh at the
Portaphone's
dipole antenna and carrying case, consider that it was only a little over two decades
ago that Motorola debuted its famous M800 'Bag Phone.' From the magazine: "Portable
two-way radio phone...
Please Visit Z-Comm in Appreciation of Their Support
Z-Communications
is a world leader in the design and development of surface mount
VCO modules & PLL frequency synthesizers
for the commercial microwave/RF wireless market. RoHS compliant signal source products
currently range from 40 MHz to 13.5 GHz bands. PLLs available in integer,
fractional-N and single frequency models. VCOs feature coaxial resonator based and
high-Q distributed resonator construction.
Troubleshooting & Repairing Commercial Electrical Equip.
Troubleshooting and Repairing Commercial Electrical Equipment, by David Herres, is another in a series where he has leveraged his many years working as a Master Electrician. It is his first work that offers a practical approach to diagnosing and repairing commercial / industrial electrical equipment – covering everything from motors, computers, elevators, and fire alarm systems to heavy-duty ovens and audio equipment. This one-of-a-kind guide can help you become more competent in your profession. Inside you'll find ways to become faster, more efficient, and able to achieve a much higher success rate in restoring large electrical equipment without damaging it, introducing an additional defect, or creating a hazard.
Tales from the Cube: Disappearing Data
There
don't seem to be many electronic products these days without some form of software
in them (EEPROMs, ASICs, μProcessors, FPGAs, etc.); indeed, many electrical engineers
also wear a software engineer's hat. Two consultants that advertise on RF Cafe,
Lance Lascari (RF Dude)
and Joe Cahak (Sunshine
Design) come to mind, along with many others known during my career. I've even
done a bit of software and FPGA programming myself. This installment of EDN's
"Tales from the Cube" series involves an engineer who needed to live in both worlds
in order to solve his problem with a meter designed by someone long gone from the
company. Mihaela Costin applied a bit of ingenuity to make the best of a bad situation...
everything RF Intros New Cable Builder App
The New Cable Assembly Builder tool on everything RF lets you specify your cable assembly requirements in a form and on submission directs it to over 20 companies that can manufacturer it. Your query will be directed to the leading cable assembly manufacturers – Aeroflex, Emerson, Amphenol, San-tron, RF Industries, VidaRF, Pasternack, SV Microwave and many others. You no longer need to send out individual request to each manufacturer - everything RF does that for you. The tool has been optimized for Desktops, Tablets and Mobiles so you can use it from anywhere on any device.
Anatech Electronics Intros New Combiner and Duplexers
Anatech
Electronics has released new designs for a 710-716 MHz / 740-746 MHz bandpass
combiner , 779 MHz / 749 MHz ceramic duplexer , and a 1710-1755 MHz
/ 2110-2155 MHz cavity duplexer. All can be ordered directly through their
AMCrf web store.
National Radio Institute Home Study Radio Course c.1948
Bob
Davis sent me a link to Mike Yancey's (KM5Z) website where there is a scanned
version of the 1948 National Radio Institute (NRI) home study course for radio technicians.
It is a very extensive collection of 55 volumes (PDF format) covering topics like
Simple Radio Circuits and Meters, Radio Coils and How They Work, How Detectors Work
in Radio and Television Receivers, Current, Voltage and Resistance Measurements,
and How to Eliminate Man-Made Interference. KM5Z also has some other good content
that you might be interested in while you're there like a 1958 edition the RCA Radio &
TV Course, online calculators for toroids, inductor Q, voltage dividers, and antenna
field strength, and radio restoration projects.
Many Thanks to IPP for Continued Support!
Innovative Power Products, Inc. has more than 25 years of experience designing and manufacturing RF Passive Components. Our couplers, combiners, resistors, and terminations incorporate the latest technology in materials available, which equates to unrivaled product performance. IPP has been with RF Cafe since early 2008.
New Articles from Microwave Product Digest
Microwave Product Digest just posted
articles from their August edition. Lots of good stuff there, as usual.
Uncertainties, Sook H. Wong
Measurements, Sean Flavin
Prathima Bommakanti
David Strand
Times Microwave
The Twittertape Machine
Something
old, something new, something borrowed, something... brown. My paraphrasing (lamely)
of the old saying for bringing good luck to a bride aptly describes Adam Vaughan's
effort in building his 'Twittertape
Machine.' Adam's machine prints out Twitter messages on a paper tape in the
manner of early stock market tickers. "This astounding device will print a permanent
copy of all Tweets yet requires no ink or computer." So says a proclamation in vintage
serif font and decorative trimmings on the website's homepage. Indeed it does. The
prototype uses two wall wart AC/DC adapters, an Arduino-style microcontroller with
an Ethernet interface, a Bell jar, a thermal printer, and miscellaneous clock parts.
Full details of the design and operation are provided, including a video. It checks
for and prints out available Tweets every 30 seconds. Before you get upset about
altering historic relics...
Notable Quote
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional
for a job, wait until you hire an amateur." -
Red Adair, famous global firefighter.
Red Adair is the guy who put out all the Kuwait oil well fires after Hussein's troops
ignited them while retreating from occupied territory. Television 'experts' said
those fires would burn for decades. They were out in months.
Wireless Engineering Crossword for 8/25/2013
Take a break and work this week's wireless engineering
themed crossword puzzle. All the words are pulled from a hand-built list of terms,
names, and abbreviations that have only to do with science, mathematics, and engineering.
If you want a crossword with names of movie stars and obscure countries, try the
local newspaper. If you want to exercise your nerd knowledge, this is the one for
you.
PMI Intros 30 MHz to 26.5 GHz Low Noise Amplifier
PMI Model No.
PEC3-40-30M26R5G-6R0-12-12-SFF is a 30 MHz to 26.5 GHz
Low Noise Amplifier that provides greater than 35 dB of gain while maintaining
a maximum gain flatness of ±3.5 dB maximum over the operating frequency. The
noise figure is 6.0 dB typical and offers an OP1dB of +12 dBm minimum. The
operating voltage is +12 to 15 VDC and the current draw is 700 mA maximum.
Sherlock Ohms: The Case of the Oblivian Customer
You're going to love this installment of Sherlock Ohms. Even if you have never had to deal directly with customers for a product performance issue, you will easily empathize with engineer Jonathan Eckrich in "The Case of the Confused Customer." The incident reminds me of a story I read years ago by an engineer who worked on development of one of the early computer languages - I think it was FORTRAN. The user called to complain that a section of code was failing and demanded assistance because in his opinion, the language kernel was faulty. The caller's name was not disclosed, but the engineer said he was a notable figure. After listening to the problem, the cause seemed obvious, so the engineer (wish I could remember his name) instructed the guy to make sure he was using the "less than" symbol, to which the guy responded that he is no idiot and the problem must be something else...
Mathematics in Radio Calculus and its Application in Radio
I challenge you to find a calculus lesson
in a modern-day electronics magazine. In 1932, not all that long after Isaac Newton
developed differential calculus (that's a joke), Radio News magazine ran
a series of "Mathematics in Radio" articles that included, among other topics,
a few lessons in calculus. Anyone who has taken college-level science or engineering
courses knows how indispensible calculus is in working out many circuit, physics,
and chemistry problems. My appreciation for calculus came when I realized that it
actually allowed me to derive the kinds of standard equations that are commonly
seen in lower level applications. For instance, if you needed to know the volume
of a sphere, you could look up the familiar Volume = 4/3 π r3
formula, or you could write the equation...
AWR Awards Prizes to IMS2013 Student Design Winners
AWR
Corporation, the innovation leader in high-frequency EDA software, gifted its software
to the winners of the High Efficiency Power Amplifier (HEPA) and Software Defined
Radio (SDR) Student Design Contests offered at the 2013 IMS MTT-S conference. The
gifts are part of the
AWR University Program, which sponsors student design contests
throughout the world to encourage students to become involved in the dynamic profession
of microwave and RF engineering and to apply their knowledge to practical designs
using the highly efficient AWR design methodology.
Career News from the IEEE JobSite
Here
is the latest bunch of engineering career and employment news headlines from IEEE's
JobSite.
- Age Bias (it ain't just in SV)
Here are a couple more I found while looking around:
Many Thanks to Dong Jinr>Technology Innovation!
Dong Jin Technology Innovations
helps to deliver RF Cafe through their advertising, which was just renewed for another
term. Dong Jin designs, manufactures, and assembles
RF connectors, cable assemblies
and components. Competitive price, on-time delivery and best quality. No minimum
order size. One-day delivery. ISO9001, ISO14001, RoHS certified.
Sherlock Ohms: Earth Station Stopped by Lightning
This
is another great RF troubleshooting saga; in fact, it would make a good short action
film. Designing and implementing proper lightning protection can be a real
challenge - and quite expensive. Lightning has a nasty habit of seeking out and
exploiting weaknesses. Author Rod Hine doesn't cite improper protection as the culprit
for causing his woes in his telling of, The Case of the "Earth Station Stopped by Lightning." A couple decades ago I worked
with a team that designed a prototype weather radar system with cobbled-together
parts that included a surplus military phased array antenna. After doing all the
initial design, build and test at our facility, everything was moved to an open
air site that sat at the top of a ridge which was known to attract lightning like
trailer parks attract tornadoes. A fair amount of effort went into lightning mitigation
over the years, so we felt comfortable hooking into the existing system. All went
fine for the remaining time I was there. About a year later...
Cognitive Radio, HDTV, and SDR Vendor Pages Added
After
being contacted by a friend of mine who works for
Parsec Technologies about adding
their company to my categorical Manufacturers and Services pages, I realized that I blinked and
missed the need to add resources for the relatively new fields of
Software Defined Radio,
Cognitive Radio,
White Space, and
Mobile HDTV. Having just awoken, there are now the beginnings
of pages for them. In searching for companies to include it quickly became apparent
that most of what is available to fill the need is re-purposed ICs and hardware,
but as the technologies mature and standards are established there will be more
specialty products. Parsec Technologies is one of those companies working now to
fill the need.
Vida RF Intros Low Loss Waveguide Isolator
VidaRF has introduced a low loss
Waveguide
Isolator, model VDWR42-2021-A, with a frequency range from 20.2-21.2 GHz.
The isolator offers 0.1 dB loss, isolation 28 dB, VSWR of 1.11:1. Forward
power handling is 3 watts with operating temperature -40 to +80 C. Pressure
sealed to 10 psi.
Low Plate-Potential Tubes
Once radios in the family car became a standard
accessory, a push ensued to make them cheaper, more reliable, and service-free.
A major Achilles' Heel was the high voltage power supply required to energize vacuum
tubes. Known as vibrator power supplies due to using an oscillator to convert the
battery's 12 DC supply (some autos still used 6 V systems) into AC that could
be transformed up to the 300 volts used by most tubes of the day, most early failures
were attributed to the circuits. They also caused annoying noise in the audio output
if careful filtering and installation was not performed. Having been invented only
a couple years earlier, transistors were being designed into the power supplies,
but low-voltage tubes were still needed for the electronics. In response to the
demand, low-voltage tubes were created to fill the gap until acceptable transistors
became available for a fully solid-state radio. This article discusses some of the
problems with
low voltage tube design and methods employed to overcome them.
Waveform Design for Active Sensing Systems
Waveform Design for Active Sensing Systems: A Computational Approach, by Hao He Hao He, Jian Li, and Petre Stoica, is my Featured Book for this week. With a focus on developing computational algorithms for examining waveform design in diverse active sensing applications, this guide is ideal for researchers and practitioners in the field. The three parts conveniently correspond to the three categories of desirable waveform properties: good aperiodic correlations, good periodic correlations and beam pattern matching. In addition to numerical results, the authors present theoretical analyses describing lower bounds or limitations of performance. Cambridge University Press.
Does Marketing Matter?
OK,
so now I have read about someone who credits social media - LinkedIn specifically
- for success. Judy
Warner, of Transline Technology, responded to the "Fake Twitter Follower Factory"
commentary that I posted on LinkedIn to say she has had an overwhelmingly good response
from reaching out to and engaging the LinkedIn community of engineers. In fact,
Judy's experience was so spectacular that in a few short years she went from being
a connectionless marketing exec re-entering the PCB marketing realm after a decade-long
hiatus, to being a sought-after expert in her field. Read her short article "Does Marketing
Matter?" in the April 2013 edition of the pcb magazine (page 62). Maybe
Judy's feedback to my LinkedIn post means I, too, can now claim social media success!
Fake Twitter Follower Factory
I've
always been a bit dubious about the whole social media thing. Yes, it can be a great
medium for connecting with old friends and maybe getting some breaking news, but
otherwise services like Twitter seem to mostly be a time-wasting enabler for people with
too little meaningful purpose in their lives. Achieving the largest number of 'Followers'
is now a lifetime goal in order to assert and prove popularity and dominance in
society. Catering to vanity is big business so as you might expect, there is a plethora
of opportunists who offer to inflate the Followership of gullible Twits. A recent
story in Inc magazine, one of many such stories in many news reports, illustrated
just how easy it is given even a modest cash outlay to buy Followers - some charge
as little as a penny apiece. If you are thinking of starting a Twitter Follower
business of your own, businesses will also sell you 'verified' e-mails address batches,
Captcha defeaters, and HideMyAss.com will...
Aftermarket Education: Online Learning
Have
I mentioned how much I appreciate good graphs and illustrations for conveying information?
Yeah, I guess I have... often. The adage about a picture being worth a thousand
words certainly holds true - even if the thousand words inadvertently describes
the artist's crappy attempt to get his/her message across. This particular graphic
presents information on some of the vast resources of [mostly] free online educational
sources for engineering and related topics.
Massive Open Online
Courses (MOOC) was launched in 2008 at the University of Winnipeg and is credited
with birthing the idea (at least for being the first to successfully implement it).
There are, of course even more courses in other areas of interest. Flight vehicle
aerodynamics, astronomy, solar energy, physics, numerical statistics, even sci-fi
and creative writing, all useful in a well rounded engineering experience, are among
the listed types...
Good Articles from T&M World
The
writers at Test & Measurement magazine hit a high note this month with
articles. Enjoy.
by Jeffrey Dierker
Issues, by T. Nishimura
by Per Nielsen
Please Welcome Analyzer Repair as a New Advertiser!
Analyzer Repair is based in Cocoa, Florida, and focuses on servicing spectrum analyzers and network analyzers. "All of our technicians are military PMEL graduates." After their tenure, they spent time in R&D labs, USAF PMEL labs, and commercial calibration labs. Repair calibration services for new equipment & extend life of obsolete high performance analyzers.
Notable Quote
"An
acquisition is the end of a dream." - Jake Lodwick, co-founder of Vimeo. This quote
appeared in the July/August 2013
Inc magazine, where Mr. Lodwick describes the Heck he went
through with his company. He further states, "If you truly believe in the potential
of your company to change the world for the better, there's no excuse for settling
for an acquisition."
Engineering Crossword for August 18, 2013
Take
a break and work this week's engineering themed crossword puzzle. All the words
are pulled from a hand-built list of terms, names, and abbreviations that have only
to do with science, mathematics, and engineering. If you want a crossword with names
of movie stars and obscure countries, try the local newspaper. If you want to exercise
your nerd knowledge, this is the one for you.
Project West Ford: Earth's Saturn-Like Ring of Dipoles
What
do you think of the USAF's plan to deploy a band of
millions
of tiny dipole antennas into orbit around Earth for communications support?
Because over-the-horizon (OTH) radio communications rely on the upper atmosphere
being conductive to reflect radio waves, it is essential that there always be something
for bending signals back to Earth rather than allowing them to escape into space. The
ionosphere has many identified regions that do a good job of reflecting signals
of certain wavelengths during particular times of day and under special atmospheric
conditions cause by solar activity. There are times when reliable OTH communications
are not possible because of severe coronal mass ejections (CMEs), high meteoric
activity, and even terrestrial events like major volcanic eruptions. Even predictable
variation in ionosphere characteristics like the diurnal blending of the F1 and
F2 layers into a single F layer complicates emergency and strategic communications
planning...
Thanks to BRL Test Analyzer Repair for Continued Support
Both BRL Test and their Analyzer Repair division are helping to deliver RF Cafe by advertising. BRL Test Analyzer Repair specializes in the repair of spectrum and network analyzers. They are a leading dealer of new and reconditioned test and measurement equipment. They buy, sell, rent, lease, repair and calibrate all types of general purpose test and measurement equipment.
Can Expert Statements Inadvertently Waive Protection?
Expert
witnesses play a big role in most of the court cases that get reported here.
IMS
ExpertServices is a law firm specializing in expert witnesses. Every month or
so they send me an article about specific court cases that could be of interest
to RF Cafe visitors. This particular article is titled "Can Expert Statements Inadvertently Waive Protection?" It the
case, an expert witness used by Company A to compel Company B to submit to claims
was not intended to be used in court and so per Company A, he/she should not be
able to be deposed during the discovery phase of the lawsuit (it involved faulty
materials in a transmission). The expert witness' opinion was quoted but not declared
as evidence. The laws pertaining to testifying and non-testifying experts are, as
you might imagine, complex and prone to the subjective whims of courts even though
most might consider the codified law to be quite clear. The lesson here is to be
careful how expert witnesses are handled, even if you have no intention of using
their opinions in court.
Spirent Is Looking for 5
RF / Wireless Engineers
Spirent
has announced 5 new RF / Wireless engineering positions. Spirent Communications
is where the world's leading communications companies turn when they need to accelerate
their time-to-market for next-generation communication systems. We are always looking
for new employees with exceptional abilities, vision, and commitment levels to join
our team.
- RF Hardware, Staff Engineer
- Wireless Applications
Software Senior Engineer
- Senior Wireless Protocol
Software Architect
- Senior LTE Systems
Software Architect/Engineer
- Senior LTE Network
Emulator Layer 1 Architect
/ Developer Software /
Firmware Senior Staff
Engineer
Many Thanks to ASC
for Supporting RF Cafe
Amplifier Solutions Corporation (ASC) has been a supporter of RF Cafe since 2009. Please thank them by visiting their website to see if any of their offerings can be of use to you. ASC is a designer and manufacturer of RF & Microwave hybrid amplifiers for the military and commercial markets. ASC's thick film hybrids utilize GaAs FET, silicon bipolar transistor and MMIC technologies to achieve low to medium power output in the 300 kHz to 6 GHz frequency band.
Skyworks Powers Dual-Core
MediaTek Smartphone Platform
Skyworks Solutions announced that MediaTek is leveraging several of Skyworks'
front-end solutions in their
innovative, dual-core MT6572 platform which is supporting multiple leading tier-one
smartphone manufacturers in emerging markets. MediaTek has revolutionized the
manufacture of mobile phones by supplying complete chipset solutions that couples
their own baseband processor, radio, software, 
multimedia and connectivity
product offerings, with industry-leading front-end solutions to offer a turnkey
approach to manufacturers who supply handsets to consumers around the world.
The Cloud Begins with Coal
Your smartphone is essentially coal-powered,
or maybe even gas-powered. So is your tablet, notebook computer, television, and
even, if you have one, your electric car. Just as buying one of those devices in
a friendly-faced suburban retail store doesn't change the fact that it was almost
certainly built and shipped by people whose lives are so miserable that some companies
place nets around their builds to keep suicidal souls from landing on sidewalk pedestrians,
neither does ignoring the "true" impact of your data consumerism habit make the
reality of its ramifications any less significant. Mr. Mark Mills, of the Digital
Power Group, just released a landmark paper titled "The Cloud Begins with
Coal - Big Data, Big Networks, Big Infrastructure, and Big Coal: An Overview
of the Electricity Used by the Global Digital Ecosystem" wherein he assesses the
impact of our digital world on energy demands. Increasingly, and at a rapid rate,
the share of electricity consumed by Internet-connected devices is dominating many
traditional realms. As this thumbnail chart indicates, the share...
PMI Intros 1.0 to 2.0 GHz
Low Noise Amplifier
PMI
Model No.
PE2-35-1R02R0-1R4-17-12-SFF is a Low Noise Amplifier that operates
over the 1.0 to 2.0 GHz frequency range. This model provides 35 dB
of gain and offers a low noise figure of 1.4 dB typically. The amplifier
provides an OP1dB is +17 dBm and operates on +12 to +15 VDC with 160 mA
of typical current draw. This amplifier is supplied in the PE2 housing measuring
1.08" x 0.71" x 0.29".
The Fabulous Fuel Cell
When
you think of typical primary battery cells (non-rechargeable by definition),
something like the standard Ray-O-Vac carbon (actually zinc-carbon)
model probably comes to mind. The reason primary cells cannot be recharged is that
the cathodes are consumed in the reaction with the electrolyte during current flow.
Secondary cells are rechargeable because the current-producing reaction does not
consume the cathode (at least not as rapidly), so applying a reverse
voltage drives the electrons back from whence they came allowing the discharge process
to happen again. There is another type of primary cell - the
fuel cell - that never really discharges but is constantly fed
with a chemical (or combination of chemicals) that facilitates a reaction
between electrodes and the electrolyte. Therefore it never needs to be recharged
in the traditional sense - just refueled. In a sense a fuel cell is more of an electric
generator than a battery. Turn off the external energy source...
New Book Added to Pick List
for Monthly Drawing
A Student's Guide to Vectors and Tensors, by Daniel Fleisch, has just been added to the titles available for selection to winners of my monthly book drawing. You can think of this book as a grand collection of all the short tutorial sections in the fronts and backs of all your electromagnetics, physics, mechanics, and optics text books. I am tempted to keep this book for my own library, but it will surely be more valuable to a student or engineer suddenly faced with the need for such knowledge.
Graciously provided by Cambridge University Press
Hobnobbing with Harbaugh:
Biocells Revisited
Hobnobbing with Harbaugh was a regular comic
feature in Popular Electronics in the 1960s. Creator Dave Harbaugh chose topics
ranging from husband-wife relationships where the husband is a technophile of some
sort and the wife either purposely or unknowingly challenges his efforts to participate
in his hobby, to contemporary (at the time) subjects such as this month's treatment
of
biocells. Like electronics, bioengineering was a mysterious field
few understood that received a great deal of attention by comedians and sci-fi film
makers.
Repair Zone Website Listing
Added to Motors & Servos
Even
though I have spent decades in the electronics and microelectronics fields, there
is something about rolling up my sleeves and delving into a 1/3 HP motor that
takes me back to my roots as an electrician and controls guy. Just like you can
actually buy a bottle of men's cologne (somewhat of an oxymoronic term)
with the scent of bourbon, glue, saw dust, or cut grass (not the 5-bladed
variety), I might place a bottle of Eau de Overheated Stator Winding Enamel
on my medicine cabinet shelf next to the Old Spice. The aroma would make a nice
addition to Yankee Candle's collection of man-candles as well... although maybe
not. Why am I bringing this up just to announce the addition of the Repair Zone
(aka York Repair) website to my
Motors,
Solenoids, Fans & Cooling Manufacturers & Services webpage? Well,
while perusing their site...
AOptix Looking for
RF Architect & Field Engineer
AOptix Technologies is growing as we continue
to lead the world in creating breakthrough products for
Wireless Optical Communications
and Identity Solutions. AOptix is interested in hiring an RF Architect to
work on our communications products. This would be someone who has worked on the
subsystems of wireless radios. This is an E-band front end with a baseband radio.
AOptix is also looking for a Senior Technical Field Support Engineer.
New Waveguide Component
Search Tool on everything RF
everything RF has released a Waveguide Components Section on the website. There are thousands of products from a number of waveguide manufacturers. Each category has a customized parametric search tool that lets you narrow down on products that meet your specification. Users can search for waveguide products, compare them across manufacturers, download datasheets and request quotations. The waveguide categories that currently live on everything RF include horn antennas, attenuators, bends, circulators, couplers, isolators, and terminations.
Uranium:
The Metal of Tomorrow
This
is a really cool infographic that packs in a lot of good
statistics about uranium.
Beginning with its initial discovery in 1789 by Martin Klaproth (who named
the element after the planet Uranus), uses ranging from tinting glass to
nuclear power to nuclear medicine are diagrammed in chronological order. Did you
know that this 92nd entry in the Periodic Table of the Elements is, as far as known
today, 500x more abundant on Earth than gold, or that 13% of the world's electricity
is currently supplied by nuclear reactors that exploit the stuff? A ton of Uranium
can produce 16,000x as much energy as a ton of coal, with no greenhouse gas emissions.
Sure, the chart is ultimately meant to promote nuclear energy, but aside from a
potential catastrophe like a power plant core meltdown or a tsunami washing nuclear
material out to sea (if you are dumb enough to build one in a known vulnerable
area), you have to admit it is by far the best option economically. Contemporary
construction techniques for light water reactors that extract more use from uranium
rods, located in areas vetted based on modern geological knowledge far from large
population centers, practically eliminates the chance of an incident. Terrorism
by religious fanatics...
Practical Amateur
Aerial Design
One of the nice things about
antenna design articles is that regardless of when they were written,
all that is needed to make them entirely contemporary is to substitute a transistor
schematic symbol for a vacuum tube and substitute the units "kHz" and "MHz" for
"kc" and "mc," respectively. If the article delves into detailed circuit design,
a substitution of "μF" for "mf" might also be required and depending on the frequency
range, "pF" for "mmf" or "μμF." Some readers might feel the urge to replace SAE
units with metric units, but even a hundred years ago there were people who needed
to do that. "Aerial" and "antenna" are still interchangeable in modern radio parlance.
With that in mind, please enjoy this 1934 article on basic antenna design.
Marki Leverages AWR's MWO
for Revolutionary Mixer Design
AWR Corporation announces that its customer, Marki Microwave, a leader in custom high-performance wireless components, has leveraged its high-frequency design software platform to develop a new design and manufacturing flow for successful mixer design. The revolutionary new mixer design flow combines AWR's Microwave Office circuit design software and Marki's patent-pending Microlithic™ mixer manufacturing process, resulting in a 14x reduction in the size of Marki's mixers and a 5x reduction in design time with the same industry-leading quality and performance as the former handcrafted devices.
Listen to Byrd
on Short-Wave Radio
Little America was a series of Antarctic exploration
bases begun by
Admiral Richard Byrd in 1929, located on the Ross Ice Shelf, south
of the Bay of Whales at the South Pole. In those days such expeditions captivated
the imaginations of Americans and folks worldwide for that matter. CBS radio broadcast
a weekly show that featured in part communications from Byrd's team. Listeners sat
in rapt attention as the announcer described the S.S. Jacob Ruppert passage through
the Panama Canal en route to New Zealand and then on to the South Pole for the "Byrd
Antarctic Expedition II." KFZ, Byrd's station call sign, used an aerial constructed
of a horizontal, diamond-shaped type known as a Bruce antenna. The wires are stretched
between four 60-foot telegraph poles. Shortwave frequencies between 6,650 and 21,625
kilocycles...
Dots and Dashes
Radio Industry News
If
you read through this Dots and Dashes column from the July 1934 edition
of Radio News, you will find many familiar topics - and a couple weird
ones. Among the familiar are transmitting electrical power via RF waves, an electronics
industry convention and exposition, elevator control with electric sensors, global
communications, the closing of a historic radio station (how 'historic' can
a radio station be in 1934?), earth-moon-earth (EME) experimentation,
and remote control of beacon stations with radio signals. The weird ones? How about
a woman with glowing breasts and a 'queer' radio microphone, do
they qualify?
Anatech Electronics
Newsletter - August 2013
Anatech
Electronics has published its August 2013 newsletter. As always, it includes both
company news and some tidbits about relevant industry events, regulations, and standards.
This month Sam Benzacar
offers his take on the subjects of toxic waster waste in Silicon Valley, legacy
filters, LTE in residences and Audi vehicles, channels guard bands, and believe
it or not, fruit flies.
Featured Book: Engineering
Student Survival Guide
With engineering classes about to begin again in a couple weeks, this would be a good time to get yourself a little survival knowledge - particularly if you are a freshman. Engineering Student Survival Guide might be a good place to start for you, your kid, or a friend. "The third edition of this wildly successful text provides information and strategies for engineering students to get the most out of their college education. From freshman orientation to senior year and beyond, this book covers topics pertinent and unique to all engineering students. "
NuWaves Showcases Linear
Bidirectional PA at AUVSI 2013
NuWaves Engineering of Middletown, Ohio, an international Radio Frequency (RF) and Embedded Systems solutions provider, is exhibiting its high-performance, miniaturized RF products and is also demonstrating the first linearized model to come from the company's new NuPower Xtender™ series of bidirectional power amplifiers at the 2013 Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Unmanned Systems exhibition. Operating from 2200 to 2500 MHz, the NuPower Xtender Linear Bidirectional S-Band PA is capable of generating over 10 Watts of peak saturated power, or approximately 6 Watts of average power
Smart NFC Location System
for Your Car Keys - FiMS
Everyone
knows if you lose your cellphone, all you have to do is call it on another phone
and listen for your personal ringtone. Slightly clever devices have been invented
to connect to your car keys, wallet, PDA (anyone still have one?),
and other portable items that are easily laid down and forgotten that will respond
to a clap of the hand, whistle, or whatever. Those schemes require you to be within
hearing or seeing distance of the lost item.
Find My Stuff
(FiMS) hopes to improve on the idea significantly. Researchers at the Institute
of Media Informatics, Ulm University Ulm, Germany, are about to go high tech with
Near Field Communications (NFC) and an intelligent location system
that will tell you exactly where to find your tagged device. Per the FiMS whitepaper,
"An average person misplaces up to nine items per week, most frequently mobile phones,
keys, and sunglasses, and spends about 15 minutes per day searching those objects.
Yet, in contrast to searching information online, locating physical objects is rarely
supported by technology." In order to be fully implemented, "smart furniture" is
required which has RFID readers integrated...
Notable Quote
Today, August 12, Google honors Erwin Schrödinger's birthday with a homepage Doodle referencing the famous Schrödinger's cat paradox (here is the Doodle archive if you miss it). "When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my pistol." - Stephen Hawking. Here are a couple humorous items to go along with the notable quote. "Wave if you've met Schrödinger" - Bumper sticker | "Wanted: Schrödinger's Cat, Dead or Alive" - Bumper sticker | "Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar and doesn't" - Bar joke
Computing with
Scattering Parameters
RF engineer Joe Cahak, owner of Sunshine
Design Engineering Services, has written a series of white papers on S-parameters.
This second installment is titled, "Computing with Scattering Parameters." At least one other will
follow within the next few weeks, so stay tuned. "Network Transforms: These are
the matrix transforms that are used to convert from one network description to another.
Typically the –parameter, Z, Y, h and ABCD are direct conversions. The conversion
to a few of the others are after the base conversion then the conversion from h
to the inverse g, ABCD with the inverse..."
Please Check out everythingRF
in Appreciation of Support!
everything RF is a search engine for RF & microwave components. everything RF lists complete catalogs from various RF & microwave component manufacturers and enables engineers to search through them by specification. There are over 113,660 components listed from more than 253 manufacturers. Download datasheets, request quotes or contact the suppliers for more information via everything RF. Its Fast & Easy!
JyeBao Intros Line of Coaxial
Connector Rotary Joints
JyeBao, a vertically integrated company that designs
and produces its RF products in house all the way from raw material to the end product,
has introduced a line of rotary joint coaxial connectors and adapters. Rotary joints are
used to transmit microwave energy from stationary lines to rotating lines. JyeBao's
patented multi-directional adaptors permit smooth rotational movement around two
axis allowing the adaptors to move in virtually any direction. SMA jack to SMA jack,
SMA jack to SMA plug, and SMA plug to SMA plug, rotary joint adapters; panel mount
SMA coaxial rotary joints; and PCB-mount SMA coaxial rotary joints offer low loss
and low VSWR at all rotational angles.
RF & Microwave Crossword
for August 11, 2013
Take a break and work this week's RF & microwave
engineering themed crossword puzzle. All the words are pulled from a hand-built
list of terms, names, and abbreviations that have only to do with science, mathematics,
and engineering. If you want a crossword with names of movie stars and obscure countries,
try the local newspaper. If you want to exercise your nerd knowledge, this is the
one for you.
RFS Announces Dual Axis
Mechanical Tilt Sensor
Radio Frequency Systems (RFS), the global wireless and broadcast
infrastructure specialist, today announced the availability of an AISG 2.0 compliant,
dual axis
RFS Mechanical Tilt Sensor (MTS). The simple-to-install in-line
device enables RFS customers to accurately measure the position of its antennas
in real-time without physically having to check the placement on site. RFS' MTS
performs calibrated angle measurement with respect to gravity, reading 0 degrees
when the device is vertical. Any deflection from a vertical position will result
in increasing angle values. MTS is expertly engineered to withstand extreme temperatures
and weather conditions and prevents water intrusion, making it ideal for providing
reliable data even under the most severe environmental conditions.
R&D Researcher Needed by
Filter Sensing Technologies
Filter Sensing Technologies is looking for an
Electrical / Mechanical Research and Development Team Lead. This position seeks
an electrical or mechanical engineer to lead R&D projects in the areas of RF-based
sensors and vibration systems. The ideal candidate will possess a strong background
in electronics, programming, and prototype development, as well as demonstrated
ability to lead projects and small research teams. Additional mechanical background
and experiences are a benefit. Significant potential exists for career growth
in technical and/or business management roles.
World's Helium Supply
Up in the Air
Popular
Science magazine has been reporting on the world's
helium supply
shortage for a couple years. It seems incredible that the element our sun creates
at a rate of millions of cubic feet per minute by way of a nucleosynthesis process
is actually becoming scarce on Earth. Helium, element #2 in the
Periodic
Table, was discovered on the sun via spectral analysis before it was found terrestrially.
MRI machines are the largest users of helium (22%), followed by welding
operations (17%), electronics and other cooling applications
(14%), pressurization (11%), party balloons (8%),
and various other uses. The world could arguably get along without floating party
balloons; in fact, using hydrogen in lieu of helium would still produce floatation
and could make for real Hindenburg-like excitement when gotten too close to birthday
cake candles. ...but I digress. The coolest part about the short story that appeared
in the August 2013 issue is the chart which plots the price of helium versus the
world's production of helium, created by author Katie Peek. The line looks a lot
like random walking exhibited by Brownian motion...
Dali Wireless Digital-Over-Fiber
RF Router™ System
Dali Wireless, Inc., today introduced the industry's
most advanced digital-over-fiber solution for delivering distributed wireless coverage
and capacity. Based on the company's t-Series™ RF Router system, it has the industry's lowest cost
of ownership while providing 6 times the reach, 3 times the bandwidth, and requiring
one-third the fiber, 25% less power, and 75% less equipment space. Dali Wireless
will demonstrate the network at the 2013 Wireless Infrastructure Show.
USAF Radar Tech
Elbert Cook Checks In!
Please welcome
Elbert Cook to my
USAF Radar Technician comrade list!. Elbert provided a very detailed account
of his duty stations and the equipment worked on. Any of you who had the pleasure
of maintaining the TPN-19
ASR/PAR radar system will appreciate his comments. I never worked on it myself,
but while at Robins AFB, GA (5CCG) in the MPN-14 radar shop a couple of the newfangled, transistorized TPN-19s
arrived from Tinker AFB, OK (3CCG) and oh, boy, do I remember the stories that came
from the poor souls who came with them. I helped clear the site on
Robins AFB's back 40 and laid down a lot of
AM2 portable aluminum runway panels for the units to sit on. Rattlesnakes
were all over that place - ugh. I was glad to get back to the civilized part of
the base after a couple weeks there.
Thanks to PMI for
Continued Support
Planar Monolithic Industrie's organization has been setup to design, develop, manufacture, test, and market complex state-of-the-art hybrid RF MIC and MMIC components, supercomponents, and subsystems. Unique products for applications in space, military, commercial, telecommunications, and consumer electronics systems in the DC- 40 GHz realm are their specialty. Filters, amplifiers, amplifiers, modulators, and switches are among their offerings.
Cobham Intros Ultra WB, Dual
Polar, Sinuous Spiral Antenna
This newly developed
sinuous, spiral antenna is particularly suitable for security,
surveillance and EW applications. Its rugged, machined housing makes it ideal
for harsh environments. Ultra wideband, frequency covers 2 to 18 GHz. Directional,
the Beamwidth is 65° to 95° in azimuth and elevation, with a maximum Beam Squint
of only +/-4 degrees to -3 dB points across the band. Dual circular (Right
and Left Hand) polarisation over the entire band means that there is no likelihood
of any frequency being missed at any polarisation.
Tales from the Cube:
Drawing out a Solution
This is clearly one of the best installments
of EDN's
Tales from the Cube series that I remember reading. The anecdote
told has everything a good story needs - a catchy introductory paragraph ("Having
trouble?" my boss asked, looking over my shoulder. I wanted to say, "No, my design
is failing exactly the way I intended."), a body that retains the reader's
interest and builds an anticipation for the conclusion (a crescendo, so-to-speak),
and then delivers on the promise with an ending that utterly gives closure and justifies
your attention and time. You finish being glad you read it. My junior year college
creative
writing professor would surely have given writer Steve Lubs an A+ for his 500[+73]-word
essay. The story has a moral lesson to boot!
Please Visit JQL Electronics
in Appreciation of Support
JQL Electronics, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of microwave ferrite isolators & circulators, directional couplers, power divider/combiners, ceramic filters, and power transformers. In addition to their design capability, JQL has strong production capability to deliver its products, and their lead time is among the shortest in the industry. Up to 120 GHz and 250 W available off-the-shelf.
Many Nice Online Calculators
from Phase Matrix
While clicking around the
Phase Matrix
website the other day, I happened upon a nice set of online calculators like the
cascade calculator shown in the thumbnail. Also included under
the "RF Design Tools"
menu are Tee & Pi Attenuator Calculator, VSWR Mismatch & Power Uncertainty,
Microstrip Line Design, Power Dividers / Couplers Designer, and a few other calculators.
A nice feature about these calculators are the sliders and dials for making parameter
adjustments, or you can enter an exact number. Many of the RF / microwave vendor
websites have nice calculators buried in them.
Many Thanks to JyeBao for
Their Long-Time Support!
JyeBao has been helping deliver RF Cafe to you for more than four years by continual advertising of their products. JyeBao is a connector, cable, cable assembly and passive components manufacturer. Synergies and large stock keep lead times to a minimum and allow them to offer customers an unparalleled flexibility. Innovation is pivotal and they are constantly developing new products.
USAF Radar Tech
Jim Mallik Checks In
Please
welcome Jim Mallick
in his appointment to my listing of venerated former USAF radar technicians. Jim
retired in 1993. His service record includes half a dozen different duty stations
around the world where he worked primarily on mobile radar systems. If you or anyone
you know are also former radar techs, please contact me with your service info and
I'll be glad to add it.
Our Intellectual Property
Laws Are Out of Control
Did you know that prior to the 17th century
monarchs and their assigns would issue decrees forbidding anyone other than their
chosen vendors to sell certain products or services? Monopolies were granted for
marketing of such trivial items as perfume and playing cards. In 1624, Parliament
passed a law banning monopolies except as a reward for inventors. That bit of trivia
is part of an article by Glenn Reynolds in
Popular Science. He continues that during the drafting of
the U.S. Constitution you find similar thinking. "Thomas Jefferson opposed all government-granted
monopolies, but James Madison argued that while monopolies generally are bad, there
is a place for patents and copyrights. In the end, the Patent and Copyright Clause
(Article I, Section 8) empowered Congress '[t]o promote the Progress
of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors
the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.'" It's a short
article, but an interesting read about how the current
patent and
trademark system is breaking down.
Featured Book
Modern RF and Microwave Measurement Techniques, by Valeria Teppati, Andrea Ferrero, Mohamed Sayed (Cambridge RF and Microwave Engineering Series). This comprehensive, hands-on review of the most up-to-date techniques in RF and microwave measurement combines microwave circuit theory and metrology, in-depth analysis of advanced modern instrumentation, methods and systems, and practical advice for professional RF and microwave engineers and researchers. Topics covered include microwave instrumentation, such as network analyzers, real-time spectrum analysis, sampling oscilloscopes and microwave synthesizers.
Thanks Once Again to
Coaxial Dynamics for Support
Coaxial Dynamics has been a leading manufacturer of precision equipment for the measurement and termination of RF power for over 30 years. Their equipment is used by engineers, technicians, and hobbyists in a wide variety of applications throughout the world. Directional wattmeters (average & peak power), field strength meters, loads & attenuators, line sections & elements, and filters are among their offerings.
Radar Explores the Moon
NASA is currently collecting a phenomenal
amount of data on the planet Mars. No small part of the effort is to determine whether
sending humans to inhabit Mars would be feasible, or even at all possible. In order
for it to be even possible for a long-term stay, it would be necessary for consumable
resources to be accessible by Earth Martians. Discovering water ice would be the
pièce de résistance since water is heavy and therefore very expensive to transport
across vast reaches of space. Another key bit of data needed is frequency and size
of meteor strikes on the surface since that figures directly into survivability.
Long before we had the capability or even need to do that for Mars, NASA was doing
the same sort of investigation on our moon (as opposed to one of Mars' two
moons, Phobos and Deimos). The resolution of telescopes, all ground-based
in the day, was good enough to perform site selection surveys in the x-y plane,
but altitude data could only be inferred via estimations based on shadow lengths
along the terminator (night/day line of demarcation) and sideways glances
of peaks and valleys. That was not good enough for planning a human expedition to
the surface, so engineers and scientists came up with a
radar mapping technique to obtain z-axis data. That effort is
reported here in this May 1961 edition of Popular Electronics. More information
was needed prior to actually launching a Moon lander mission, including sending...
Congrats to the 2nd July
Book Winner, Darren W. !
Most months I select two names for receiving free engineering books graciously provided by Cambridge University Press and Artech House. Also in most months only one person responds to my e-mails - maybe 50% are being escorted into the spam filter black hole of people's e-mail programs. I use most of the books for creating quizzes prior to making them available for winners. Two people actually responded for the July 2013 book drawing. Darren W. of Ontario, Canada, is winner #2 this time. Darren selected Optical Antennas, by Mario Agio and Andrea Alù., published by Cambridge University Press.
Notable Quote
"Engineers like to solve problems. If there
are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems." -
Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert
Copper Electroplating of
Crosley 03CB Radio Hardware
Now that my nearly 4-year-long
grandmother clock project is finally finished, I'm on to the next
big project, which is to restore a 1941
Crosley 03CB console radio. My intention is to do as complete
a restoration as possible (or reasonable), including repairing and
refinishing the wooden cabinet, stripping and repainting the metal faceplate parts,
and completely disassembling and rebuilding the electronics chassis. By disassembling
and rebuilding the electronic chassis I mean unsoldering and/or unbolting / unriveting
every component and then testing and reinstalling every part. Fortunately, shortly
after buying the Crosley radio ($75) from someone who advertised it
on Craigslist, a complete electronics chassis appeared on eBay for $20, so I bought
it. Now I have two of everything from which to make a good working model. Some items
like the old paper capacitors will definitely need to be replaced with modern versions.
While removing some of the hardware that mounts the electrical chassis to the wooden
cabinet, I discovered some of it was
copper plated. So were the 10-32 threaded studs that held the
speaker to the frame...
Science & Engineering
Crossword for August 4
Take a break and work this week's science and
engineering themed crossword puzzle. All the words are pulled from a hand-built
list of terms, names, and abbreviations that have only to do with science, mathematics,
and engineering. If you want a crossword with names of movie stars and obscure countries,
try the local newspaper. If you want to exercise your nerd knowledge, this is the
one for you.
RF Cafe Quiz #52: RF and
Microwave Power Amplifiers
Test your engineering savvy with this 10-question
quiz is based on the information presented in
Handbook of RF and Microwave Power Amplifiers, by John
L. B. Walker. It covers design, test, and production topics. This book currently was recently selected by the winner
of my monthly RF
Cafe Giveaway.
Radio History and Growth
During my daily technical headlines search,
one of the websites I regularly visit is Radio Ink. As a lifelong fan of over-the-air
broadcast radio (and TV), it is interesting to see
what trends are playing themselves out. OTA broadcasting is struggling to survive
in the modern world of Podcasts and Internet streaming broadcasts; indeed, I do
a lot of my radio listening via the Internet because the local stations don't provide
what I want. At least I can watch the local news on TV in the evening using just
a simple inside antenna. The Big Media types are involved in a major lobbying effort
to mandate FM radio receivers in all cellphones, which of course is a prime example
of corporate chieftains using their financial might to pay off politicians for something
that the rest of us will ultimately have to pay for. Radio's early days faced no
such dilemma. People the world over were excited about the advent of radio and eagerly
awaited their favorite broadcasts each day. Televisions were...
IEEE Dead to Me After 25 Years
OK, that sounds
a bit extreme, but although the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
(IEEE) is a great organization, the main reason I have remained a member
for lo these many years (first joined in college) is because their
life insurance plan was way lower in cost than others. I also have been buying accidental
death insurance from them. However, since this month (on August 18th)
I will cross the 55-year-old
Rubicon, the price will increase by 67%. To continue as last year my total cost
for life insurance, accidental death, and IEEE membership would be $(1,000 + 190
+ 185) = $1,375 per year, and none of it is tax deductible. Ouch! With outrageously
high 'affordable' health care rates about to hit this coming January, combined with
the 1% Social Security increase that went into affect this year, and my property
tax bill just went up by $400 over last year, something has to give...
Phase Matrix: 100 GHz Diplexed
Broadband Downconversion
Phase Matrix, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary
of National Instruments, participated in the demonstration of the world's first
100 GHz real-time oscilloscope. The integrated microwave assembly designed by Phase
Matrix for the demonstration is a broadband downconverter, which allows the successful
acquisitioning and displaying of live signals at 100 GHz bandwidth. The unique
frequency converter combines state-of-the-art diplexer technology with active and
passive RF functions to meet stringent requirements of wide dynamic range, high
linearity, low noise, gain flatness, and extremely wide IF bandwidths.
Please Thank JFW Industries
for Their Ongoing Support
JFW Industries, Inc. designs and manufactures a wide range of attenuators, RF switches, power dividers, test accessories and systems within an ISO 9001:2008 certified quality system. These products meet or exceed the requirements of the most demanding applications. All JFW products are designed to the most exacting standards to provide innovative, high quality and cost effective solutions in a wide variety of global applications. JFW offers custom designs at catalog prices, fast delivery and no NREs!
Scattered Thoughts on
Scattering Parameters
RF engineer Joe Cahak, owner of Sunshine Design
Engineering Services, has written a series of white papers on S-parameters. This
first installment is titled, "Scattered Thoughts on Scattering Parameters." At least two others
will follow within the next few weeks, so stay tuned. "Scattering parameters or
S-parameters (aka Spars) are used by RF and microwave engineers to
measure and design components and systems at those frequency ranges. These S-parameters
are typically measured with an instrument called a vector network analyzer, or VNA..."
Congrats to July Book Drawing
Winner Benedict V. !
Congratulations to RF Cafe visitor Benedict V.,
of Herndon, Virginia, for winning the
July Book Drawing.
Ben selected
Handbook of RF and Microwave Power Amplifiers. Each month
I select someone to receive a free book from those provided by Artech House or Cambridge
University Press. They are often books I have used to create
quizzes. How to enter? Either
buy one of my inexpensive
software offerings or send me an e-mail.
Pasternack Releases Line of
High Frequency Power Dividers
Pasternack Enterprises introduces a brand new
line of
ultra-broadband power dividers capable of 50 GHz. These millimeter
wave power dividers/splitters are ideal for use in radar systems, electronic warfare
equipment, fiber optic systems, 10G Ethernet and any application that requires high
frequency, multi-octave performance. Pasternack is offering three new configurations
of broadband power dividers. Two 2.92 mm models cover 10-40 GHz at 10 W maximum
input power. The third option is a 2.4 mm model for 10-50 GHz at 10 W.
ATEC Energy/Cost Saving
Studies to Facility Operations
Power analysis and energy studies have quickly
come into demand for facility managers, electrical engineers and contractors of
small companies and major corporate enterprises, sometimes stemming from a recent
inflation of the electric bill or the desire to Go Green.
Advanced Test Equipment Rentals
is helping industrial and facility managers perform energy monitoring studies, which
identify cost saving opportunities, with power quality analyzers, to troubleshoot
and verify power distribution, monitor phase unbalances, measure and record power
system quality, and determine overall electrical power efficiency and compliance
Win This 3-Volume Set
Handbook of Reflector
Antennas and Feed Systems
It has been many years since I presented
a questionnaire to website visitors in order to get a measure of what people like
or dislike and what new feature(s) might be useful. In order to qualify as an entry,
you must fill out the form in its entirety. A winner will be randomly selected.
As an incentive for you to take a few minutes of your busy day to complete and submit
the form, I am offering as compensation a chance to win the 3-volume set titled
Handbook of Reflector Antennas and Feed Systems, by authors Satish K. Sharma,
Sudhakar Rao, and Lotfollah Shafai: "Theory and Design of Reflectors," "Feed Systems,"
and "Applications of Reflectors," published by
Artech House. This
represents a $627 retail value ($501 from Amazon).
Copyright: 1996 - 2026 |
About RF Cafe RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling 2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps while tying up your telephone line, and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail" when a new message arrived... |
Copyright 1996 - 2026 All trademarks, copyrights, patents, and other rights of ownership to images
and text used on the RF Cafe website are hereby acknowledge My Hobby Website: My Daughter's Website: |
