Out of Order: Tech Trials & Tribulations

As do many of you, I enjoy and learn from reading online anecdotes submitted by engineers, technicians, and hobbyists that have faced and resolved situations which are sometimes daunting, sometimes impossible, and sometimes just ridiculous. Sherlock Ohms and Made by Monkeys from DesignNews, and Tales from the Cube from EDN are the most notable sources for such stories, but the topics cover a very wide range of subjects that are more often than not unrelated to RF and microwave. Lately, the stories have been pretty lame and uninspiring. I like tales of work and hobby related situations with a good description of the problem and its symptoms, followed by a fairly detailed explanation of the steps taken to resolve it. If you appreciate such articles and would like to make your own contribution for the edification and teaching of fellow techies, I will be glad to create an area for posting them on RF Cafe and title it "Out of Order: Tech Trials & Tribulations." As part of my daily writing I have posted many personal experiences of design and troubleshooting challenges as well as outrageous and humorous events that happened in my four decades of work in the electrical and electronics fields. I will enter you in my monthly Book Drawing for sending your submission.

Please send me your experiences and let me know whether you want to remain anonymous or be credited by name. I will do proofreading for you and let you see what will be published prior to it going live so you can suggest changes. Company names (employers, clients, etc.) should be left out unless referring to a manufacturer's product.

Out-of-Order Archives

Do you have a good work-related anecdote to share? Please email it to me for consideration. Thanks.

- The Singing Telephone Switch

- The Professor-Provided Cheat Sheet

- TV DXing, and the Dog on the Roof

- Occam's Razor for Water Bottles

- Of Pointy-Haired Bosses

- Attack of the Cookie Monster

- Tracking Down a Mystery Signal

- Low Battery in Multimeter = High Voltage Scare

Posted February 7, 2014

Webmaster:

Kirt Blattenberger,

BSEE - KB3UON

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 nice lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail" when a new message arrived...

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