Nova Microwave specializes in the design, engineering and manufacturing of a
broad range of Ferrite Circulators
and Isolators. Nova Microwave is a leader in technically differentiated electronic
and radio frequency Ferrite Circulators and Isolators that connect, protect and
control critical systems for the global microwave electronics market place including
commercial and military wireless telecommunications. Management represents years
of combined technology development, competitive price manufacturing, and sales experience.
Our staff is dedicated to research and development of...
Bell Telephone Laboratories used to run
some pretty interesting advertisements in magazines back in the 1940s through 1960s
that touted the many communications innovations coming from their scientists and
engineers. They built what was indisputably the worlds best, most reliable telephone
network. This ad tells how repairmen used a specially designed sensor to trace out
faulty phone lines by listening for a test signal sent out by the central office.
What caught my attention about this ad was the uncanny resemblance the man in the
photo has to Melanie's father. She was amazed when I showed her the picture. Another
thing the picture...
"Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Sunday announced
a plan to provide high-speed public WiFi in 400 train stations across India. The
announcement coincided with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the company's
headquarters in Mountain View, California. Modi is expected to promote his Digital
India initiative during his U.S. visit. One objective of the plan, which has a 2019
goal, is to bring high-speed Internet to rural areas of India..."
As with the article in this month's issue
of Radio-Craft magazine (December 1937), the reference to a 200th anniversary
is understated by 88 years for 2025.
Luigi Galvani was sort of the Benjamin Franklin of biology in
that just as Franklin demonstrated that lightning was a form of electricity, Galvani
showed that signals sent from the brains to the appendages of animals were electrical
in nature. In my high school days in the 1970s, we duplicated his experiment by
making deceased frogs' legs twitch when motivated by a D cell. Today, such an exercise
would likely be met with demonstrations by animal rights people (whose lives, BTW,
have probably in some way been improved as a result of previous such experiments).
But, I digress. Mr. Galvani's name is...
The result of a 2014 Kickstarter project,
LabNation's
SMARTSCOPE combines 3 high-end instruments into 1 mobile, smart
device which works on both PC, laptop, tablet and smartphone. • 2-channel
45 MHz o-scope channels at 100MS/s, • 50MS/s arbitrary waveform generator,
• 8-channel digital logic analyzer at 100MS/s, • digital waveform generator
at 100MS/s. SMARTSCOPE's open framework allows you to hook up your creation to the
extension ports and control it from your PC or smartphone. When you're taking on
more advanced projects, you'll appreciate the full access you have to the powerful
FPGA. Current price is only $229...
Well... it was 50 years ago referenced to
the year this story was published in 1937. That makes it 138 years ago referenced
to 2025. The story's point is that half a century had passed already since the confirmation
of existence of electromagnetic waves as proposed by James Clerk Maxwell.
Heinrich Hertz's "Funken-Induktor" (spark inductor) and his "Knochenhauershen
Scheiben" (Karl-Wilhelm Knochenhauer's disk-type capacitors) were key to his ability
to generate, transmit, and receive EM energy. The work originated from attempts
to prove that light was a form of electromagnetic waves...
"Using nanometer-scale components, researchers
have demonstrated the first
optical rectenna, a device that combines the functions of an antenna
and a rectifier diode to convert light directly into DC current. Based on multiwall
carbon nanotubes and tiny rectifiers fabricated onto them, the optical rectennas
could provide a new technology for photodetectors that would operate without the
need for cooling..."
Noise figure is critical for characterizing
a receiver and its ability to detect weak incoming signals in the presence of self-generated
noise. Reducing noise figure begins with a solid understanding of the uncertainties
in your components, subsystems, and setup. Quantifying those unknowns depends on
flexible tools that provide accurate, reliable results. Get 10 hints to help minimize
the uncertainties in your noise figure measurements...
Radio-Craft magazine solicited inputs
from its readers for a series of "Radio
Wittiquiz" questions and answers related to radio and electronic, with a stipulation
being that there had to be some aspect of humor included. That meant that some of
the multiple choice answer options needed to be inane. For most of the questions,
the process of elimination is pretty easy, but a couple could cause some head scratching
- especially if you are not really sure of the answer. This group starts at number
28, so obviously preceding issues had questions 1 through 27. At some point I will
probably acquire them and post other Radio Wittiquizzes...
Long-time advertiser is continuing its support in helping to deliver RF Cafe
to your desktop or mobile device. Everything RF is a product discovery platform
for
RF & microwave products and services. Over 100,000 products
listed from more than 200 companies across 200 categories enables engineers to search
using a customized parametric search tool. Please be sure to support Everything
RF!
"Chemists have invented a nanoscale wrench
that allows them to precisely control nanoscale shapes. Their use of 'chirality-assisted
synthesis' is a fundamentally new approach to shaping large molecules -- one of
the foundational needs for making complex synthetic materials, including new polymers
and medicines. University of Vermont chemist Severin Schneebeli..."
"Nothing
is impossible for the man that doesn't have to do the work." This is universally
attributed to someone named Cohn; i.e., 'Cohn's
Law.'
Würth Electronics Midcom, of Watertown, SD
(HQ located in Waldenburg, Germany), is a manufacturer
of custom and power magnetics, EMC components, common mode chokes, capacitors, transformers,
RF inductors, printed circuits boards, terminal blocks, automotive magnetic components,
electronic displays, LEDs, control units, and keypads. Surface mount and through-hole
packages available. Free samples of catalog items are available on request.
Res-Net Microwave
manufactures a complete line of precision RF & microwave components including
microwave attenuators, microwave terminations, microwave resistors, and now diode
detectors for commercial, military, and space applications. The company is a leader
in development and production of the films required for these type of RF/microwave
components. In addition to an extensive selection of standard products, Res-Net
offers custom designed and manufactured products using their state-of-the-art CAD/CAM
resources for all their products from attenuators to terminations.
NI (formerly AWR Corporation) announces
that it is sponsoring an RF printed circuit board (PCB) design webinar on October
15, 2015. Part of the
Microwave Journal Technical Webinar Series, this one-hour webinar
offers participants insight on practical RF PCB design to help them meet the needs
of today's demanding wireless product development environment. The webinar is presented
by Henry Lau of Lexiwave Technology, who has over 22 years of experience in designing
RF systems, products, and RFICs, and features the use of NI AWR software products...
"Fusion energy may soon be used in small-scale
power stations. This means producing environmentally friendly heating and electricity
at a low cost from fuel found in water. Both heating generators and generators for
electricity could be developed within a few years, according to new research. "This
is a considerable advantage compared to other
nuclear
fusion processes which are under..."
Superheterodyne receivers were originally
the sole domain of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), which owned the patents
and refused to license them until around 1930. Hugo Gernsback, a contemporary editor
of the era, provides a little insight into the superregenerative receiver circuits
superheterodyne was about to replace, and why it was an important improvement in
technology. Sidebar: The question often
arises regarding the difference between a "heterodyne" circuit and a "superheterodyne"
circuit. The most popular answer that "super" refers to the IF being located above
the range of human hearing, which peaks at about 15 kHz. Doing so assured that
any IF leakage into the audio circuits would not be discernable by a radio...
NuWaves Engineering, an international RF and microwave
solutions provider, announced the release of an upgraded broadband RF power amplifier
(PA) for L- and S-band transmitters and data radios, the
NuPower™ 12B01A model, featuring improved power efficiency and
operational temperature performance and a wider supply voltage range. An alternative
product configuration, part number NW-PA-12B01A-D30, is available with reduced gain
that accepts a +30 dBm RF input signal from the transmitter , supporting a common
RF output level of industry data links...
Electrolytic capacitors have long been the
components that provide the highest capacitance density factor, that is, they have
the highest capacitance value for a given volume of space occupied. Anyone familiar
with electrolytic capacitors is aware of the polarization indicated on the package
(a marking or unique physical feature), indicating that there is required direction
for hookup; in fact, a backwards connection can lead to an explosive failure. While
physical construction of electrolytic capacitors have evolved over the decades since
this article was published, the fundamental operation has not. It is interesting
to note the reference to capacitors as "condensers," a name still commonly used
with internal combustion engine ignition systems and with some AC motors that use
them at turn-on for providing a starting coil phase shift...
Has
Moore's Law finally peaked? "At the inaugural International Solid-State
Circuits Conference held on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia
in 1960, a young computer engineer named
Douglas Engelbart introduced the electronics industry to the remarkably
simple but groundbreaking concept of 'scaling.' Dr. Engelbart, who would later help
develop the computer mouse and other personal computing technologies, theorized
that as..."
I really have to hand it to a couple of the
guys at
Design News for coming up with some really good, general
engineering stories. It's always risky to name names lest some omitted soul be offended,
so I'll mention Charles Murray, the author of this feature that highlights some
of the most
technically important inventions like the battery, the airplane,
the refrigerator, the internal combustion engine, etc. Robert Spiegel, another of
my DN favs, has a [non]complementary list of the
worst inventions.
This week's
crossword puzzle, as with all RF Cafe puzzles, uses only words
pertaining to engineering, science, mathematics, mechanics, chemistry, astronomy,
etc. You will never find a reference to some obscure geological feature or city,
or be asked to recall the name of some numbnut movie star or fashion designer. You
will, however, need to know the name of a famous RF filter design software author.
Enjoy...
This is über-cool. A
bunch of guys created a true
scale model of the solar system in the Black Rock desert of Nevada. They used
to-scale sun and planet diameters and traced out to-scale orbital paths in the sand.
Earth was a blue marble and the sun was about a meter and a half in diameter. Posts
driven into the ground at orbit distances had planet models mounted atop them. The
accompanying video is very well done, and the slickest part is where their cars
were driven around the orbital paths at night with headlights on. I was disappointed,
though, that Pluto was left out just because a bunch of pointy-headed scientists
demoted it to a "dwarf planet"...
"AMSAT has announced that FoxTelem ver 1.0
software, the Fox Telemetry
Decoder, has been released so stations can start setting up, testing, and debugging
their ground stations prior to the October 8 launch of the Fox-1A satellite. FoxTelem
is used to demodulate, store, and analyze telemetry data from AMSAT's
Fox series of CubeSats. Until Fox-1A launches, users can confirm
that everything is working by using a test WAV file, available from AMSAT. Fox-1A
will include an FM transponder with an uplink frequency of 435.180 MHz, and a downlink
frequency of 145.980 MHz. The first phase of the Fox series 1-Unit CubeSats will
allow simple ground stations using...
Somehow, after being in the RF business
for four decades, I have to admit to not being familiar with the term
"acceptance angle" for antennas. That is after having read scores
of articles on antennas. Maybe I did and just don't remember - embarrassing. Acceptance
angle is mentioned and explained in this article during the description of rhombic
antenna characteristics versus dipoles and multi-element designs. Although the author
focuses on television installations, information provided on signal reflections,
shadowing, ghosting, multipath, etc., is applicable to radio as well...
P1dB, an RF and Microwave component supplier,
introduces 2-Way (P1PD-SAF-0206G30W-2) and 4-Way (P1PD-SAF-0206G30W-4) SMA power dividers operating from 2 to 6
GHz. The new RF power dividers operate across the full frequency band and are optimized
for the 2.4 and 5 GHz Wi-Fi bands with increased isolation and improved insertion
loss. The SMA dividers meet the demands of production test systems for routers,
cell phones, tablets and other Wi-Fi enabled products...
A Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Assembler should
have knowledge of surface mount and thru-hole assembly. Possess excellent soldering
skills as well as providing exceptional attention to detail in their daily tasks
and knowledge of a manual pick-and-place with miniature components. Must be able
to work with an integrated product team and provide high quality assembly of defense
electronic assemblies to support products and projects. Military training, specialty
schools, related experience or + 1 years of related experience. Full-time / Non-Exempt
(Hourly)...
Quick Summary of Topics: – How to Design for
Power Integrity – Power Electronics: HF Power Semiconductor Modeling – How to Design
Broadband Impedance Matching Networks – Introducing WaferPro Express 2015 – Wafer-Level
Measurement Solution With Cascade Microtech – New 5G Channel Sounding Reference
Solution – Passive Filter Synthesis Design Video – New Microwave Circuit Design
Textbook – 2015 Aerospace and Defense Symposium DVD – Webcasts – Follow Us on Social
Media...
It was only a matter of time, but now military
air defense
laser systems are targeting multi-copter 'drones' the same way they target cruise
missiles. It makes people wanting to blast the nuisance 'toys' out of the sky with
a 12-gauge shotgun look like neophytes. This video (starting
at 3:30) by Germany's Rheinmetall Defence shows their new High Energy Laser
(HEL) system vaporizing the craft as the narrator warns of future multi-copter-based
terrorist attacks at sporting events and other high attendance public venues. If
you fantasize about blowing you pesky neighbor's 'copter into little pieces, you
now have the motivation for your next DIY laser project...
Frequency crowding has evidently been an
issue since the early days of radio according to this 1930 article in Radio-Craft
magazine. The situation was really bad in the earliest times when unfiltered spark
type transmitters were the norm. Those pioneers could be credited, I suppose, with
being the first users of wideband communications, but it was not because they chose
to do so. Here author Clyde Fitch discusses the debate over whether there really
were such things as sidebands from modulation and makes an argument for their existence
based on analysis of various types of modulation. In particular, he predicts the
coming popularity of single sideband receivers with crystal-filtered channels, and
the need for matching SSB transmitters with... wait for it... carrier and sideband
suppression...
Pasternack, a leading manufacturer and supplier of RF, microwave and millimeter
wave products, introduces a new line of coaxial
threshold detectors designed for microwave and millimeter wave
applications from 2 to 40 GHz. These threshold detectors are commonly used for analyzing
radar performance, leveling pulsed signal sources, AM noise measurements, system
monitoring and pulsed RF measurements in ultra-broadband applications. Pasternack's
latest release of threshold detectors consists of 3 unique models covering broadband
frequency bands from 2 to 40 GHz. Designs incorporate gain stages for higher dynamic
range...
How does anyone even think of this stuff?
This video demonstrating how to turn your
smartphone
into a holographic projector was posted by Mrwhosetheboss on August 1, 2015
and has over 10 million views already - and it's no wonder. He doesn't mention on
the video what inspired the idea. A clear plastic CD jewel case cover is used to
make the projection surface and specially created videos that project onto the four
faces are used to create the holographic effect. The concept reminds of a little
multi-faceted mirrored device that used to be sold which sat in the middle of a
record player and turned flip-book...
Keysight Technologies today introduced the 81607A,
81608A and 81609A tunable laser sources, a range of modules for the
Keysight 8164B lightwave
measurement system. The new modules extend the product family that debuted in
March 2015 with the Keysight 81606A tunable laser source, an instrument with unmatched
sub-picometer tuning repeatability and best-in-class wavelength accuracy that is
maintained even in full-speed, two-way sweeps. The new value and basic line models
share the 81606A's new design with low spontaneous emission and narrow line width,
its industry-leading power repeatability and long-term stability...
Lots of Hams still use this tried-and-true
system for
tuning antennas for efficient operation on a variety of bands.
There are plenty of multi-band designs that rely on traps to reactively isolate
portions of the antenna that properly resonate at the desired frequency, but there
is usually a price to be paid in VSWR. Poor VSWR; i.e., higher mismatch loss, can
be overcome with higher transmitter output power, but the real sacrifice for poor
matching is loss of receiving range. The utter simplicity of using an insulated
cord to vary the physical length of the antenna element(s) for tuning is hard to
beat. It could be impractical on a setup where access to the antenna mount is difficult,
but my guess is most people can make good use of it...
Wireless Receiver Design for Digital Communications,
by Kevin McClaning, presents practical lessons and approaches in radio receiver
design for wireless communication systems. Decades of experience at the bench are
collected within, and the book acts as a virtual replacement for a mentor who teaches
basic concepts from a practical perspective and has the war stories that help their
apprentices avoid the mistakes of the past. Readers are led through the fundamental
theory in the Basics of RF Engineering chapter and then walked along the path toward
applying this knowledge in the design of real world systems. Wireless...
"Fair
Trade" was a policy established in the post-WWII era in response to what consumer
retail groups considered business-ruining cost cutting by dealers who offered to
sell products at or barely above cost in order to steal profit from other stores.
So-scheming stores planned to make up for the low profit margin with high sales
volumes. Doing so drove a lot of the local competition out of business, leaving
the crafty dirty dealers to later raise prices. Stores that had manufacturer-sanctioned
service shops often got screwed because they were obligated to repair items like
TVs and radios that were bought from another dealer who did not do service work.
Profit margins on repair work - at least from honest shops - were typically very
low, so the owners depended on new product sales...
"Self-destructing electronics have applications in a civilian context,
especially for mobile devices. Encryption keys on mobile devices are nearly impossible
to crack, "but they are often protected by relatively weak passwords," said security
analyst Chris Camejo. Placing encryption keys on a self-destructing chip would make
it much more difficult for a thief to extract information..."
Here are a couple
high tech comics for your enjoyment from the pages of the July
1961 edition of Electronics World magazine. I'm guessing the joke in the
page 72 comic is that unknown parts were/are generically referred to as "Brand
X," so hopefully that would bring in customers who couldn't identify components
(which the repairman probably could). It could also be an unintended warning that
if "Brand X" (knockoff part) is sold there, then there is a good chance inferior
parts will be used in the repair. The page 94 comic is yet another play on
the huge popularity of home hi-fidelity (hi-fi) sound systems of the day. Amplifiers
still used vacuum tubes so building speaker driver circuits that could handle hundreds
of watts was easy to do...
"Qorvo, a leading provider of RF solutions
for mobile, infrastructure and aerospace / defense applications, today announced
a new highly cost effective, high performance Ka-band 3 watt
GaN power amplifier for commercial VSAT satellite ground terminals
transmitting high speed internet data. "Qorvo's 0.15um high-frequency GaN process
delivers three times the power density of past generation GaAs pHEMT solutions..."
"Nothing is ever a complete failure; it can
always serve as a bad example." -
Carlson's Consolation. I tried to find out who this Carlson guy
is, but could not locate a definitive source. The same quote is sometimes referred
to as Carson's Consolation. Regardless of its progenitor, the tenet holds true.
"An Apple 1 motherboard, a 79-year-old TV
and the only surviving processor of the last supercomputer designed by Seymour Cray
are being auctioned in New York. The 1936 Baird television set may not work and
delivers a huge electrical charge of 5000 volts. But it could still fetch between
$20,000 (£13,000) and $30,000, according to auctioneer Bonhams. The Apple 1 has
a starting price of $300,000. Last year, a similar model fetched $365,000, and in..."
Sivers IMA today announced that SAF Tehnika, a
designer, producer and distributor of digital microwave data transmission technology
has chosen
Sivers IMA's E-band converters as an integrated part in their
coming products. "This is an important win for us. As a supplier of components our
success is based on the fact that radio link manufacturers choose our converters
to build into their products. We have had a good dialogue with SAF Tehnika during
our development process and we are now at a stage where they are ready to order
a customized module to integrate in their end product. Being chosen...
FM radio has been in the news fairly frequently
in the last couple years as phone manufacturers and the
National Association of Broadcasters lobby the FCC and politicians
to mandate the inclusion of FM radio capability into every phone manufactured. In
a ploy to exploit the gullibility and egos of said bureaucrats and pols, their primary
argument that FM radio is a "first informer in times of crisis," assuming of course
that people will miss news of "the big one" when and if it occurs. To my knowledge,
successful reception of FM radio on a cellphone requires the listener wear a set
of wired ear buds since the wire from the phone to the ear buds functions as the
antenna. What percentage of cellphone users would bother to carry a set of ear buds?
I, of course, am a huge proponent of...
A Brooklyn-based company is working with NASA
to create the first ever space shotgun. The gun, developed by Honeybee Robotics,
will be used to test the strength of asteroids and other space rocks, in order to
determine if a mass is sturdy enough for sampling. The company, based in the Brooklyn
Navy Yard, calls the process 'key' to sending humans to Mars. 'Collecting and...
Consumer grade
thermoelectric coolers have been around for so long now that most
people probably assume there is nothing wondrous about the discovery that makes
them possible. I still marvel at the process that allows the application of a current
through physical junction of two dissimilar metals (certain
types) to produce a cooling effect rather than the I2R heating normally associated
with conductors. This article from a scientist at Westinghouse Electric's research
laboratories provides a nice introduction to the subject of thermoelectricity from
both electric current generation based on the application of heat to a dissimilar
metals junction, and the aforementioned cooling effect possible from passing a current...
This week's
Science & Engineering Crossword Puzzle, as is the case with all RF Cafe
crossword puzzles, has only words and clues related to science and engineering.
Each week for two decades I have created a new technology-themed crossword
puzzle using only words (1,000s of them) from my custom-created lexicon related
to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc. You
will never find among the words names of politicians, mountain ranges, exotic
foods or plants, movie stars, or anything of the sort. You might, however, find
someone or something in the otherwise excluded list directly related to this
puzzle's technology theme, such as Hedy Lamarr or the Bikini Atoll, respectively. Avid cruciverbalists amongst us: the gauntlet has been thrown down.
Optenni-Lab-Anritsu-ShockLine-VNAs-9-18-2015.htm" >
Optenni Ltd and Anritsu Corporation announce
a
real-time link between the Anritsu ShockLine family of Vector Network
Analyzers and the Optenni Lab matching circuit optimization software. The link
enables an entirely novel workflow for the antenna designer, streaming the measured
impedance data from the VNA continuously to the matching circuit synthesis of Optenni
Lab. This novel workflow opens up new horizons for the design process, as the effect
of physical modifications and tuning of an antenna prototype can immediately be
seen in the simulated total performance of the antenna...
You would be forgiven in this era of ubiquitous
cellphone usage for thinking maybe
Citizen Band (CB) radios are only used these days by techno-throwbacks
like myself, but the fact is many truckers still use them for convenience as well
as to avoid having all their communications intercepted, monitored, and recorded
by government agencies. It can be a deceiving sense of privacy though, because police
officers often monitor CB radio transmissions while in patrol cars, and even solicit
the assistance of other CBers in identifying and apprehending suspected transgressors
- an advantage of public, unencrypted conversation afforded law enforcement which
is not available with cellphones. Also, CB transmission, even though usually regarded
as "hearsay" in legal venues, has many times been admitted as evidence in cases
where "present sense impression," "excited utterance," or some other special...
"Scientists have investigated a way to create
linear chains of carbon atoms from laser-melted graphite. The material, called carbyne,
could have a number of novel properties, including the ability to adjust the amount
of electrical current traveling through a circuit, depending on the user's needs.
Carbyne is the subject of intense research because of its presence in astrophysical
bodies, as well as its potential use in nanoelectronic devices and superhard materials.
Its linear shape gives it..."
"DuPont Microcircuit Materials is
launching electronic inks that cure quickly at low temperatures,
expanding the possibility of printing electronics onto an entirely new group of
plastic films. The technology is expected to enable electronic components such as
sensors, heaters and antennas to be printed on more versatile and less expensive
substrates. Historically, electronic inks have required curing temperatures between
100°C and 140°C restricting electronic substrates to those that can survive at high
temperatures. The new DuPont™ PE827 and PE828 low-temperature inks cure at as low
as 60°C, opening up the possibility..."
Margaret LeFevre created a handful
electronics-themed crossword puzzles for the July 1961 issue of
Electronics World magazine. Crosswords have been around for at least two
centuries and come in many formats from having both x- and y-axis symmetry to symmetry
about only one axis or even no symmetry at all. They can be square, rectangular,
or have special shapes. This particular one has partial symmetry about the y-axis.
Note that it is composed of two isolated regions with no open path between the regions.
If you enjoy working crossword puzzles, there are plenty more which I have posted
from electronics magazines, plus I have...
"Intel has announced its support for
Narrow Band Long Term Evolution (NB LTE)
technology as the ideal wireless connectivity solution for the growing Internet
of Things (IoT) market segment. NB-LTE is an optimized
variant of the widely deployed 4G LTE technology, and is well-suited for the IoT
market segment because of its low implementation cost, ease of use and power efficiency.
Intel plans to work closely with Ericsson and Nokia to develop and bring to market
the products needed for the commercialization of NB-LTE timed with market demand.
Intel intends to support commercial roll-out of the..."
The persona of Scott Adams' 'Dilbert' is described
exactly in the opening sentence of this article in a 1930 edition of Radio-Craft
magazine. It is amazing - if not frustrating - to realize how long the perception
of science-minded people being introverts has been around. Dilbert's 'pointy-haired-boss'
is nailed in the second sentence.
Georg von Arco is celebrated here as a major contributor to the
advancement of early radio, particularly wireless telegraphy equipment development.
Interestingly, as brought to my attention by Melanie as she did the text clean-up
after OCRing the magazine page, von Arco worked at the
Sayville radio transmission station on Long Island, New York,
where the Telefunken Company's Dr. K.G. Frank was arrested and interred for
the duration of the World War I for sending out "unneutral messages...
This installment of Design News'
Sherlock Ohms series combines two of my favorite topics: Airplanes
and Radios. It involves a military jet fighter that had a nasty habit of hiccupping
whenever the UHF radio was keyed. Ingenuity on the part of the ground maintenance
crew in tracking down the problem is inspiring. As is often the case, comments posted
by readers are instructive as well. Having actually built many MIL aircraft cable
harnesses myself while at Westinghouse Electric, I particularly wonder, as did one
poster, how the problem managed to occur in the first place. Another appropriately
asks why the harness was built the way it was in the first place...
NI (formerly AWR Corporation) announces that it
is sponsoring the upcoming Microwave Journal RF/Microwave Training Radar Webinar
scheduled for October 1, 2015. This "Introduction to Radar" webinar covers the basic principles of
radar detection and ranging, pulse versus continuous wave systems, radar modulation,
radar path budget and radar range equation, range ambiguity and mitigation, maximum
and minimum detectable range, and plan position indicator
(PPI) and A-scope displays...
I usually learn something new with each episode
of Mac's Radio Service Shop, but not necessarily related to electronics. Such is
the case this time where after Mac gives Barney a quick lesson in how to determine
a transformer's winding turns ratio when needing to create an impedance match circuit.
He then, while discussing whether "free" repair estimates are truly free or of any
real value at all, he uses the phrase "a horse on you." Maybe it is because I don't frequent bars that
I had never heard that, but after a little research I now know it refers to a bar
dice game called "'Horse." "A horse on you" is when you lose the final round of
a 2-out-of-3 challenge. "A horse apiece" is when you and your opponent each win
one round in a 2-out-of-3...
Validate your complex multi-antenna designs with
Keysight's new release of the
M9391A PXIe vector signal analyzer and
M9381A PXIe vector signal generator. With precise channel-to-channel
synchronization and phase coherence and proven measurement software, you can design
and validate the multi-antenna techniques being deployed in LTE-Advanced, WLAN and
5G, including up to 8x8 MIMO, beamforming and carrier aggregation...
It really wasn't all that long ago when most
people worked on computers with Color Graphics Adapter (CGA)
that had just 16 colors (4-bit pixels). In the late
1980s (wow, maybe it really was a long time ago),
the luxury of a 256-color (8-bit pixels) Video Graphics
Adapter (VGA) monitor and video card would cost you
around $300 each. I recall seeing ads for "16 million color" displays by ViewSonic
that ran north of a kilobuck. My first 'real' monitor was bought in 1987 and was
4-bit monochrome.
Televisions, as you know, began as black and white
(actually a infinite number of gray levels between black
and white). When TVs first arrived in people's homes, they were glad for
any kind of display, but it wasn't long before marketing gurus convinced the masses
that...
"UK defense firm Selex ES on Tuesday unveiled
an electromagnetic shield designed to defeat commercial drones. After three years
of development, Selex's
Falcon Shield system made its public debut during the Defence
and Security Equipment International exhibition in London. The firm did not explain
in great detail the proprietary technology, which was developed with military customers,
but said drones can be detected, taken over and then flown to land safely away from
the target being protected. Electronic warfare...
Thanks to RF Cafe visitor and contributor
Gary Steinhour for letting me know about Amazon making the Kindle version of
SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics
available for FREE (the print version costs $20).
"SolderSmoke is the story of a secret, after-hours life in electronics.
Bill Meara started out as a normal kid, from a normal American town. But around
the age of 12 he got interested in electronics, and he has never been the same ...
SolderSmoke is no ordinary memoir. It is a technical memoir. Each chapter
contains descriptions of Bill's struggles to understand (really understand) radio-electronic
theory. Why does P=IE? Do holes really flow through transistors? What is a radio
wave..."
Programs provide students with tools to become
industry-ready engineers. Your measurement challenges are increasingly complex and
the technologies you work with are changing rapidly. The
2015 Back to Basics DVD includes more than 50 new application
notes as well as webcasts and videos that cover a wide variety of modern measurement
topics from design simulation to digital and modular instrumentation...
Saelig Company, Inc. announces the
STE3000FAV2 patented RF Test Enclosure, designed to give forensics
technicians a highly isolated bench-top environment to perform electronic device
interrogations of electronic equipment. The device is therefore protected from remote
kill, lock, or self-destruct commands, as well as being protected from GPS and location
tracking. Attached to the STE3000FAV2 enclosure is a high quality video and audio
recorder for downloading evidentiary stored data. When the electronic device (cellphone,
laptop PC, etc.) is placed inside this enclosure, it can be viewed through the LED-illuminated
RF-proof window and accessed via silver-mesh...
Porsche's Mission E concept car can
be charged simply by driving over a special tile and has a holographic dashboard
controlled just by looking at it. The 4-seater e-car's 600 hp motor system
can take it from 0 to 100 km/h in under 3.5 seconds (although it will still
be slightly slower than Tesla's new 'Ludicrous' mode).
Porsche's Mission E can travel over 500 km (310 mi)
on one charge and can be charged with enough energy for around 400 km in 15
minutes. It has all-wheel drive and all-wheel steering. "The concept car combines
the unmistakable emotional design of a Porsche with excellent performance and the
forward-thinking practicality of the first 800-volt drive...
"Engineering is not merely knowing and being
knowledgeable, like a walking encyclopedia; engineering is not merely analysis;
engineering is not merely the possession of the capacity to get elegant solutions
to non-existent engineering problems; engineering is practicing the art of the organized
forcing of technological change... Engineers operate at the interface between science
and society." -
Gordon
S. Brown; Dean of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's
(MIT) School of Engineering...
Proper grounding at communications sites is
essential for reliable, error-free operations and for safety issues related to both
shock hazards and lightning strikes. Many sources of advice exist for how to best
collect equipment and power source grounds in order to mitigate crosstalk and power
supply noise. As with any time a group of equally qualified "experts" expound on
opinions regarding best practices, some information you find will be contradictory.
One of the most highly regarded guidelines is a 518-page document published by Motorola
(Publication R56) titled "Standards
and Guidelines for Communication Sites." Many essential topics have been included
like site design and development, communication site building and installation,
internal...
With its
R&S ZVA high end vector network analyzers and
R&S ZVAX-TRM extension unit, Rohde & Schwarz offers an
efficient and highly flexible solution for characterizing active components. Using
a combination of a high-end R&S ZVA and the R&S ZVAX-TRM, users can now
measure the noise figures of amplifiers, converters and transmit/receive (T/R) modules
for radar and satellite applications. The new R&S ZVAXxxB31 and R&S ZVAXxxB32
options for the R&S ZVAX-TRM even make it possible to carry out this measurement
on amplifiers...
"Terahertz radiation could one day provide
the backbone for wireless systems that can deliver data up to one hundred times
faster than today's cellular or Wi-Fi networks. But there remain many technical
challenges to be the first system for multiplexing THz..."
"Next generation mobile networks will have
a massive impact on industry and society, and mobile cloud robotics will be a game
changer in how we manage manufacturing and industrial tasks. The rollout of 5G mobile
networks may still be some way off, but Ericsson researchers are already testing
scenarios such as mobile cloud robotics, where the..."
