EDI CON USA 2016, a conference that brings
together engineers working on high-frequency analog and high-speed digital designs, taking place
September 20-22 in Boston, Mass. at the Hynes Convention Center, announces it sold-out its show
floor, with a total of 138 exhibiting companies from the RF, microwave, and high-speed digital
industries. As a result, the show management has issued a second floor expansion. There is also
limited availability for a demo pod in the Signal Integrity Zone. The EDI CON USA 2016 show floor
and exhibitor list can be found online
...
"Two U.S. research companies are helping the U.S. Navy develop
breakthrough
cryogenic super-cooled superconducting RF and microwave technologies for future
tactical signals intelligence (SIGINT) systems. Officials of the Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) Systems
Center Pacific in San Diego announced contracts this week to Out of the Fog Research LLC in Mountain
View, Calif., and to Hypres Inc. in Elmsford, N.Y., for the Emerging Cryogenic devices
..."
Long after
shirt pocket sized electronic calculators and glass cockpits became the norm for both professional and
recreational aviators, Colonel J. Michael Gibson, a career pilot and navigator with the Canadian
Civil Aeronautics Search and Rescue (now retired) carried a
Pickett N600-ES slide
rule in his flight jacket. Its diminutive size (only 5" long), sharply
marked scales, and sturdy construction made it a favorite for on-the-go users. A special purpose Pickett
N700-T USAF Aerial Photo slide rule lived in his flight suit sleeve pocket. Colonel Gibson is passing
along his appreciation for the art of slide rule usage to his granddaughter. She routinely uses her
Pickett 1010 model ...
With the 47th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing coming
up on July 20, a number of sources have written about NASA having released the
Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) source code into the
public domain. Chris Wiltz, at Design News, included this photo of
Margaret
Hamilton of MIT's Draper Labs standing with her team's code printout. Women engineers take note
- that was in 1969!
I
highly recommend the
NASA Apollo 11: Owners' Workshop Manual, published by Haynes. It has an incredible
amount of 'insider' info about the development of both hardware and software.
I have never been
a fan of "free verse" poetry, be it in the form of a sonnet or otherwise. In my humble opinion, poems
that do not both rhyme and have some degree of meter represent laziness on the part of the 'poet.' Without
requiring poetry to rhyme, all that is required to declare anything a poem is to break the writing into
poem-like lines, et voilà - you have a poem. It is like slinging a brush-load of paint onto a canvas
and calling it art. I proclaim the above to be a poem
...
"Pentagon
researchers are sponsoring a competition of sorts that could open an area off the electronic spectrum
to high-capacity radio communications. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is already making
some progress with its
Terahertz Electronics Program, which currently has two contenders, both made by
Northrop Grumman: the Solid State Power Amplifier and the Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier. This isn't
a case of just speed for speed's sake. The military has been looking to make
..."
Please welcome Federal Custom Cable as the newest advertiser on RF Cafe. Federal Custom Cable is
your direct 
source for RF & Microwave and Contract Manufacturing (CM), cable
prepping, kitting, labeling, rack & panel, modular assemblies, delay lines,
inductors and toroids, semi rigid, stripping and bending, custom molding, Ø-matched,
power and multi-conductor and shielded cables. Please visit them today to see if they can help you with
your project ...
3 more Radio Service Data Sheets for vintage vacuum tube radios
have been added to the growing collection (135 so far). Radio-Craft
and Radio-News, both publications of Hugo Gernsback, published these monthly for the benefit
of both professional service shops and private tinkerers. • Stromberg-Carlson
Nos. 62 and 63, 8-Tube High-Fidelity Chassis • RCA Model 103, 4-Tube
A.C. Compact Dual-Wave • General
Electric Models A82 and A87, 8-Metal-Tube All-Wave A.C. Superheterodyne
Empower RF Systems
is conducting remote live demos
of our broadband, high power amplifier at the IEEE EMC Symposium at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa July 26
– 28th , 2016, Booth 322. The amplifier will be housed in Los Angeles while viewed in the Ottawa exhibit
venue with live streaming video while controlling the amplifier from the exhibit floor through a standard
web browser. What you will see is a demonstration of remote operation of the Empower 2170 1KW RF amplifier
in a test setup
...
A day or so ago I posted about Electronic Design magazine's latest
Salary Survey (which is also part of this report). Now, here is their
annual
Leaders in Electronics issue. It appears to be largely an infomercial for their
advertisers, not a personal interview with company 'leaders' offering industry insights like the title
might suggest. Nevertheless, there is a lot of good information as well, including the report on the
Internet of Things (IoT). You need to sign in for this one, too
...
"Researchers recently
made the surprising discovery that a special class of materials called 'hyperuniform materials'
can be both dense and transparent. This work demonstrates a new way to control light and could lead
to novel materials for many light-based applications including solar photovoltaics. These so-called
'hyperuniform materials' can be made of plastic or glass that contains light-scattering particles spaced
in a disordered, but not completely
..."
Saelig Company has announced two new ranges of military specification
crystal oscillators, designed for use in applications that demand high reliability. Available in industry
standard dual-in-line packages, the new EQXO-1000BMK and EQXO-3000BMK clock oscillators feature a custom-designed quartz
crystal and a CMOS/TTL compatible hybrid circuit mounted on a ceramic substrate. Manufactured using
the latest advances in production technology, these oscillators
...
"The Laser Air Speed Sensing Instrument (LASSI) which is being exhibited at this year's Farnborough International Airshow
sets itself apart from conventional methods as it accurately measures velocity even at low speeds. Air
speed is normally determined using pitot tubes – which protrude from aircraft and sense variations in
air pressure with speed. Although usually heated, these tubes are vulnerable to blockage in icy conditions.
They could also be damaged by collisions with birds and when the aircraft is on the ground. Operating
on the same principle
..."
LNAFIN Oy, located in Helsinki, Finland
requested to be added to the PCB & Substrate
Vendors & Services and Product
Design & Development pages on RF Cafe. PCB layout design, printed circuit boards (PCB), PCB
assembly (PCBA), ASIC design, electronics R&D and wire bonding services (IC assembly). They also
do demanding RF and MMIC designs.
How many times have you dug through a drawer of
coaxial connector adapters and found what seemed
like every possible combination of TNCs, Ns, SMAs, TNCs, UHFs, SMBs, and <fill
in the blank>s except the one you really need? Sometimes the reason is simply because all
on hand are being used for something else and cannot be 'borrowed' for your use. Other times it is because
the need never existed before. Usually, a quick search on the Internet will turn up exactly want you
want, but for a decent quality adapter you will pay a stiff price - especially if it is a rare combination
of connector types
...
I noticed in this
Sunday's Garfield
comic strip that he utters "73" after Jon runs by with a swarm of fireflies after him. My first thought
was amateur radio's Morse code "73," meaning "best regards." However, I also counted exactly 73 fireflies
chasing Jon. Not surprisingly, there is a discussion on the website about the meaning of "73." A search
did not turn up anything regarding whether artist Jim Davis is a Ham
...
Take a break and work this week's
electronics technology
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
...
Wikipedia lists 348 species of electric fish. Jerry tells fellow
electrical and electronics experimenter Carl that the
electric eel is not an eel at all, but a fish. Actually, the eel is a fish
(a knifefish); however - and I needed to look this up - a true eel is
a member of the fish order Anguilliformes, which the electric eel is not. Having no expertise in the
field of eels, I'll leave it at that. Jerry's uncle, who is an active duty Navy guy, somehow managed
to ship an electric eel to him for experimentation purposes. Doing so might have been possible
...
The D200 is the latest in Highland Technology's line of high-performance
compact precision laser
drivers. A DC-coupled trigger signal produces fast, 2 nanosecond transitions. Up to 4 amps of regulated
drive current supports lasers with forward voltages up to 9 volts. The built-in edge-triggered pulse
generator provides up to 1us pulse widths. A pulse-follower mode is also provided, accommodating externally-defined
trigger widths up to 100% duty continuous-wave
...
"Marine
animals use electroreception to detect humans by their muscle movement, warning them to stay away. HECS
Aquatics has built a
Faraday cage into a wetsuit, blocking electrical signals from being sent out. The
technology blocks 95 per cent of the electrical signals given off by muscle movement, the company says.
The wetsuit was tested by marine biologist Ricky Elliott during a research trip in Hawaii, who was featuring
in a series of stunning photographs showing him up close with a variety of animals
..."
Although July seems
to be a little slow, some great new RF-related
magazine articles have appeared in the trade magazines since last posting a list like this a month
ago (tempus fugit!). Since the majority of people no longer receive paper
copies of the magazines - or if they do, never read them - I try to drive a little traffic to the websites
by ...
-
Electronic
Design 2016 Leaders
Issue
-
New Radio Ecosystem for a
Changing Wireless World
-
Design Guidelines for Metallic
Enclosures for RF Circuits
-
Near-Field Scanners Let You
See EMI
Engineered 'Sand' May Help Cool Electronic Devices
"Baratunde Cola would like to
put sand into your computer. Not beach sand, but silicon dioxide nanoparticles coated with a high dielectric
constant polymer to inexpensively provide improved cooling for increasingly power-hungry electronic
devices. The silicon dioxide doesn't do the cooling itself. Instead, the unique surface properties
of the coated nanoscale material conduct the heat at potentially higher efficiency than existing heat
sink materials. The theoretical physics behind the phenomenon is complicated
..."
"We have
to be comfortable with the uncertainty of not knowing, resist easy answers, and keep exploring the universe
with open minds and all the tools and techniques we can muster." - David Grinspoon, astrobiologist,
"No
Need to Feel Lonely," January 2016 Sky & Telescope magazine. That cited quote won a
coin toss with another line in the same article for being the Notable Tech Quote: "...people tend to
get attached to certainty and start to believe they know the answer." Hmmm, can you think of any
contemporary examples of political, sociological, or scientific topics where hard facts seem to be getting
in the way of rigidly held opinions? The ignorant
...
Anatech Electronics
(AEI) manufactures and supplies
RF and microwave filters for military
and commercial communication systems, providing standard and custom RF filters, and RF products. Standard
RF filter and cable assembly products are published in our website database for ease of procurement.
Custom RF filters designs are used when a standard cannot be found, or the requirements dictate a custom
approach. Please visit Anatech today to see whether they can assist you with your project
...
"A
team of researchers at Brown School of Engineering has developed a new power-splitting device for terahertz
(THz) waves. Capable of operating over almost the entire THz range, this basic component shows promise
for wireless and broadband THz applications. As the demand for wireless communications increases and
bandwidth decreases, access of the THz frequencies will unlock new faster methods of data transfer.
One of the big thrusts in terahertz technology is wireless communications
..."
Not
so long ago, it was impossible - literally - to find a company offering these SMA finger wrenches that
used to be handed out like candy at RF & microwave industry shows. I always found them to be extremely
handy for getting SMAs on and off in situations where precision torqueing is not mandated. I wrote about
it back in February of 2014, then Bracke
Manufacturing responded in April saying they had just begun making them, and offered samples
(up to 5) for free. Their latest catalog just arrived with mention of
the giveaway offer on the back cover, so I figured I'd let you know again
...
"Aalto University scientists
have broken the world record by fourteen fold in the energy resolution of thermal photodetection. The
record was made using a partially superconducting
microwave detector. The discovery may lead to ultrasensitive cameras and accessories
for the emerging quantum computer. The first of the two key enabling developments is the new detector
design consisting of tiny pieces of superconducting aluminum and a golden nanowire
..."
The Klondike
/ Yukon Gold Rush is generally credited with opening up the Alaskan territory to exploration and habitation.
Gold was first reported in August of 1896, just three decades prior to this advertisement by the
De Forest
Radio Company extolling its domination of the region with radio communications stations. Company
founder Lee De Forest was very successful in exploiting the virtues of his famous Audion amplifier
tube. A back-handed swipe is taken at Government installations that used "whatever tubes the Government
has" ...
This report details results of the
Electronic Design's 2015 Salary Survey. Nearly 3,000 engineers responded. Without
giving away the numbers, I'll let you know most have a Master's degree, and have been with their present
employer less than a decade. The average engineer's age is getting older with most having lived more
than century/2. Average pay is north of $100k (multiply by 0.74 to adjust for
average hours worked/week relative to 40), with IC designers topping the chart. The 4th largest
gripe is underfunded projects. Most engineers rely on whitepapers, magazines, and webinars to keep current.
There's lots more. The report is FREE, but you need to sign up or sign in for access
...
"The military
services have been exploring a number of ways to ensure navigation when
GPS signals are jammed or otherwise disruption. Army researchers have come up with
another way—using their eyes, albeit with an advanced, very sensitive camera that allows a user to determine
much the camera has moved in relation to an object. The Communications-Electronics Research, Development
and Engineering Center (CERDEC) is using miniature cameras that can capture
the tiniest movement, allowing
..."
At first I was going to comment that using a wizard in an astrologer's
robe to promote chemistry as an example of a career option does not seem like a good choice for appealing
to serious prospects. However, given the weirdness of a good portion of the population, it might be
as effective today as it evidently was nearly a century ago when the
Chemical Institute of New York ran this ad in Radio-Craft magazine. Dr. T. O'Conor Sloane,
reputed head of the Institute, published such tomes as The Standard Electrical Dictionary,
How to become a Successful Electrician, Arithmetic of Electricity
...
"The
days of peak BlackBerry in the U.S. capital are hard to forget. The swift clackety-click of the keyboard
and the soft trrrrrrr of the trackpad scroll invaded every corner of Washington: You'd hear it on the
Metro and in building hallways, at dinner tables and in bars, in elevators and, yes, even bathroom stalls.
OK, it wasn't just D.C. actually. For a while, everyone seemed to have a BlackBerry. The true 'crackberry'
craze phase has subsided over the past few years as BlackBerry's smartphones lost out to iPhones and
Android devices. And now, BlackBerry is bidding
..."
Anatech
Electronics offers the industry's largest portfolio of high-performance standard and customized
RF and microwave filters and filter-related
products for military, commercial, aerospace and defense, and industrial applications up to 40 GHz.
Anatech has introduced 2 new
bandpass filter designs:
a 900 MHz cellular bandpass filter with "N" connectors, a surface mount 900 MHz ceramic bandpass filter,
and a 885-909 MHz/930-954 MHz cavity bandpass filter with SMA connectors. Custom design are available
...
We live in
days of plenty of everything.
People throw away and stash away items that our parents - and particularly grandparents - could only
dream of having available. Even households that have never seen a penny of earned income in decades
are overflowing with stuff. Shopping carts in Walmart, K-Mart, and Target are filled to overflowing
when I am there with toys, shoes and clothes, electronic gadgets, sporting goods, automotive accessories,
pet food (Target has reefers with fresh meat for dogs) and accessories,
lawn and garden implements, hand tools, DVDs and Blu-rays, televisions, disposable diapers, snack cakes
and ...
Keysight Technologies today introduced its
Signal Optimizer software—the
industry's first and only all-in-one software for calibration, signal creation and signal analysis of
5G candidate waveforms. By simplifying calibration and the critical design tasks related to 5G signal
creation and analysis, the software enables R&D engineers to focus more time on being first-to-market
with their own designs. Calibration is essential to making accurate measurements of 5G signals; however,
calibrating wideband channels at RF
...
"You are contemplating
beginning the journey of becoming an engineer, or perhaps you are already on route. No doubt, it will
be a daunting task, and it will not be easy. Along the way, you will discover that the road to success
is not straight, and you likely will not end up where you planned. However, many engineers did it before,
and many will do it after. You can do it too. The journey begins at school, and choosing the right one
can seem a little difficult at first. However, choosing to
study
abroad could be the best choice you can make; Here are 10 reasons why 1. Break the 'Antisocial'
..."
Up until around the 1960s, company advertisements in printed media
were equally likely to be drawings (like this
Radiotron UV-861)
or photographs. Maybe a skilled artist could produce a finely detailed rendition of the subject more
efficiently than with staging for a good photo and then performing the chemical developing procedure.
Of course part of the motivation might have been an ability to easily 'enhance' features not necessarily
present on the original subject. In fact, a physical model is not required at all for a drawing.
I know from looking at many vintage ads using drawings that the food paintings usually looked
...
"Some of the world's largest telecoms
companies have signed a 5G manifesto, aimed at driving forward the deployment of next-generation mobile
networks. The
manifesto pledges to launch fast 5G mobile networks in every country within the
European Union by 2020. However, it also says current net neutrality regulations could hamper innovation
and cause "significant uncertainties". The signatories include BT, Nokia, Orange, Vodafone and Deutsche
..."
"The
Samsung Galaxy S7 Active stopped
working after being put in a tank that simulated the effect of being about 5ft (1.5m) underwater.
Consumer Reports repeated its test on a second model, which was also damaged. Samsung
said it was possible defective devices were 'not as watertight' as they should have been. When removed
after half an hour, the first phone's display was non-responsive and marred by green lines. Bubbles
had also formed in its two camera lenses. The second handset subjected to the same
..."
Southwest Antennas is pleased to announce the release of a new
small form factor panel antenna designed specifically for IEEE 802.11g/n Wi-Fi or
other ISM applications in the 2.4 - 2.5 frequency band. The antenna is designed to handle up to 10 Watts
of RF input power, has a maximum gain of 7.8 dBi, and is vertically polarized. Measuring only half an
inch thick, this antenna is ideal for use as a stand-alone solution for providing Wi-Fi / ISM band coverage
within a building or other structure while remaining unobtrusive. The thin form factor also allows this
product to be integrated into other products and enclosures
...
