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3 of the September
2017 homepage archives.
Friday 29
 ConductRF offers straight and right angle
low PIM connectors for 7/16,
N, SMA, QMA, 4.1/9.5 and 4.3/10 interfaces. PIM levels vary depending on cable and
configuration. We also offer coaxial adapters. Download our datasheets by clicking
the pictures above for more detail of call us at +1 978 374 6840
 It has been a while since I posted some of
the electronics-themed comics I find in my vintage electronics magazines. A few
from
Popular Electronics and
Electronics World are included here.
 For some reason, it is rare to find such comics
in modern technical publications. About the only one that comes to mind is the "Cartoon
Caption Contest" held each month by EE|Times. A big list of other comics
are at page bottoms
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk plans to use his "BFR" technology to ferry Earth travelers between major cities
via VTOL suborbital rockets. New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes. London to Dubai
in 29 minutes. Passengers might worry a bit about their commuter craft being mistaken
for an inbound ICBM. Antimissile radars might have difficulty discerning between
types of "big f'ing rockets." A BFR would be a great Trojan Horse for a nuke
Triad RF Systems announces the
TA1164, a broadband GaN solid state power amplifier (SSPA) designed
for general-purpose RF test and military jamming applications. Internal DC conversion
allows for a 12-36 Vin supply voltage. CW output power is 10 W
min, 20 W typical across the band. This class AB GaN module is designed for
both military and commercial applications. It is capable of supporting any signal
type and modulation format, including but not limited to 3 - 4G telecom, WLAN
 "The U.S. Navy and Boeing are working to
upgrade P-8 surveillance planes by installing
Wideband Satellite Communications (WBSC) radomes and the necessary
supporting infrastructure in each aircraft. The integration, which upgrades P-8s
to P-8As, will install a WBSC high-capacity satellite communications system. WBSC
satellites are compatible with the Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS)
and Global Broadcast Service satellites. Eventually "
Thursday 28
 I like to remind people who quote the statistical
[im]probability of an event occurring as evidence that it almost certainly will
not happen (e.g., a giant meteor hitting the Earth), that a million-to-one chance
has as much likelihood of happening on the first trial as it does on the millionth.
Probability is merely the number of trials between similar occurrences, not the
point in the trials at which the event will occur.
Mr. Ransom Stephens has a very well done, 3-part introduction to statistical
analysis on the EDN website. He combines a wry touch witticism and humor to help
make things like a "sigma" (σ) more layman friendly.
P1: Systematic Bias,
P2: Rules of Thumb,
P3: Why Some Results Are Irreproducible
 There was no shortage in the 1970s of articles
recommending how to choose and install the perfect
television antenna. People would swear by the advice given. This
piece by Mr. Harvey Swearer is a good example. Of the four manufacturers with
pictured antennas - Gavin, Channel Master, Lance, and Jerrold - only Channel Master
still exists today. Lance Industries made the ColorMaster TV antennas, and has appears
to have been out of business since around 2003. Gavin Electronics seems to be gone
as well. I found an ad for the Gavin
 "Chemists report a new, metastable, ultra-light
crystalline form of aluminum has been computationally designed using density functional
calculations with imposing periodic boundary conditions. If you drop an aluminum
spoon in a sink full of water, the spoon will sink to the bottom. That's because
aluminum, in its conventional form, is denser than water says Utah State University
chemist Alexander Boldyrev. But if you restructure the common household metal at
the molecular "
 Anatech Electronics,
a manufacturer of RF and microwave filters, has published its August newsletter.
In it, Sam Benzacar discusses an ambient electrical noise problem that neither his
filter company nor anyone else's filter company can do anything about - signals
beginning in the super low frequency (30 Hz - 3 kHz) generated by or as
a result of operation from AC line voltages. That includes everything from bedside
clocks to smart refrigerators. The problem is growing rapidly. Ironically, just
yesterday I posted an article titled "Electronic Pollution "
 "A new type of material called a "spin-valley
half-metal" has been predicted by calculations done by physicists in Russia, Japan
and the U.S. While the material has not yet been characterized in the laboratory,
the team says it could find use in new types of biocompatible and carbon-based electronics.
Half-metals are materials in which only electrons with a specific spin polarization
(spin-up, for example) participate in electrical conduction. These materials can
therefore create currents "
Wednesday 27
Short, informative videos highlighting new features and user productivity enhancements
in the V13 release of NI AWR Design Environment are now available for viewing on
the AWR.TV found within the . Specific videos within the playlist include: EM Ports
and Integration Additions, Measurement and Layout Improvements, Simulation Results
and Enhanced Markers Optimization, Synthesis Wizards, Embedded Sweeps and More
 "We've all been there. You're driving down
the highway, just as Google Maps instructed, when Siri tells you to 'proceed east
for one-half mile, then merge onto the highway.' But you're already on the highway.
After a moment of confusion and perhaps some rude words about Siri and her extended
AI family, you realize the problem: Your GPS isn't accurate enough for your navigation
app to tell if you're on the highway or on the road beside it. Those days are nearly
at an end. At the ION GNSS+ conference in Portland "
 This type of electronic pollution is not
e-waste as you think of today, but electrical noise pollution. Ever-rising
ambient noise floor levels have been an issue since the inception
of electronics. In excess, it can render both analog and digital circuits useless,
or at best annoying to use. Addressed in the article are the phenomenon of unintentional
heterodyning and signal to noise ratio degradation, from both natural and man-made
sources. Author Garrison touches on the intentional generation of noise for electronic
warfare applications. I did a quick Internet search looking for plots of typical
background noise levels in an urban environment for today and from the middle
 Innovative Power Products introduces their
new model IPP-8057, a 150 watt, 33 dB, Surface Mount Dual Directional
Coupler that operates from 500 – 2500 MHz. The IPP-8057 is a broadband
design which provides separate coupled ports for both forward and reflected signals
with internal terminations. This unique coupler is produced in a Surface Mount (SMD)
package size of 0.500(W) x 1.000(L) x 0.139(H) inches and was designed to reduce
the size, weight and cost
 The folks at everythingRF have create a brand
new website titled PCB Directory.
It has created the industry's first quotation tool that lets you
get quotations
from multiple manufacturers by filling out a single form. PCB Directory is the largest
directory of PCB manufacturers and fabricators on Internet. They have listed the
leading printed circuit board manufacturers around the world and made them searchable
by their capabilities - laminates types, board thicknesses, number of layers, etc.
If you are a PCB manufacturer and would like to add your company to this directory, click here.
 "Headquartered in Valbonne, South of France,
start-up Texplained is on a mission to render chip-level reverse engineering a dead-end
for IC counterfeiters. Although today's Common Criteria Certification schemes for
secure chips consider laboratory-grade invasive attacks as a negligible
threat, Texplained's CEO Clarisse Ginet is here to prove otherwise. 'It used to
be the case, maybe 15 years ago, that invasive attacks (chemically and physically
removing layers to read optically through a chip's architecture) were too technical
and too costly "
Tuesday 26
 "Light is strange, but you can get used to
it." - Robert Lanza and Bob Berman in
Beyond Biocentrism. The authors discuss some of the stranger
aspects of quantum physics including the dual particle and wave nature of light,
and the "spooky action at a distance," as Einstein called it, of entanglement. The
biocentrism theme is kind of weird, but the book has a good review of quantum theory
Saelig Company has introduced the
IkaScope WS200, , a pen-shaped battery-powered wireless oscilloscope that streams
captured signals to almost any WiFi-connected screen. The IkaScope WS200 offers
a 30 MHz bandwidth with its 200 MSa/s sampling rate and the maximum input
is ±40 Vpp. It provides galvanically-isolated measurements even when a USB
connection is charging the internal battery. The IkaScope WS200 will work on desktop
computers as well as on mobile devices like tablets
 "As soon as we were inside, one introduced
himself as an FBI agent and showed me his identification. He introduced the other
man as a law officer from one of the northern counties. Maybe you think I wasn't
hastily reviewing my most recent sins as we sat down!" That line from Mac McGregor
cracked me up! He was telling stories of his earlier Ham radio days to Barney during
a lull in business in the electronics repair shop. The last anecdote concerns his
service as an Amateur helping to establish and run a
communications net during a spate of tornadoes in the Midwest
- a scenario familiar to us now with the massive damage done by major Atlantic hurricanes
this year
 Copper Mountain Technologies is hosting a
webinar titled "Building an RF Lab at a University" on Wednesday, September 27
at 1 pm EST. Dr. Allen Katz will present how his lab at the College of New
Jersey uses USB VNAs. Interested in hearing more about Dr. Katz and his RF program?
Join us for this webinar as he discusses 2-port measurements, S-parameters, impedance
matching and the design projects his students participate in
 Deployable volunteers urgently needed! Must
hold at least a General license and be experienced in emergency operations. The
American Red Cross (ARC) has asked ARRL for assistance with relief efforts in
Puerto Rico. In the nearly 75-year relationship between ARRL and
ARC, this is the first time ARC has made a request for assistance on this scale.
Hurricane Maria has devastated the island's communications infrastructure. Without
electricity and telephone, and with most of the cell sites out of service, millions
of people are cut off from communicating. Shelters are unable to reach local emergency
 "As the Internet of Things grows, sensors
and other devices must collect and transmit data while consuming as little power
as possible. One way to do this is to take advantage of
backscatter by having IoT devices reflect radiofrequency signals
transmitted to them. Tuned properly, these waves can deliver information over short
distances. A team from the University of Washington, with the Internet of Things
in mind, has expanded the range of backscatter to several kilometers. Last week "
Monday 25
 Intersil has released the first three members
of its new family of
radiation-tolerant plastic-package ICs designed to support the
emerging field of small satellites. Intersil's rad-tolerant plastic parts include
the ISL71026M 3.3V controller area network (CAN) transceiver, ISL71444M 40V quad
precision rail-to-rail input and output (RRIO) op amp, and the ISL71001M 6A point-of-load
(POL) voltage regulator. These ICs deliver rad-tolerance performance at a much lower
cost point versus radiation assurance tested Class V (space
 "Triboelectricity, which is defined as small-scale static-electricity
charges generated by contact and motion between surfaces, seems like a winning 'something
for almost nothing' scenario. It can be used to generate energy that's harvested
and stored, and then used to power extremely low-power sensors and electronics.
Now there's a rigorous analysis and model-based framework, developed by a team of
researchers at three UK-based "
 Here is another in a collection of article
on printed circuit board technology that appeared in the October 1969 edition of
Electronics World. Amphenol has been making and driving the evolution of
electrical cable, sockets, and connectors since 1932. I have seen
their advertisements in many of my vintage electronics magazines, including this
on that appeared in these Radio News issues from January and October 1945.
A lot of the innovation was driven by military and aerospace quality, reliability,
pin density, and weight requirements, and as is always the case, a lot of the benefit
redounded to the commercial realm as well
Agendas are set and registration opened for the Russia leg of AWR Design Forum
(ADF) 2017, an open forum that aims to bring together
NI AWR Design Environment
customers, partners and engineering professionals to learn, network and collaborate
on the design of today's RF/microwave circuits and systems. ADF 2017 will visit
three cities in Russia: St. Petersburg on October 3, Moscow on October 4 and Zelenograd
on October 5
 "Spin separation caused by the thermal flow
of electrons has been observed by an international team of physicists. Called the
"spin Nernst effect", the phenomenon involves the separation of
spin-up and spin-down electrons without the application of a magnetic field. The
research could help with the development of new technologies including spintronics
– circuits that store and process information using spins – and devices that convert
heat into "
Sunday 24
 For the sake of avid cruciverbalists amongst
us, each week I create a new
crossword puzzle that has a theme related to engineering, mathematics,
chemistry, physics, and other technical words. At least 10 clues in this puzzle
with an asterisk (*) are pulled from this past week's (9/18 - 9/22)
"Tech Industry Headlines" column on the RF Cafe homepage (see the Headline Archives
page for help). Enjoy!
Friday 22
 KR Electronics part number
3012-220
is a 220 MHz bandpass filter designed for Positive Train Control (PTC) applications.
Encapsulated for enhanced shock and vibration resistance, 50 Ω source and load,
N(F) to N(M) connectors. The filters are encapsulated/ruggedized for enhanced shock
and vibration resistance. Thousands are currently installed and operating successfully
in the field with major rail companies. Other frequencies and bandwidths are available
RF/Microwave Training Webinar
Title: Mixers and Frequency Conversion | Date: September 28, 2017
|Time: 8am PT / 11am ET | Sponsored by: National Instruments
Presented by: Allen Podell
Outline: Frequency conversion is a critical function in all wireless systems.
A key component used to accomplish this is the mixer. Designers need to understand
different mixer topologies and specifications in order to meet their system requirements.
This webinar provides a brief overview of frequency conversion
 Part 1 of this 3-part series discussed the
basics of radiation, and now author Ello delves into various methods of detecting
and measuring radiation levels.
Ionizing radiation measurement capability is needed for the safety
of life forms due its ability to knock electrons away from their host atoms, thus
generating ions that cause molecules to form that might not otherwise do so. If
those molecules happen to part of a self-reproducing living cell, then a mutant
- or cancerous - cell is the result. With luck, body defense cells will hunt down
and kill it, but if not, a tumor will develop - maybe benign, but maybe malignant
 Pay Scale has published their 2017-2018 list
of college rankings, along with average starting salaries. For
engineering pay levels, MIT tops the list at $84.7k, followed
by Marietta College and Stanford. The U.S. Naval Academy ranks #6 at $79.9k (and
free tuition). Harvard comes it at #8, and Mr. Einstein's' home of Princeton is
#16. West Point, another institution with free tuition, is at #18. The score of
my alma mater, UVM, is
too embarrassing to mention, but it does go a long way toward explaining my rather
lackluster financial status. See the entire list here
 Withwave's
W-Test cable assemblies are complete line of high precision flexible
microwave cable assemblies, specially for stable phase testing. These WT series
are designed by excellent microwave interconnection technologies. The WT500 &
670 cable assemblies, operating to 50 GHz and 67 GHz, respectively, have
excellent insertion loss, high phase/amplitude stability in relation to temperature
 "In a pioneering effort to control, measure
and understand magnetism at the atomic level, researchers working at the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have discovered a new method for manipulating
the nanoscale properties of
magnetic materials.
The ability to control these properties has potential applications in creating and
improving the magnetic memory in consumer electronic devices, and developing a sensitive
detector for magnetic nanoparticles. The discovery "
Thursday 21
 According to Microwave Journal Editor
Patrick Hindle, "Antenna measurements are difficult to make due to their multi-directional
nature, their cables / connections to equipment and interfering signals in the environment.
The measurement setup, surrounding environment and physical connections all need
to be carefully specified and setup, paying close attention to the instruments and
materials used." Copper Mountain Technologies collaborated with Microwave Journal
to offer you this free eBook,
Precision Antenna Measurements, on precision antenna
measurements
 RF Cafe visitor
Richard P. posted this challenge on my Facebook page. He
would like a positive Id on the device in order to re-bias it for higher voltage
operation. It is in a HF amplifier he bought on eBay. The package marking is smudged
so that the full part number is indiscernible. I labeled the image with the limited
info I could make out. The company logo is Freescale, which was once Motorola and
is now NXP, so it is not a new device. The ceramic flanged package appears to be
for an LDMOS transistor. I spent more than an hour searching, but had, in Richard's
words, "no joy." If you can ID it, please shoot me an e-mail ...
 During my tenure in the early-to-mid 1980s
as an electronics technician at Westinghouse Electric's Oceanic Division, in Annapolis,
MD, I assembled many a Mil-Spec printed circuit board. An initial week-long soldering
class and then periodic refreshers were required to get NASA-certified for the type
of critical work we did there. I have written before about the rigid inspection
process that each PCB, cable harness, wire-wrap board, etc., was put through. Many
of the assemblies for use in underwater vehicles and ship-based controllers needed
to be
conformably coated for protection against the corrosive salt water
environment. The first step
 "American Tower and Phillips Lighting partner
on connected light poles to add network density for smart city applications Siting
of
wireless infrastructure in urban spaces is often a tricky proposition
for wireless carriers and neutral host providers. Regulations vary between jurisdictions,
which makes developing a scalable deployment model difficult and, in turn, drives
up costs and extends project timelines. In the context of a smart city, ultra-dense
network "
 "Officials in Xilinshui, in the city of Baoding,
Hebei province, created the scannable [QR] code, which measures 227 m along each side, using about
130,000 Chinese juniper trees, Xinhua reported on Thursday. The evergreen trees,
which are native to northeast Asia, are all between 80 cm and 2.5 m in
height. While difficult to do, anyone who scans the greenery using a smartphone
or tablet will be connected to the village's public WeChat account for tourism "
The LDMOUNT is ideal for pump and communication diode lasers. The
LDMOUNT from Wavelength Electronics is designed for optoelectronic
modules in a 14-pin butterfly package that require up to 5A. With integrated heatsinking,
built-in safety features, and easy connection to eight different high performance
Wavelength controllers, the LDMOUNT can be used in a variety of applications, mounted
on an optics table or to a chassis
 "Revolutionary, tower-style computer chips
could boost microprocessor performance a thousand-fold. In the age of big data,
cloud and the internet of things, our thirst for computing power has never been
greater. Many of our readers will be familiar with
Moore's law, the observation that predicts a doubling of computing
capability every two years, as integrated circuits are packed ever denser with "
Wednesday 20
 ConductRF's skill in the manufacturing of
Phase Matched
RF Cable Solutions is second to none. We have phase matched a diverse array
of solutions from Low Frequency RG and LMR Cables to more premium exotic cables
up to 70 GHz. Flexible, conformable & semi-rigid, phase & amplitude
stable, low loss & high power, phase differential as low as ±0.2 °/GHz,
many connector types, indoor & outdoor solutions. A broad base of standard connectors
and cables in stock, we turn solutions around fast
 "As demand grows for more versatile, advanced
robotics and other technologies, the need for components that can enable these applications
also increases. Producing such components en masse has been a major challenge. But
now, in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, researchers report that they have
developed a way to help meet this need by printing
electronics that can fold themselves into a desired shape. Creating
small electronic pieces with specific architectural designs can now "
 Each month (unless I forget) I post a list
of articles with advice on
career enhancement including tips on preparing resumes, conducting
yourself properly at interviews, getting along well with co-workers, handling a
difficult boss, etc. I also post links to polls and studies done on career
satisfaction, pay rates, education and experience levels, years in the field, etc.
Those types of articles have been around since Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable
type printing press. In the 1970s, Popular Electronics rand a series of
articles titled "Opportunity Awareness" that offered such advice, much of which
in principle is still valid today. One of the biggest advantages you can give yourself
 "There, his
new specimens joined his collection and waited patiently
as only rocks can until he could find time to analyze them." -
Kat McGowan,
"Where
Did It Begin?" September / October 2017 Popular Science (p41).
 Glenn Robb, owner / engineer from Antenna
Test Lab Company sent me this very excellent whitepaper he just wrote titled "Circularly Polarized Antennas Explained, Without the Math." As
promised, his tutorial introduces the concept of circular polarization in electromagnetic
waves and then describes how he measures and reports results in a spreadsheet using
automated antenna positioning and frequency sweeping. Antenna Test Lab Co's evaluation
service includes fully circular polarization antenna evaluations at no extra charge.
Practical antenna evaluations with 2D or 3D patterns in hundreds of test directions
(and frequencies) are available for $450
 "Chang Gung University and Episil-Precision
in Taiwan claim the first demonstration of in-situ silicon nitride (SiNx) gate dielectric
aluminium gallium nitride (AlGaN) barrier metal–insulator–semiconductor high-electron-mobility
transistors (MISHEMTs) on 6-inch silicon on insulator (SOI) substrates. The devices
showed improved DC, dynamic and radio frequency (RF) performance over the same structures
grown on HR Si "
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