NASA Tech Briefs a Very Useful Electronics News Resource

As far back as the mid 1980s, I remember going to the technical library at the Westinghouse Electric Oceanic Division in Annapolis, Maryland to read the latest copy of NASA Tech Briefs. During and after doing a four-year stint in the U.S. Air Force as an air traffic control radar technician, I was voraciously consumed all the information I could obtain on electronics, mechanics, aerodynamics, astrodynamics, etc., and was determined to earn an electrical engineering degree. In the pre-Internet days, acquiring such material required finagling a subscription from the trade magazines (EDN, Microwave Journal, RF Design, etc.) or borrowing a copy from a co-worker or the library. Purchasing a subscription was out of the question on my budget.

Now, as then, every edition of NASA Tech Briefs is chock full of great news bits on all the aforementioned topics - and more. It is one of the many magazines that I scan cover-to-cover every month, and end up reading many of the stories. Here are a few of the items in the January 2017 issue that are worthy of homepage news postings on RF Cafe:

• Electric Field Quantitative Measurement System and Method
• Larger-Area Integrated Electrical Metallization Dielectric Structures with Stress-Managed Unit Cells for Extreme-Environment Semiconductor Electronics Chips
• Putting FPGAs to Work in Software Radio Systems
• Polyimide Wire Insulation Repair System
• RFID Cavity
• Time-Shifted PN Codes for CW LIDAR, RADAR, and SONAR
• Minimally Intrusive Thin-Film Electrical Insulation on Conductive Surfaces
• Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Game Phase III
• Chalcogenide Nanoionic-Based Radio Frequency Switch

Now, as then, a subscription to NASA Tech Briefs is free.

Posted January 5, 2017