|
See Page
1 |
2 |
3 of the August 2018
homepage archives.
Friday 10
  Since 2001,
Antenna Test Lab Co has evaluated countless antennas and RF transmitter
products. With a fully anechoic chamber, antennas can be quickly developed and RF
products refined and deployed. Mounting surfaces like drywall, glass, wood, and
even curved metal  simulated automobile available. The price for
a standard resolution
2D or 3D field pattern plot is only $450
- for a passive or radiating antenna. That is an incredible deal! Be sure to check
out the whitepapers on antenna testing topics...
 RF Cafe visitor Cris Schulze saw the Design
News article I linked to titled, "EMI Emissions Testing: Peak, Quasi-Peak, and Average Measurements,"
and has given permission to reprint his brief response to it (originally posted
on LinkedIn). The included notebook image includes an excerpt from Wikipedia's quasi-peak
detector page, and he illustrates a block diagram of the test chain with de Forest's
audion circuit that provides the fast rise-time and slow fall-time that characterizes
it. A table of actual test data compares quasi-peak measurements to average measurements...
 Hughes Aerospace Division (now part of Boeing
Satellite Development Center) built the
Syncom satellites for NASA in the early 1960s, at the dawn of
the space communications era. Syncom is short for Synchronous
communications, so named because it was the first operational
satellite placed in a geosynchronous orbit. It was a big deal because its stationary
positioning meant that not only was it constantly in view of earth-based communications
stations, but earth-based antennas did not need to have expensive, sophisticated
tracking systems to access the satellite. Once the Gold Rush had panned out (pun
intended) in California, the booming aerospace industry was one of the largest attractions
for the state. Hughes' advertisement in this 1965 issue of Electronics
magazine targets circuit designers who were thinking of "high" in terms of getting
a satellite high into outer space in geosynchronous...
 Since 1961, MECA Electronics manufactures an
extensive line of RF & microwave components for in-building, satellite, radar,
radio, telemetry, mobile radio, aviation & ATC. Attenuators, directional &
hybrid couplers, isolators & circulators, power dividers & combiners, loads,
DC blocks, bias-Ts and adapters & cables. MECA has long been the 'backbone'
of high performance wired and air-interfaced networks. Please visit MECA today to
learn how they can help with your projects...
With more than 780 custom-built symbols,
this has got to be the most comprehensive set of
Visio Stencils available for RF, analog, and digital system and
schematic drawings! Every object has been built from scratch to fit proportionally
on the provided A- and B-size drawing page templates (you
can use your own page if preferred). Components are provided for equipment
racks (EIA and ETSI) and test equipment, system block
diagrams and conceptual drawings, and for schematics...
 "The US should begin planning a next generation
electron-ion collider (EIC) to study the structure of protons
and neutrons in unprecedented detail. That is according to a 15-strong committee
of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Its 115-page report,
commissioned by the US Department of Energy (DOE), says that an EIC with high energy
and luminosity as well as highly-polarized electron and ion beams 'would be unique
to greatly further our understanding of visible matter.' The science that can be
addressed by an EIC is compelling, fundamental..."
Thursday 9
 "AI has the potential to take much of the
dull complexity out of designing
custom circuit boards. While anyone can learn how to design a
circuit board, it takes a skilled engineer to design a circuit board that is both
well optimized and unlikely to melt, explode, or cause whatever it's controlling
to melt or explode. Skilled engineers tend to be busy and expensive and on the ornery
side, especially if you ask them to do things that don't take full advantage of
how brilliant they are. JITX is a startup founded by a team of electrical and mechanical
engineers from UC Berkeley that's building AI with the goal of designing optimized
circuit boards in hours instead of weeks..."
 Establishing a
good ground connection is more important than ever with all the
vulnerable electronics devices connected to house wiring for the Internet of Things
(IoT). The old saying of "Ground is ground the world around" is only true if you
actually have a good path to that ground potential. This article discusses methods
for determining whether or not you have a low resistance ground interface, and how
to establish one if needed. However, that is only the below-grade part of the equation
[ground rod(s) and possibly conduction-enhancing chemicals]. Installing a low resistance
and equally important low inductance path above grade to the below grade component(s)
is essential for maximum protection. Lightning is a transient phenomenon, so the
di/dt part of the v(t) = L * di/dt equation governing voltage across an inductor...
  RF Superstore launched in 2017, marking the
return of Murray Pasternack, founder of Pasternack Enterprises, to the RF and microwave
Industry. Pasternack fundamentally changed the way RF components were sold. Partner
Jason Wright manages day-to-day operations, while working closely with Mr. Pasternack
to develop RF Superstore into a world class RF and
microwave
component supplier. RF coaxial connectors & adapters, coaxial cable &
cable assemblies, surge protectors, attenuators. Items added daily. Free shipping
on orders over $99. We're leading the way again!...
 Factory automation has long been a point
of contention between labor groups interested in retaining manual labor jobs and
management groups interested in increasing production output rates and lowering
operational costs. That beer bottle inspection job once performed by Laverne &
Shirley at the Shotz Brewing Company is today handled by computer-controlled, networked
robots. Ever-advancing technology has significantly enhanced the ability to
monitor and control processes that help reduce scrap, remove workers
from dangerous environments, and create higher quality goods. YouTube is full of
videos showing factory automation for all sorts of tasks from forming springs to
machining intricate surfaces to performing final inspection measurements on electronic,
mechanical, and pharmaceutical products. In the last decade the Internet of Things
(IoT) philosophy...
 Orwill Hawkins, of
LadyBug Technologies,
has a useful article in High Frequency Electronics (HFE) magazine titled,
"USB Power Sensors for Statistical Pulse Measurements." It say
in part, "Statistical pulse measurement capability is just one of the many features
these new sensors can deliver to the engineer at a modest cost. This article will
discuss the benefits and explain the methodology used to make statistical pulse
measurements in two state pulse waveforms. Its purpose is to explain to the user
the methodology in making the measurements so that the user can make better measurements
with confidence." A chart of term definitions is given, some of which will make
you think you are sitting in a dentist's chair (you'll see what I mean)...
 "Nanowire networks produce all-optical logic gates. All-optical computing promises to replace
sluggish electrons with photons zipping along at light speed in digital logic. But
despite years of effort and some progress in related areas such as plasmonics, such
computing has remained largely just a promise. All-optical computing still needs
some tools to make it into a reality. One key component of this toolbox will likely
be all-optical logic gates, and researchers at Aalto University in Finland announced
they have been able to fabricate such gates from nanowires..."
Wednesday 8
 John Gill published many
electronics-themed crossword puzzles in Electronics World
magazine in the 1950s and 1960s. Unlike the weekly RF Cafe engineering crossword
puzzles, some of the words used herein are not directly related to science, engineering,
mathematics, etc. You will find the level of difficulty much less than that of a
Sunday edition New York Times crossword, but there are some challenging
clues, particularly given the era that it was created. Bon chance...
 With expertise in
PCB assembly,
Asian Circuits has grown to become a one-stop
electronic contract manufacturer for complete PCB assembly services.
Corporate headquarters in Sacramento, CA, and manufacturing facilities in Shenzhen,
China, provides the most affordable prices for the procurement of high-quality electronic
components from local suppliers, and the manufacturing of Printed Circuit Boards
through highly efficient production processes. All its processes and operations
are in accordance with ISO9001 standards and in compliance with the IPC-A-600 and
IPC-A-610 Acceptability of Printed Boards Standards. A highly skilled workforce
in PCB manufacturing and
circuit
card assembly has assured our continued growth and overall success...
 John Dunn has a useful article on EDN
titled "Making Impedance Measurements in SPICE." The collection of test
instruments in the Multisim SPICE  version that I've been using does not include
an impedance measurement tool. However, one can make such a tool using the Bode
analyzer, an AC current source, and a current probe. Three impedance measurement
examples are seen in the following sketch. This works by using the IN port of the
Bode analyzer to monitor the input current to the test subject while the OUT port
monitors the resultant voltage. The analyzer delivers a display of the ratio of
OUT divided by IN which is the test subject's impedance..."
 Tunnel diodes came onto the commercial, military,
and aerospace scene in the late 1950s. Exploiting the phenomenon of quantum-mechanical
tunneling, the device exhibits a negative resistance region which makes it suitable
for amplifier and oscillator applications. It also permits operation into the tens
of gigahertz realm, which was new ground at the time. X-band and above was the exclusive
realm of laboratory-based experiments using klystrons and exotic chemical oscillators
(pseudo-maser - microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). Tunnel
diodes quickly became a part of miniaturized radar units, battery-powered communications
systems, undercover (spy) operations, and many other applications...
 Advanced Test Equipment Rentals (ATEC) today
announced this year's San Diego Test Equipment Symposium (SDTES), the annual test and
measurement showcase held in California, will take place on Tuesday, October 16th.
Following last year's success, SDTES 2018 is expected to have more attendees, exhibitors
and presenters than ever. Guests can expect manufacturer product demos, presentations
on today's hot industry topics, networking opportunities, and more. The San Diego
Test Equipment Symposium is a yearly event in which leading test and measurement
equipment manufacturers exhibit their latest technologies. Industry experts in the
fields of EMC, communications, electrical, power, and a variety...
 "A UCF physicist has discovered a new material
that has the potential to become a building block in the new era of
quantum materials, those that are composed of microscopically
condensed matter and expected to change our development of technology. Researchers
are entering the Quantum Age, and instead of using silicon to advance technology
they are finding new quantum materials, conductors that have the ability to use
and store energy at the subatomic level. Assistant Professor Madhab Neupane has
spent his career learning about the quantum realm..."
Tuesday 7
 Electrical noise problems in automotive environments
is almost never a problem now that most forms of communications therein are fundamentally
immune to ignition and even computer interference. We relics who still listen to
AM radio still sometimes suffer noise from lightning static, extreme arcing from
electric service connections, and, yes, even from
ignition sources. In fact, occasionally while listening to AM
radio in my 2011 Jeep Patriot I will detect a whine that is proportional to engine
speed. It is not annoying enough to warrant going to the trouble of chasing down
and mitigating the source; I can live with it. This 1966 Popular Electronics
article presents a very thorough treatise on ignition noise causes and cures. The
techniques are still applicable to modern vehicles...
 "EU-funded researchers have developed a
smart wireless technology that efficiently manages radio-frequency
spectrum resources and avoids transmission bottlenecks. The new system, which also
prevents selfish attacks by secondary users, could be used in military and commercial
wireless applications. The growing popularity of wireless networks has highlighted
the need to increase network capacity and efficiency. Cognitive radio-based networks
have attracted increased attention and have been studied in depth to overcome the
problem of spectrum scarcity in next-generation wireless communication systems..."
Reactel has become one of the industry leaders in the design and manufacture
of RF and microwave filters,
diplexers, and sub-assemblies. Through a continuous process of research and development,
they have established a full line of filters of all types - lowpass, highpass, bandpass,
bandstop, diplexer, and more. They offer the generally known tubular, LC, cavity,
and waveguide designs, as well as state of the art high performance suspended substrate
models. Established in 1979. Please contact Reactel today to see how they might
help your project...
 Anatech
Electronics, Inc. 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 three new filter designs: a 174 MHz surface mount ceramic
bandpass filter, a surface mount 35.0 MHz IF SAW filter, and a 113 MHz
bandstop / notch filter with N connectors. Custom RF filters designs are used when
a standard cannot be found, or the requirements are such that a custom approach
is necessary...
 Thanks to the hard work of Dan S., a
longtime friend and former project manager to whom I reported, my Smith Chart™ for
Excel™ spreadsheet is now available for Apple products users.
Smith Chart™ for Numbers™ will run on iPhones, iPads, and Mac
computer in their native OS without needing a Windows emulator. The download is
free. Rumor has it that Dan is also working on porting my
RF Cafe Calculator Workbook™ to Numbers as well. Stay tuned...
 "Researchers have developed a small silicon-based
device that can turn waste heat dissipated by electronics into a power source.
Converting heat that dissipates from electronic devices into usable
power is a Holy Grail of sorts for energy-harvesting designers. After all, it would
allow these devices - even electric cars - to be their own sources of power. Now,
researchers at the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Sandia National Laboratories appear
to be closer to reaching this goal with the development of a tiny silicon-based
device that can turn so-called waste heat into DC power..."
Monday 6
 "Anyone who has ever taken an Uber ride knows
it's convenient and very popular so one man in St. Joseph County has found a way
to make ride sharing more scenic. Timothy Hochstedler calls it
Amish Uber. He is adding some horsepower to ride sharing. The
newest taxi service in Colon has four wheels, four legs and good gas mileage. Inside
his horse and buggy, people share a ride and Hochstedler gets to share some stories.
Everyone's happy. 'Uber is a cool thing, every single year something new comes in
and Uber is hot right now, so we have the Amish Uber. We can deliver people to their
front door steps..."
 Electro-Photonics
is a global supplier of RF & microwave components. Their products include SMT hybrid
and directional couplers, wire bondable passive components, mounting tabs, filters,
transmission lines, and very useful test boards for evaluating components (spiral
inductors, single-layer capacitors). The Electro-Photonics team can support your
small R&D design requirements with RF & Microwave test fixtures and save
you valuable design and characterization time. Please take a moment to visit Electro-Photonics'
website and see how your project might benefit...
 Here is an editorial excerpt from a 1965
issue of Electronics magazine that could be from a contemporary news publication:
"If U. S. manufacturers continue to abandon their engineering and production for
Japanese products, they are headed for oblivion because they cannot
compete with the purely merchandising organizations such as Sears, Roebuck &
Co. and Montgomery Ward* which buy Japanese products too." Of course you could easily
substitute South Korea, China, Taiwan, or any other now-prominent technology company
in place of Japan. American economic "experts" assured us in the 1990s that we no
longer needed to manufacture anything; rather, we would become a service and retail
economy. That worked out real well, eh?...
 Gallium Nitride (GaN) has become a big deal
in the RF and power electronics worlds due to its ability to survive high temperatures.
Fairview Microwave has a good article titled "GaN's
Role in 5G" on the Microwave Product Digest (MPD) website. "The race to 5G appears
to have picked up speed, particularly in the United States where major telecommunications
companies such as AT&T and Verizon have made announcements to launch 5G services
by the end of 2018. Advanced LTE (LTE-A) is already expanding rapidly with upgrades
to current base stations (BS). Field trials for LTE-Pro (aka 4.5G) are in full swing
with download speeds already reaching 1 gigabit per second (Gbps). Fixed wireless
access (FWA) technology has already been through significant..."
 Triad RF Systems has introduced the all new
TA1017, which is a
50 watt, L- and S-band power amplifier that offers impressive
power in a small and lightweight package, making it ideal for DBV-T applications.
The TA1017 is also an excellent choice for LTE, WiFi, and any other L- or S-band
application where small size and high output power are essential. 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, OFDM, DVB, and CW/AM/FM. The latest device technologies and
design methods are employed to offer high power...
 "Engineers at UCLA have designed a
graphene-based photodetector that is sensitive and can work anywhere
in the electromagnetic spectrum from ultra-violet to microwaves. The work is published
in Nature Light Science & Applications in the paper 'Gold-patched graphene
nano-stripes for high-responsivity and ultrafast photodetection from the visible
to infrared regime,' whose title explains just about all you need to know. Photo-carrier
generation is mostly confined to the graphene stripes and conduction mostly to the
gold patches, meaning that the structures gets the broadband optical absorption..."
Sunday 5
 For the sake of all the avid cruciverbalists
amongst us, each week I create a new
technology-themed crossword puzzle using only words from my custom-created
list related to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy,
etc. At least 10 clues with an asterisk (*) in this technology-themed
crossword puzzle are pulled from the past week's (7/30 - 8/3) "Tech Industry Headlines"
column on the RF Cafe homepage. 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, see someone or something in the exclusion list directly related
to this puzzle's theme, such as Hedy Lamar or the Bikini Atoll, respectively. Enjoy!...
Friday 3
 Popular Electronics' master quizmaster
Robert P. Balin created this "Electronic Measurements Quiz" to test your ability to match the
indicated component with one of the commonly associated parameter units. For instance,
if a carbon resistor was illustrated, you would choose, if offered as an option,
the temperature coefficient of resistance unit of ppm/°C. I erroneously swapped
the units for item A and item H (80% score). Oh well, there goes the cumulative
quiz GPA. Maybe you will do better...
 "Nearly two decades ago when
Wi-Fi was a nascent technology, a limited amount of mid-band spectrum
(2.4 to 2.483 GHz) was made available for unlicensed use. Subsequently, as the number
of devices increased the 5 GHz band was also made available to Wi-Fi. Now, more
than eight billion Wi-Fi devices are in use around the world, and that number is
expected to reach nearly 12 billion by 2020. Users have come to rely on Wi-Fi as
the primary means for internet access, in part because it is often their most affordable
option and in part because Wi-Fi offers performance that is well suited for current
and emerging applications. The increasing number of Wi-Fi devices combined with
growing..."
 EMI emissions testing is an area of RF measurement
 that
causes confusion in even seasoned professionals - maybe not so much the terms themselves
as determining how they are to be made in order to determine compliance with the
multitude of specifications for various formats of WiFi, Bluetooth, cellular, etc.
That is why there as so many specialty service ready to do it for you. Dorine Gurney,
of Tektronix, has a brief piece on the EDN website offering her experienced insight.
"EMI emissions testing is critical to bringing a product to market. Most electrical
and electronic products require regulatory compliance testing, which must be performed
in an approved test lab. Such testing can be expensive, especially if the product
fails. A failed test can result in lost time to market and cost overruns. To minimize
unwanted trips to the test lab prior to compliance tests, you can measure EMI emissions
from your product..."
 According to sources I can find, it wasn't
until the early 1970s that most (>50%) of homes in America had air conditioning.
Many homes on my boyhood street, including ours, didn't get their first window unit
until the late 1960s. We suffered through some pretty miserable hot, humid summers
just a few blocks from the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis, Maryland. Going into stores
- especially grocery stores, was a great relief from the oppressive heat. The A&P
frozen foods aisle, with the open freezers, was my favorite spot. It's kind of gross,
in retrospect, to imagine all the sweat that dripped off people and onto the icy
packages lying in the freezers. Electronics service shops of the era definitely
required
air conditioning to keep all the vacuum tube TVs and radios cool
while troubleshooting and aligning them...
 RF Cascade Workbook 2018 is the next phase in the evolution
of RF Cafe's long-running series, RF Cascade Workbook. It is a full-featured
RF system cascade parameter and frequency planner that includes filters and mixers
for a mere $45. Built in MS Excel, using RF Cascade Workbook 2018
is a cinch and the format is entirely customizable. It is significantly easier and
faster than using a multi-thousand dollar simulator when a high level system analysis
is all that is needed. An intro video takes you through the main features...
 "RF gallium nitride (GaN) market growth continued
to accelerate in 2017 and, with revenues growing at over 38% year-on-year, will
exceed $1B by 2022 (with defense sector demand slightly greater than commercial
revenue), forecasts the Strategy Analytics Strategic Component Applications (SCA)
group report 'RF GaN Market Update: 2017–2022.' GaN is seeing adoption across
a range of RF applications. Growth is driven primarily by the rollout of commercial
wireless infrastructure coupled with demand from military radar, electronic warfare
(EW) and communications applications..."
Thursday 2
 Thanks
once again to Bob D. for pointing out another great website for those of us
who appreciate the history of electronics. Mr. David Knight, of the UK, has a collection of topics on
both vintage components as well as modern gear and techniques. Include are Nixie
and other digital readout tubes (see my recent
Experiment with Digital Readouts article), demodulators and rectifiers,
converting bikes to e-power, unusual valves (aka vacuum tubes), high power RF transmission
(with some cool photos of ionized gas in presence of coils), gas discharge tubes,
and more. It's worth a few minutes of your time...
 "Thales Alenia Space, a Joint Venture between
Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), and SSL, a Maxar Technologies company, have signed
a consortium agreement to pursue the development and manufacture of Telesat's highly
advanced global
LEO satellite constellation and end-to-end system. In addition
the consortium, led by Thales Alenia Space, announced reports that they have been
awarded a contract by Telesat for a System Design and Risk Management Project for
the Telesat LEO constellation. Following a highly rigorous process involving leading
satellite manufacturing companies..."
 This might be one of the first advertisements
for
Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) test and measurement (T&M) products
to appear in a U.S. publication (December 13, 1965 Electronics). A brief
search for earlier instances did not turn up anything prior to 1965. Please contact
me if you have seen one. R&S, as you probably know already, is now a major player
in the communications T&M world. Hewlett Packard (HP) of course was one of the
largest - if not the largest - maker of spectrum analyzers, network analyzers,
noise figure test sets, modulation generators and analyzers, signal generators,
o-scopes, etc., up through about the 1980s - maybe into the 1990s. Once the cellular
and wireless everything markets took off, Rohde & Schwartz test equipment (TE)
began...
 You might have heard of Pixie tubes and Nixie
tubes from the era preceding light emitting diodes (LED's), but how about
Elfin tubes? They were considered the next stage in the evolution
of digital display devices. This article from a 1969 issue of Radio-Electronics
magazine provides an introduction to Elfin tubes. The images are from a listing
on eBay (at this time) offering to sell MG-19B Elfin Readout tubes for $10 each,
in case you want one for a conversation piece or for a project. Elfin tubes are
fairly accessible if this guy depletes his supply. I grabbed a shot of the tube
and datasheet in case they disappear someday...
 "Visualizing antenna patterns on a map can be
 helpful
in design - this latest blog post from Rick Gentile discusses several methods on
how to do that via MATLAB. I have covered many aspects of modeling antenna elements
and antenna arrays in 'Algorithms to Antenna: Achieve System Performance Goals with
Less Hardware' and 'Algorithms to Antenna: Designing an Antenna Array.' The focus
to date has been on evaluating an antenna-array design based on the beam pattern
of the array. For some projects, it's also helpful to visualize the antenna pattern
on a map. I would like to introduce you to a few examples that show how these patterns
can be displayed on a map in MATLAB..."
 "Researchers in Computer Science Department
of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the Hiroshi Fujiwara Cyber Security
Research Center at the Technion have successfully discovered a
'severe' breach in Bluetooth communication technology. This was
done as part of Lior Neumann's master's thesis, supervised by Prof. Eli Biham, head
of the Hiroshi Fujiwara Cyber Security Research Center. Bluetooth technology, developed
in the 1990s, quickly became a popular platform. Unlike Wi-Fi, Bluetooth is not
based on a network connecting several devices to one another but rather on the individual
pairing of two devices (e.g. a headset and a telephone). This method allows..."
Wednesday 1
 "Swedish automobile manufacturer Volvo Cars
has become the first car-maker to equip its vehicles with
eCall devices. The European eCall regulation, which came into
effect from April 1, requires all new car and light van types sold in the EU to
be fitted with the emergency systems. The eCall device in Volvo vehicles is manufactured
by ACTIA Nordic in Sweden and has been successfully tested by NavCert's eCall Laboratory
in Germany. The readiness of automotive suppliers and technical services to equip
the vehicles was partially due to actions taken by the European GNSS Agency (GSA)
and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, who launched..."
 Saelig Company has introduced the ABI
BoardMaster-RM
Universal PCB Test Solution - a unique, versatile, self-contained, and easy-to-use
PCB test system, now housed in a convenient 19" rack case. It is an all-in-one unit
featuring a comprehensive set of test instruments, complete with a built-in Windows
10 PC and special software for testing and fault-finding on almost any kind of PCB
and assembly. Numerous valuable investigation methods are provided, such as V/I
testing and digital / analog IC test, to speed up PCB repair and get equipment back
in operation...
 Rudy Ramos has a useful article on the
Design News website that reviews which
types of capacitor are most suitable for power conve rsion applications.
With so many different kind of dielectrics to choose from, advice from the voice
of experience is invaluable. "Capacitors can provide vital ride-through (or hold-up)
energy or mitigate ripple and noise in power-conversion circuits. Choosing the right
type can profoundly affect a system's overall size, cost, and performance. With
their low equivalent series resistance (ESR), which allows for good ripple-current
handling as well as high surge-voltage ratings and self-healing..."
 When I saw this first
electronics-themed comic in the May 1959 issue of Electronics
World, my first thought was how most people today probably cannot relate to
the task of installing and adjusting a rooftop antenna for televisions. Ditto for
FM antennas. Most people who still watch TV use cable, although some have satellite
TV. Then I thought about how Ham radio operators are the last vestige of civilians
who rely on antennas and over-the-air radio communications (other than the world's
4.5 billion cellphone users who don't realize their phones are radios). Television
antenna design and installation was never a high-tech sport for typical homeowners
as it is for Amateurs; it was just a necessary nuisance. Finally, it occurred to
me than for a growing number of Hams...
 "Researchers at Aalto University in Finland
have developed the first
binary calculator that entirely uses light instead of current.
The interdisciplinary team have shown how a new type of nanowire-based nanostructure
enables light to perform logic functions, allowing simple addition and subtraction
operations. The study, published in Science Advances , is the first to demonstrate
nanoscale all-optical logic circuits. 'We're able to perform binary number calculations
and show, for instance, how this nanostructure can carry out these functions just
like a simple pocket calculator--except that instead of using electricity, the nanostructure
uses only light in its operation,' said Dr. Henri Jussila..."
|
