 Friday 10
 As you already know if you are planning
to be at the International Microwave Symposium (IMS) this year, it is being held
from June 2nd through the 7th in Boston, Massachusetts. The last time the IMS show
was in Boston venue was 2009, and RF Cafe was there. It was my very first IMS show.
The entire day was spent taking photographs and meeting as many RF Cafe website
advertisers as possible. I also got to visit with a few people from companies I
used to work for. The National Electronics Museum had a very nice display set up
showcasing the evolution of the Microwave industry. Up until a couple weeks ago,
Melanie and were planning on returning this year to the IMS show, but some family
matters have required some extensive travel lately ...
 Empower RF Systems' CTO Paulo Correa will
be presenting "High
Power Solid State Advances in Technology" at the 2019 Electronic Warfare Europe
convention in Stockholm, Sweden. While the electromagnetic battle space becomes
more densely occupied and our adversaries develop new threat methodologies, more
capable threat simulation emitters systems are required. The stakes are high and
domination of the electromagnetic battle space will determine the winner of conflicts,
not the dominant air power. The technology scenario is not unlike the development
of the airplane, its value not quickly appreciated (how we found ourselves behind
China and Russia EW technology). Figuratively we are moving ...
 Popular Electronics began publishing
a monthly electronics detective story series, "Carl and Jerry: A New Company is
Launched," in the debut October 1954 issue. The two main characters,
Carl Anderson and Jerry Bishop, were the brainchild of John T. Frye, who
also authored the "Mac's Radio Service Shop." Carl and Jerry helped keep the world
safe from miscreants by way of their investigative prowess and deductive skills,
often with the assistance of their Ham radio skills. The Hardy Boys were a couple
of pikers in comparison. The theme and ultimately solving of each mystery is centered
around use of electrical and/or electronics devices and methods, with a bit of intrigue
and humor thrown in. If you enjoy short stories, then you will like the Carl &
Jerry series ...
 San Francisco Components (SFC), a recognized
leader in Printed Circuit Board (PCB) fabrication, assembly, and testing, is now
offering expanded
PCB testing and inspection capabilities to its customers, further ensuring high-yield
PCBs that meet rigid design and performance specifications across all applications
and industries. San Francisco Circuits offers PCB testing for Bare Boards (before
the board is assembled) and Assembled Boards (once the board is assembled), that
will detect and minimize issues that would affect performance. "PCBs need to be
tested early in the design and production phases in order to control component tolerances,
part-to-part performance variations ..."
 "College costs in the US continue to soar,
with the
most expensive schools topping out above $70,000
per year. Getting an engineering degree is tough, and the soaring price of colleges
doesn't make it any easier. For many years, college costs have been rising at twice
the rate of inflation, and today's most expensive engineering degrees reflect that,
having recently cracked the $70,000-a-year plateau. To be sure, all of those $70,000-plus
schools offer financial aid, often in substantial amounts. In some cases, the final
dollar figure may be comparable to that of a state school after all the aid is totaled
up. That, of course, is if the applicant receives financial aid. All of the colleges
on the list offer great educations ..."
 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 ...
Thursday 9
 Today's electronics and RF magazines tend
to cater to engineers and managers, as opposed to technicians and hobbyists. That's
not to say that techs do not benefit from the material presented, but that information
is typically concerned with new product and system design with little attention
paid to troubleshooting and maintenance. The predecessors to modern magazines much
more often included articles on the latter. Publications like Popular Electronics,
being intended for hobbyists, featured useful quizzes, "how to" articles, and troubleshooting
tips along with product reports and an occasional design methodology piece.
Electronics World, the predecessor to Popular Electronics, was more
of an equal split between professional and hobby themes. This particular article
tests the reader's
knowledge of capacitors by proposing circuit failure examples ...
 RF Cafe typically receives
8,000-15,000 website
visits each weekday and about half that on weekends.
RF Cafe is a favorite of engineers, technicians, hobbyists, and students all
over the world. With more than 7,000 pages in the Google search index, RF Cafe
returns in favorable positions on many types of key searches, both for text and
images. New content is added on a daily basis, which keeps the major search engines
interested enough to spider it multiple times each day. Items added on the homepage
often can be found in a Google search within a few hours of being posted. I also
re-broadcast homepage items on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. If you need your
company news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be. Banner advertising begins
at $150/month ...
 Whitepapers, pamphlets, books, magazines,
and chapter examples listed here are a small sample of a lot of new items that are
offered for FREE through
TradePub. The publishers make them available to qualifying people
as a promotional campaign for their full line of offerings. Whitepaper topics include
careers, manufacturing, and engineering, while magazine titles include Microwave
Engineering Europe, Electronic Design, and Microwave Product Digest. Note: I earn
a few pennies (literally) when you download one of these or the many other pubs
available, so please help yourself ...
 Last year Withwave introduced their new Vector
Network Analyzer (VNA)
Automatic Calibration Module that operates up to 12 GHz. Now, Withwave
has versions that operate at 18 and 26.5 GHz! All Automatic Calibration Modules
are ideal for users who want fast and easy calibration for various popular VNAs.
They are powered either via USB or a 5.5 VDC connector. Communications with
the equipment is via USB or LAN. Full 1-port through 2-port calibrations are accomplished
automatically using a simple One-Push START button. This module works as host systems
to measure and calculate calibration coefficients and sends the data to the VNA ...
 This is the first of a two-part "Radar
Principles" article by British engineer and researcher Dr. R.L. Smith-Rose.
Dr. Smith-Rose explains the basics of radio detection and ranging using simple illustrations
and calculation examples. When these articles were written, radar had recently been
credited with playing a major role in helping the Allies successfully wage war against
aggressive Axis powers that were ravaging London and other European cities with
air attacks comprised of both manned and unmanned vehicles. While the principles
of radar were somewhat familiar to people because of its analogy to using hearing
to estimate distance and location, the actual science behind the operation of radar
was and still is considered a form of black magic nearly everyone ...
 "A metals manufacturer faked test results
and provided
faulty materials to NASA, causing more than $700
million in losses and two failed satellite launch missions, according to an investigation
by the U.S. space agency. The fraud involved an Oregon company called Sapa Profiles
Inc., which falsified thousands of certifications for aluminum parts over 19 years
for hundreds of customers, including NASA. Taurus XL rocket Source: NASA/Randy Beaudoin,
VAFB The bad parts were used in the making of Taurus XL, a rocket that was supposed
to deliver satellites studying the Earth's climate during missions carried out in
2009 and 2011. The launch vehicle's fairing, a clamshell structure that carries
the satellite as it travels through the atmosphere, didn't fully open, causing the
unsuccessful launch, according to a statement from NASA ..."
 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 ...
Wednesday 8
 This
Electronics Current Quiz from the October 1963 edition of Popular Electronics
is recent enough (if you consider half a century ago to be recent) that it uses
both transistors as well as vacuum tubes in the example circuits. I have to admit
to only scoring 60% on the quiz, which is pretty lame. You will probably do better,
especially if you are my age or older. As when looking up the solution to problems
in the back of the textbook and the answers seem obvious (well, not always), so
too do these ...
 Microwave & RF magazine has a regular
Q&A feature where industry titans are interviewed about their companies and
personal involvements therewith. In the April issue, Chris DeMartino talks with
Custom MMIC's John Greichen. "Although Custom
MMIC has been in existence for a relatively short amount of time, the company is
now regarded as a top supplier of monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs).
How did the company get to where it is now? Custom MMIC is a 13-year-old company.
We started as a custom design service company in 2006, serving the advanced MMIC
technology needs of military radar and communications. Our experience and design
expertise provided a strong base to enable a transition into standard products ..."
 With
today being the anniversary of the end of
WWII (VE Day),
this January 1942 article from QST magazine report on how it affected amateur
radio operators helps add context to the era. It came as no surprise to amateur
radio operators that their operational privileges would be curtailed immediately
after the United States was drawn into World War II following the Japanese
Imperial Navy's attack on Pearl Harbor. After all they were subject to the same
kind of restriction during WWI. Just as President Woodrow Wilson issued an executive
order prohibiting unauthorized transmissions by amateurs, President Roosevelt had
the FCC ban the radio transmissions of Hams. The fear was that enemy intelligence
gathering posts ...
 Advanced Test Equipment Rentals is a leading
provider of test and measurement equipment. ATEC has established solid relationships
with industry leading manufacturers worldwide. ATEC offers competitive pay and benefits.
Advanced Test Equipment Rentals is looking for a
Technical Support Representative. Our ideal candidate has knowledge of electronic
testing equipment. Responsible for prompt technical support to product teams and
customers assists in activities required for product teams to quote an order, confers
with customers and representatives of associated industries to evaluate and promote
improved and expanded services, plans and directs rental orders failed in field
(FIF) ...
 "University of Kiel and Fraunhofer Institute
for Silicon Technology (ISIT) in Germany claim the first demonstration of ferroelectric
behavior in a III-V-based semiconductor. The researchers used
aluminum scandium nitride (AlScN) alloy in their
demonstration, but they also believe other group III (group 13 in more modern periodic
table notation) elements such as gallium (e.g. GaScN) and group-3 scandium-relative
yttrium (e.g. AlYN) could provide materials with ferroelectric behavior. Moving
from group 3, the quaternary alloy aluminum magnesium niobium nitride (AlMgNbN)
is another contender, they report. Magnesium is group 2 and niobium group 5 ..."
 Withwave manufactures an extensive line of
metrology quality coaxial test cable assemblies, connectors (wave-, end-, vertical-launch,
board edge, panel mount), calibration kits (SOLT), a fully automated vector network
analyzer (VNA) calibrator, between- and in-series connector adaptors, attenuators,
terminations, torque wrenches, test probes & probe positioner. Frequency ranges
from DC through 20 GHz. Please contact Withwave today to see how they can help
your project succeed ...
Tuesday 7
 A nice article by Donald Lancaster appeared
in an issue of Radio-Electronics magazine that introduces and puts into
layman's terms the relatively new (at the time) world of
digital logic circuits. Rapidly falling prices and equally rapidly rising performance
fuelled the craze. By 1969, most of the barriers preventing former never-tubers
from adopting the fledgling semiconductor paradigm and there was by then a new generation
of electronics hobbyists, technicians, and engineers who had "grown up" on transistors
and integrated circuits. I like the author's analogies for AND gates and OR gates
that involve the familiar objects that include a garden hose with the house tap
and nozzle, and the kitchen sink faucet with the hot and cold handles. It's interesting
how often water, a substance generally to be avoided around electricity ...
 Teledyne Paradise Datacom (Paradise), part
of the Teledyne Defense Electronics Group, announced today that it has begun shipping
the latest version of its innovative line of
Q-Flex modems, the 400 Series. The flagship 400 Series features faster data
rate speeds, providing up to 345 Mbps, while also being both smaller and lighter
in weight. Expanding on the groundbreaking flexibility the Q-Flex has long been
known for, the 400 Series offers more powerful FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays)
that will accommodate further firmware upgrades and features in the future. 'We
are also pleased to announce that the new QMultiflex-400 delivers DVB-S2X on outbound
and return carriers as well, in line with the rest of the Q-Flex range. With this
upgrade, customers ..."
Gain-Bandwidth Product is
Not (Always) Constant
 Hugo Coolens posted an article on the
Electronic Design website entitled, "Gain-Bandwidth Product is Not (Always) Constant."
He includes plenty of equations and nice video to demonstrate how to make the gain−bandwidth
product measurement. Says John, "Gain-bandwidth is always constant, isn't it? Using
the inverting single-pole op-amp amplifier as an example, this article explains
why that often-held belief is a fallacy. When talking amplifiers, I sometimes get
the impression that whole groups of electronics hobbyists and engineering students
have been brainwashed by endlessly hearing and repeating the mantra 'Gain-bandwidth
product is a constant.' Hearing this statement so often, they actually start to
believe this is a universal truth. I was reminded of this once again some time ago ..."
 Innovative Power Products (IPP) has over
30 years of experience designing & manufacturing RF & microwave passive
components. Their high power, broadband couplers, combiners, resistors, baluns, terminations
and attenuators are fabricated using the latest materials and design tools available,
resulting in unrivaled product performance. Applications in military, medical, industrial
and commercial markets. Take a couple minutes to visit their website and see how
IPP can help you today ...
 "The CubeSat is a type of miniaturized satellite
for low earth orbit (LEO) space research and applications. One of these is typically
made up of one or more 10x10x11.35 cm cubic units, and each unit has a mass of no
more than 1.33 kilograms. In addition to being light and small, designers often
use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) electronic and structural components. Although
bunches of
CubeSats have been launched on dedicated rockets,
they are most often put into orbit in small numbers via the International Space
Station or placed in orbit as secondary payloads. It all started about 17 years
ago ..."
 TotalTemp Technologies has more than 40 years
of combined experience providing thermal platforms.
Thermal Platforms
are available to provide temperatures between −100°C and +200°C for cryogenic
cooling, recirculating circulating coolers, temperature chambers and temperature
controllers, thermal range safety controllers, space simulation chambers, hybrid
benchtop chambers, custom systems and platforms. Manual and automated configurations
for laboratory and production environments ...
Monday 6
 All college curricula seem to have a number
of particular "weeding out" courses that cull the herd - so to speak - from the
eventual graduating class. The unfortunate victims are then faced with either dropping
out of college (not always such a dooming fate) or choosing a different major. For
mechanical engineers (MEs) it was often statics; for electrical engineers (EEs)
it was AC circuits - the topic of this article. DC is relatively simple because
voltage and current is always in phase, thus no "hard" vector math is involved,
but throw in reactance with its attendant non-zero phase angles and suddenly the
student is faced with trigonometry - the kiss of death to mathphobes. My experience
in engineering school showed that for MEs who lived through statics, dynamics provided
the next level of weeding out (it nearly got me). For EEs it was Fourier and Laplace
transforms. Level three for MEs was thermodynamics (thermogodda**ics was a popular
alternate title) ...
 On
May 14, from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm PT, Keysight Technologies will be hosting a live
broadcast of it
Keysight World event with five technical tracks:
5G (New Radio [NR] standards, trends, opportunities, NR release 15/16 standards,
over-the-air [OTA] test: implications and solutions, real-world performance, data
throughput), Automotive and Energy (automotive Ethernet backbone of the connected
car, advanced automotive radar test solutions, Vehicle-to-Everything [V2X] Comms),
Data Center and Telecom, Network Operations and Security, and Advanced Measurements
(wideband mm-wave PA test, wideband modulated source: distortion and correction,
advanced mm-wave component characterization) ...
Advanced Test Equipment is looking for an
Account Manager (Radio Communications and Signal Analysis) with experience in
test and measurement equipment. You will work with customers from a broad range
of industries, including aerospace/defense, consumer electronics, semiconductor,
medical devices, automotive, and manufacturing automation. Responsibilities to include
prospecting to managing accounts to achieve the monthly rental revenue growth target
within your product line. Expertise in technical sales & customer engagement
to rent Audio Analyzers, Cable & Antenna Analyzers, Interference Analyzers,
Radio Test Sets, Signal Analyzers, Signal Generators, Spectrum Analyzers, Vector
Network Analyzers, RF Channel Emulators, Oscilloscopes, EF Power Meters and Sensors,
Noise Generators ...
 Here is another electronics quiz for you to
try. It covers the
functions of resistors in various circuits. The quiz appeared in the January
1962 edition of Popular Electronics, compliments of Robert P. Balin. I got
100%, just for the record - PhD not required, by the way. Having worked with tubes
in the days of yore helps with figure B since it does not really have a direct transistor
equivalent, but by process of elimination you can get it ...
 "Researchers transmit data via a semiconductor
laser, opening the door to ultra-high-speed Wi-Fi. For the first time, researchers
have used a
laser as a radio transmitter and receiver, paving
the way for towards ultra-high-speed Wi-Fi and new types of hybrid electronic-photonic
devices. This device uses a frequency comb laser to emit and modulate microwaves
wirelessly. The laser uses different frequencies of light beating together to generate
microwave radiation. The researchers used this phenomenon to send a song wirelessly
to a receiver. Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering
and Applied Sciences transmitted a recording of Martin's classic 'Volare' wirelessly ..."
 Custom MMIC is a
fabless RF and
microwave MMIC designer entrusted by government and defense industry OEMs. Custom
and off-the-shelf products include switches, phase shifters, attenuators, mixers
and multipliers, and low noise, low phase noise, and distributed amplifiers. From
next-generation long range military radar systems, to advanced aerospace and space-qualified
satellite communications, microwave signal chains are being pushed to new limits
- and no one understands this more than Custom MMIC. Please contact Custom MMIC
today to see how they can help your project ...
Sunday 5
 Since 2000, I have been creating custom
technology-themed crossword puzzles for the brain-exercising benefit and pleasure
of RF Cafe visitors who are fellow cruciverbalists. The jury is out on whether or
not this type of mental challenge helps keep your gray matter from atrophying in
old age, but it certainly helps maintain your vocabulary and cognitive skills at
all ages. A database of thousands of words has been built up over the years and
contains only clues and terms associated with engineering, science, physical, astronomy,
mathematics, chemistry, etc. You will never find a word taxing your knowledge of
a numbnut soap opera star or the name of some obscure village in the Andes mountains ...
|
