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5 of the August 2022 homepage archives.
Wednesday the 31st
On nearly every Sunday for the past two
decades, out of a personal penchant for working crossword puzzles, I have created
and posted a
custom crossword puzzle with a technical theme. Various kinds of magazines,
including Radio News, Popular Electronics, etc., occasionally
published crosswords, so when I run across them, I post them here on RF Cafe. This
one appeared in a 1965 issue of Electronics World. Usually, the magazine
crossword puzzles have mostly words and clues relevant to the magazine's theme,
but then backfill with any word that will work. William Shippee did a pretty good
job with this one with only a couple off-topic words...
"A new method to improve
solid-state hydrogen fuel cell charging times has been developed by researchers
at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Queensland University of Technology
(QUT). UTS' Dr. Saidul Islam said solid hydrogen storage - particularly metal hydride
- is attracting interest because it is safer, more compact, and lower cost than
compressed gas or liquid, and it can reversibly absorb and release hydrogen. 'Metal
hydride hydrogen storage technology is ideal for onsite hydrogen production from
renewable electrolysis. It can store the hydrogen for extended periods and once
needed, it can be converted as gas or a form of thermal or electric energy when
converted through a fuel cell,' Dr. Islam said in a statement. 'Applications include
hydrogen compressors, rechargeable batteries, heat pumps and heat storage, isotope
separation and hydrogen purification...."
In October of 1958 when this Popular
Electronics magazine article was written, a mere year had passed since the
successful launch of Sputnik and a few months later the launch of the Explorer satellite
- the first ever for Russia and the USA, respectively. Prior to that time all satellites
were cosmic conglomerations of rock, metal, and/or gas. There were no
manmade satellites except for a couple remnants of test rockets that happened
to reach orbital heights. That Ronald Michael Benrey, a highschooler of the day,
would design and enter an "Earth Satellite" to demonstrate some of the technology
needed to an actual orbiting satellite was a phenom. Most people hadn't even learned
to spell "satellite" yet, and did not commonly refer to planets, moons, and asteroids
as satellites. His creation took second place in the National Science Fair and first
prize in the USAF's Awards Program...
Here are a few magazine advertisements for
Eveready Batteries (manufactured by Union Carbide, now part of Energizer - the
indefatigable Bunny people) from sometime in the 1950's. In the manner of popular
pulp fiction publications of the day, Eveready ran an extensive series of these
"true story" adventures that promoted the dependability of Eveready batteries in
hair-raising situations. I don't remember which magazines I scanned them from since
it was done back before I was including dates on webpages. It might have been from
The Saturday Evening Post, but I'm pretty sure they did not come from electronics
magazines...
Anatech Electronics (AEI) manufactures and
supplies RF and microwave filters for military and commercial communication
systems, providing standard LP, HP, BP, BS, notch, diplexer, 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 for
your military and commercial communications needs. Sam Benzacar's monthly newsletters
address contemporary wireless subjects. Please visit Anatech today to see how they
can help your project succeed.
Tuesday the 30th
Space exploration and exploitation has always
advanced quickly. Sputnik and Explorer were launched in 1957 and 1958, respectively.
They were the world's first artificial satellites, and had only one-way communications
from onboard scientific payloads to earth stations which picked up the signals (many
amateur radio operators received the data as well). In a little over half a decade,
multiple two-way communications satellites were in orbit, and instrumented probes
had already reached the moon, Venus, and Mars. Results of the International Geophysical
Year (IGY) effort are rightfully credited with setting everything in motion. This
article from a 1965 issue of Popular Electronics magazine reports on the state of
the art in satellite technology. Not mentioned is the concurrent rapid advances
being made in rockets, tracking stations, and orbital and space navigation capabilities
which were an integral part of the program...
This "The
Electronic Clocks of Patek Philippe Once Ran the World" story appears on the
Electronic Design website, and includes a narrated video. "We visit the largest
collection of Patek Philippe electronic clocks ever assembled for public viewing,
in New York City. Watchmaker Patek Philippe, popularly known for its fine mechanical
timepieces, is considered part of the 'great triumvirate' of Swiss watch manufacturers.
What many don't know is that the company also was known as pioneering maker of electronic
master clocks and a leader in the core technologies behind atomic and quartz timekeeping.
Patek Philippe created its Electronic Timekeeping Division in 1948, and created
some of the most accurate timekeeping clocks available. Collectability and Analog:Shift
presented the largest collection of Patek Philippe electronic clocks for public
viewing in New York City. Valued at over $2M, the 'Meeting Point' exhibition presents
over 40 electronic clocks from the company, accumulated over four decades from 1973
through today..."
Vreeland Corporation was an early radio
manufacturer located in Hoboken, New Jersey, with multiple patents on file for innovative
circuits. The Vreeland band selector system mentioned here was originally filed
in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in August of 1927 and had not been awarded
by the time of this November 1929 article in Radio-Craft magazine. In fact,
it wasn't until five years later, in 1932, that the patent was finally assigned.
The official description reads in part, "The general purpose of the invention is
to receive the component frequencies of such a band with such uniformity as to
avoid material distortion of the modulated wave, and to exclude frequencies
outside of the band which the system is designed to receive. Another purpose of
the invention is to provide means for shifting the position of the band in the frequency
scale at will, by a simple adjustment, so that the system may be readily adapted
to receive modulated waves of any desired carrier frequency, including the side
bands of such modulated waves." That sounds to me like a standard heterodyne system
with selective filters. It seems the filter characteristic with a wider inband region
and sharp cutoff is what make it unique. One line in the patent states...
Because of all the possible combinations
of options, this "Have You
Taken the Covid 'Jab?'" poll uses a multi-choice format. Registration is required
to post on the RF Cafe Blog
(aka Forum) only as a means of preventing the legions of marauding spambots from
flooding the venue with garbage. The new Blog is off to a slow start, with the majority
of posts having been added by me. Your participation will be greatly appreciated.
BTW, I was able to reconstitute the old pre-2010
RF Cafe Forums content, but
cannot re-activate it for use because I cannot get the database to upgrade properly
to conform with the new structure.
As you can see by these vintage
electronics-themed comics from a 1930's edition of QST magazine, both the technology
and the style of humor has changed over the past century (nearly). One of the more
obvious differences is the comic where the woman is traipsing home with a high voltage
insulator for her husband's antenna. Today there is almost no place a person can
walk into a local Ham equipment supply shop to pick up anything. Both were drawn
by the fabled Phil Glidersleeve (aka "Gil"), W1CJD. For some unknown (to me) reason,
you almost never find a comic published in QST. Maybe the ARRL's lawyers have advised
the publisher not to publish any kind of humor lest one person somewhere be offended
and try to make trouble. If so, it is yet another case of the miniscule minority
dictating the way everyone else lives...
RF Cascade Workbook is the next phase in the evolution of
RF Cafe's long-running series, RF Cascade Workbook. Chances are you have
never used a spreadsheet quite like this (click here for screen capture). 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...
Axiom Test Equipment allows you to
rent or
buy test equipment,
repair
test equipment, or sell or trade test equipment. They are committed to providing
superior customer service and high quality electronic test equipment. Axiom offers
customers several practical, efficient, and cost effective solutions for their projects'
TE needs and is committed to providing superior customer service and high quality
electronic test equipment. For anyone seeking a way to offload surplus or obsolete
equipment, they offer a trade-in program or they will buy the equipment from you.
Some vintage items are available fully calibrated. Please check out Axiom Test Equipment
today!
Monday the 29th
If you didn't know any better, when you
see a photo of Lee de Forest's first attempts at
vacuum tubes, you might mistake them for candelabra-base light bulbs. They were
screw-in jobs with an extra wire line or two protruding from the glass envelope.
The similarity was no coincident since the company employed to construct the tubes
was a light bulb manufacturer, called electric lamps at the time, manufacturer -
Henry Wallace McCandless (what's in a name, eh?). Many articles are available on
RF Cafe documenting deForest's path to success with his amplifying vacuum tubes
(aka Audions). His initial experiments involved using incandescent gases as the
medium for signal detection devices - diodes. He was not the first to develop a
vacuum tube diode, but it was his efforts to improve on the diode that led him to
realize that by inserting a modulating grid between the cathode and anode, the transconductance
could be controlled in a manner in which a relatively small control grid signal
could affect a large change in cathode-to-plate current flow...
For many years, I have been scanning and
posting schematics & parts lists for vintage radios like this
Garod 6AU-1 tabletop model. When possible I run OCR (optical character recognition)
on them to separate the textual content. The Garod 6AU-1 is very popular amongst
collectors because of its colorful Bakelite case, and well-preserved or reconditioned
instances often sell for many hundreds of dollars. The similar model 6BU-1A was
a more traditional brown color and had the dial mechanics at the bottom of the cover.
There are still many people who restore and service these vintage radios, and often
it can be difficult or impossible to find schematics and/or tuning information.
I keep a running list of all data sheets to facilitate a search...
Withwave's
High Speed & High-Density Multicoax Cable Assemblies (WMX Series) provides
a wide range of multiple coax connectors and flexible cable assemblies. Specially,
Board Edge Socket type (BES) is excellent signal integrity solutions at edge of
PCB for bench-top testing and automated test equipment to meet increasing demands
of semiconductor test equipment and optical testing industries. Frequency range:
DC to 20, 40 & 50 GHz, excellent insertion and return loss, board edge
socket contact type (solderless), 1x8 channels. Applications include semiconductor &
optical test equipment high speed testing module, supercomputing...
FADA Radio and Electric Company, of Long
Island, New York, had a unique message for veterans returning from the throes of
World War II. Rather than focus on the potential loss of "innocence" caused
by exposure both to the horrors of war and the excitement and splendor of foreign
cities, it appealed to a desire to forget about the glitz and glitter and come back
home to help America convert its amazing technical and manufacturing base, borne
out of desperate wartime need, into a thriving postwar, commercial economy. Many
highly skilled tradesmen, architects, engineers, technicians, mechanics, communicators,
instructors, doctors, nurses, accountants, seamstresses, welders, riveters, painters,
packagers, cooks, cargo movers, planners, strategists, et al, were created in the
four years previous to this 1945 Radio News magazine advertisement. As
with many others in 1945, it reflected a feeling throughout the world...
With more than 1000
custom-built stencils, this has got to be the most comprehensive set of
Visio Stencils available for RF, analog, and digital system and schematic
drawings! Every stencil symbol has been built to fit proportionally on the included
A-, B-, and C-size drawing page templates (or use your own page if preferred). Components
are provided for system block diagrams, conceptual drawings, schematics, test equipment,
racks (EIA 19", ETSI 21"), and more. Test equipment and racks are built at a 1:1
scale so that measurements can be made directly using Visio built-in dimensioning
objects. Page templates are provided with a preset scale (changeable) for a good
presentation that can incorporate all provided symbols...
KR Electronics designs and manufactures
high quality filters for both the commercial and military markets. KR Electronics'
line of filters
includes lowpass, highpass, bandpass, bandstop and individually synthesized filters
for special applications - both commercial and military. State of the art computer
synthesis, analysis and test methods are used to meet the most challenging specifications.
All common connector types and package form factors are available. Please visit
their website today to see how they might be of assistance. Products are designed
and manufactured in the USA.
These archive pages are provided in order to make it easier for you to find items
that you remember seeing on the RF Cafe homepage. Of course probably the easiest
way to find anything on the website is to use the "Search
RF Cafe" box at the top of every page.
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- Christmas-themed
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