See Page 1 |
2 |
3 of the September 2024 homepage
archives. Monday the 30th
 If someone asked me "what does a meteorologist
look like?," I would refer him to this photo in the August 1937 issue of Popular
Mechanics magazine entitled "Forecasting
the Weather a Year Ahead." Having been heavily involved in model aviation all
my life, I have always had a keen interest in weather phenomena. In fact, when I
enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, my "guaranteed" job was to be a Weather Equipment
Specialist. In a long list of other disappointments that would follow my next four
years, I was informed while in Basic Training that that "guaranteed" job was really
not available. Long story short, I ended up being an Air Traffic Control Radar...
 I admit to never having heard of
Matter™ until very recently. Matter™ is a groundbreaking, open-source connectivity
standard designed for smart homes and the Internet of Things (IoT). Officially launched
in late 2022, Matter represents the culmination of a collaborative effort spearheaded
by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), a global organization formerly known
as the Zigbee Alliance. The central aim of Matter is to streamline communication
between smart home devices, creating a unified protocol that ensures interoperability
across a wide array of ecosystems and manufacturers. The origins of Matter date
back several years before its formal release...
 Filters has always been one of my favorite
topics. I gained a real appreciation for and understanding of them when drudging
through the mathematics behind the curves in college courses. BTW, for anyone out
there thinking about taking up engineering as a career; i.e., getting an engineering
degree, it is vitally important that you fully comprehend the concept of Laplace
and Fourier transforms because when you get to the point that you need to employ
them in your primary classes, having to struggle with the basic math while learning
to apply it to circuits, mechanics, etc., will almost surely...
 A linear series-pass voltage regulator is
about as simple a circuit as you can devise that will provide a reasonable degree
of consistency, with as little as a Zener diode, a transistor, and a biasing resistor.
The small parts count does not allow for temperature compensation, variable output
voltage adjustment, overcurrent protection, etc., but for most instances it gets
the job done. The disadvantage of a
linear series-pass voltage regulator is that the larger the difference
between the input and output voltage, the greater the inefficiency. That is because
the total power dissipated by the circuit is the product...
Friday the 27th
 No, this isn't about hallucinogenic bath
or ecstasy crystals providing a portal to Nirvana. It is an infomercial promoted
by Bell Telephone Laboratories (aka Bell Labs) that appeared in a 1949 issue of
Popular Science magazine.
Soldering to glass or a rock (quartz crystal) might seem like an impossible
task; however, research efforts like this one described by Bell Labs has produced
many solder alloys and techniques which have led to robust, reliable, electrically
conductive processes used in many applications. Lead has been used with glass for
centuries in the form of stained glass windows, but its primary requirement was
to ruggedly capture the colored glass shards and to form a watertight seal. Electrical
connections, especially at high frequencies, require a more exacting approach. Indium
Corporation has long made exotic solder...
 "Rohde & Schwarz has been at the forefront
of addressing the evolving threats posed by advanced drone technology to security,
public safety, and critical infrastructure. As drones become more sophisticated
and complex, malicious drones equipped with advanced capabilities present significant
challenges. To counter these threats, Rohde & Schwarz has developed cutting-edge
Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (CUAS) designed to detect, neutralize, and mitigate
emerging drone risks effectively. In a recent interview, Martin Woywod, Product
Manager for Counter-UAS Systems at Rohde & Schwarz, explained the urgency of
counter-drone technology in today's world..."
• AI-Capable
PCs 14% of Global Q2 Shipments
• Semiconductor
Workshops in Welsh Schools
• Lackluster
Expectations for Semi Q3
• Switzerland Considers
New Nuclear Power Plants
• Verizon Pays
$1M Penalty for 911 Outages
 Anatech Electronics 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. Three new
filters have been announced for September 2024 - a 910-920 MHz cavity bandpass
filter with 10 MHz BW, a 913 MHz cavity bandpass filter with a 20 MHz
BW, and a 905-915 MHz cavity bandpass filter with a 10 MHz BW. All have
an insertion loss less than 2.5 dB and return loss greater than 15 dB.
Custom RF power filter and directional couplers designs can be designed...
Thursday the 26th
 As with the hundreds of other
electronics-themed comics I have posted from vintage technology magazines, these
three from a 1961 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine reflect the issues
on the minds of readers of the era. Some topics are passé at this point in time,
but many are still very relevant. The page 89 comic reflects how computers, aside
from being behemoths, were still an unknown entity to most people whose expectations
for their computing capacity was pretty low. Fred-the-serviceman's depiction exemplifies
how a lot of people thought of those "rip-off" practitioners of electronics wizardry
took advantage of hapless television...
 "Taking inspiration from biology and direction
from some very weird math, a team of engineers have made electric
wires that amplify signals
traveling along them. Without the help of amplifiers or other devices, signals carried
on wires as long as 1 mm came out stronger than they went in. The team hopes
these devices, which are analogous to the axons that carry signals from our nerve
cells, will enable future engineers to completely rethink how computer chips are
designed. In electrical engineering, 'we just take it for granted that the signal
decays' as it travels..."
 I saw this picture in the latest issue of
Family Handyman magazine and said to myself, "Self, something doesn't look
right here."Family Handyman has, IMHO, been going downhill quickly in the
last year or so; therefore, upon turning the page and seeing this, my first thought
was what were the editors smoking? Turns out, this is part of an ad for a CBD company.
That might partly explain the fact that this guy is happily installing his solar
panel array in a location that has almost no sunlight falling on it. The entire
area appears to be buried in trees. I'd like an aerial photos of the area to see
what else is "growing" amongst those trees ;-)
 Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency,
or cryptocurrency, that was introduced in 2009 by an anonymous figure or group using
the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. It operates on a peer-to-peer network, allowing
users to send and receive transactions without the need for a centralized authority,
such as a bank or government. Bitcoin relies on blockchain technology, a distributed
ledger that records all transactions across a network of computers. This system
ensures transparency, security, and the elimination of double-spending, a problem
that plagued earlier attempts at digital currencies. Origin of Bitcoin The origins
of Bitcoin trace back to the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, a period
marked by widespread distrust of traditional financial institutions. In October
2008, Nakamoto published a whitepaper titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic
Cash System," which outlined...
 Please take a few moments to visit the
everythingRF website to see how they can assist you with your
project. everythingRF is a product discovery platform for RF and microwave products
and services. They currently have 333,423 products from more than 2198 companies
across 460 categories in their database and enable engineers to search for them
using their customized parametric search tool. Amplifiers, test equipment, power
couplers and dividers, coaxial connectors, waveguide, antennas, filters, mixers,
power supplies, and everything else. Please visit everythingRF today to see how
they can help you.
Wednesday the 25th
 In the aftermath of World War II, the
entire world had become suddenly aware of and interested in the power of nuclear
reactions. As with so many technical innovations, the necessities of winning and
ending a battle produced knowledge and means to exploit the energy released in both
nuclear fission (uranium and plutonium) and nuclear fusion (hydrogen). The remaining
issue was learning to safely contain and control reactions so that electric power
could be generated by it. The world's first commercial
nuclear power generation facility, Calder Hall Nuclear Power Station, located
at the Sellafield site in Cumbria, England, was commissioned on October 17, 1956...
 "Boeing announced the scheduled 2026 launch
of a satellite - dubbed Q4S - which will be designed to demonstrate
quantum entanglement swapping capabilities in orbit. This Boeing-funded, first-of-its-kind
space mission brings humanity closer to building a secure, global quantum internet
that connects quantum sensors and computers. Quantum sensors are much more precise
than today's state-of-the-art instruments and quantum computers can process large
amounts of data, offering the potential to revolutionize an array of industries.
This experiment attempts to demonstrate quantum networking in space, helping to
better understand how these networks can be built across vast distances..."
 Georg
Simon Ohm's discovery of the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance
revolutionized our understanding of electrical circuits.
Ohm's Law provided a simple, yet powerful mathematical tool that has become
essential to both theoretical physics and practical engineering. Although it was
initially met with skepticism, Ohm's perseverance and commitment to his scientific
work ultimately transformed the way we interact with electricity, influencing technologies
that define the modern world. His legacy lives on not only in the equation that
bears his name but also in the unit of electrical resistance - the ohm - that honors
his contributions to science. Ohm's Law is one of the cornerstones of electrical
theory, describing the fundamental relationship between voltage, current, and resistance
in a circuit. The law states that the current (I) flowing through a conductor between...
 Georg Simon Ohm, a German physicist and
mathematician, is best known for formulating Ohm's Law, a fundamental principle
of electrical circuits. His life spanned a period of profound scientific and political
change, and he was deeply influenced by the intellectual currents of his time. His
achievements in the field of electromagnetism, coupled with his challenging career
path and personal struggles, offer a rich narrative that goes beyond the simple
attribution of his name to a scientific law. Born on March 16, 1789, in Erlangen,
Bavaria, Georg Simon Ohm came from humble beginnings. His father, Johann Wolfgang
Ohm, was a locksmith, and though not formally educated, was a learned man who taught
himself mathematics and philosophy. Ohm's mother, Maria Elizabeth Beck, passed away
when he was still a child, and his father took on the responsibility of his children's
education. Ohm and his younger brother...
 The leading website for the PCB industry.
PCB Directory is the largest directory of
Printed Circuit Board (PCB)
Manufacturers, Assembly houses, and Design Services on the Internet. We have listed
the leading printed circuit board manufacturers around the world and made them searchable
by their capabilities - Number of laminates used, Board thicknesses supported, Number
of layers supported, Types of substrates (FR-4, Rogers, flexible, rigid), Geographical
location (U.S., China), kinds of services (manufacturing, fabrication, assembly,
prototype), and more. Fast turn-around on quotations for PCB fabrication and assembly.
Tuesday the 24th
 Jack Kilby is credited with inventing the
world's first
integrated circuit in 1958, while working at Texas Instruments. That was a mere
decade after the first transistor was made at Bell Labs. Another half a decade passed
and we had the level of complexity of integrated circuits reported here in the October
1963 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine. While working at Westinghouse
back in the early 1980s, I used the tapped resistor and tapped capacitors on a fairly
regular basis to tune RF circuits in the lower ISM bands. That involved using a
thermosonic wire bonder to make the connections, then make measurements...
 I have to admit that just about everything
I read in this article on thermoluminescence, not to be confused with incandescence
or luminescence, was new information to me - or at least I had no remembrance of
having known it before. The "memory" characteristic of thermoluminescent materials
is especially interesting. Donald Lancaster's treatise appeared in the March 1969
issue of Electronics World magazine, so it is safe to assume that there
is some relevance to electronics, right? At least as presented here, electronics
plays a role in instrumentation for measuring thermoluminescence, not for using
the phenomenon as part of electronics devices or instruments...
 "The same power-hungry AI that is driving
the need for more efficient cooling in data centers is heating up smartphones, but
smaller form factors have unique challenges. XMEMs is taking a solid-state approach
to cooling with what it calls a
fan on a
chip for ultraportable devices that are increasingly running more demanding
applications and AI workloads. Drawing on its expertise in all-silicon micro speakers,
the company's XMC-2400 µCooling chip is an all-silicon, active micro-cooling fan
for ultramobile devices that provides active, fan-based micro-cooling (µCooling)
at the chip level. Measuring only 1 mm thin..."
 RIGOL Technologies is transforming the Test
and Measurement Industry. Our premium line of products includes digital and mixed
signal oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, function / arbitrary waveform generators,
programmable power supplies and loads, digital multimeters, data acquisition systems,
and application software. Our test solutions combine uncompromised product performance,
quality, and advanced product features; all delivered at extremely attractive price
points. This combination provides our customers with unprecedented value for their
investment, reduces their overall cost of test, and helps speed time to completion
of their designs or projects.
Monday the 23rd
 I suppose if the U.S. Army can resort to
comic books to train troops on preventative maintenance and proper care and feeding
of an M16, Popular Science magazine can use comics to teach about the bombs
which had recently finally brought an end to World War II. In this 1948 issue,
the Bumstead family and Mandrake the Magician take on the task of putting the language
of nuclear physics into terms understandable by the layman. Back in the day, the
Blondie and Mandrake the Magician comic strips were among the most popular. I have
read Blondie since childhood (born 1958). BTW, did you know Blondie's maiden name
is Boopadoop? ...but I digress. In this adventure,
Mandrake shrinks the Bumsteads (Dagwood, Blondie, Alexander, Cookie, and even pooch
Daisy) down to atomic size so they can directly witness the goings on within
the nucleus...
 "Huawei had received over 3 million pre-orders
for its new
tri-fold phone last night after opening for pre-ordering last Saturday. The
device, called the Mate XT, was publicly unveiled today, comes in red and black
versions and does not go on sale until September 20th. IMG_0306-1024x576.webp In
a crowded week for new phones, Apple launched its iPhone16 yesterday for which it
is reported to have ordered the production of 86.7 million devices this year. The
processors in all four iPhone16 versions are made on TSMC's NE3 process. Prices
depend on the DRAM option but the base prices for each version is: $799, $899, $1,099
and $1,199..."
 "Catalog-Carrying Charlie," "Electronic
Hypochondriac," "Stop-the-Presses Guy," "Belittler," "Man with a Relative in
the Racket," "Suspicious Sam," all pet names for the pain-in-the-posterior type
of service shop customers that Mac and trusty sidekick Barney had to deal with on
a regular basis. After giving a humorous description of each type, the two then
come up with a "Ten Commandments" for their customers that outlines how the customer
should approach a service request to help assure the best results. Even though the
closest thing to an electronics repair shop we see today is the cellphone LCD replacement
kiosk in the local shopping mall, you can bet employees still get their fill of
those types of clients. With fewer and fewer people daring to attempt...
Friday the 20th
 Three new "Electronics
Quotient" (EQ) puzzles await your solving, these from the August 1961 issue
of Radio-Electronics magazine. The first, "A Lighting Problem," is fairly
simple. You'll need to think out-of-the-box to figure out what is in-the-box. If
I got it, you can get it. The second puzzler, "Resistor Mixup," is yet another variation
on a common attempt to throw the reader off by configuring the connections in a
nonconventional manner. By the way, you might remember to use the same technique
to assess actual schematics when attempting to figure out what is going on in a
"real" circuit. It seems to me whenever not enough EQs are received from readers,
Jack Darr is solicited for one of his TV troubleshooting challenges. Being in the
prehistoric Vacuum Tube Age (~1906-1966), his circuits nearly always involved tubes
and complex analog...
• ARRL Urges
Protecting 902-928 MHz Ham Band
•
FCC Places Halt on Broadcast Fee Collection (while
it accounts for Illegal population)
• Purdue Researchers
Take Aim at Counterfeit Chips
• Europe Pursuing
Path to Semiconductor Sovereignty
•
344% GenAI Smartphones Growth in 2024
 In this video, Mike Engelhardt showcases
the latest enhancements to aid simulation and speed up your development time. New
features in Qorvo's proprietary
QSPICE™ version of PSpice include: drag and drop overlay, MEXTRAM 504 with self
heating, netlist to schematic assistance, commenting /uncommenting shortcut, PSpice-style
syntax, improved step tool, quick tuning and re-simulation using the mouse wheel,
and JFET quasi-saturation region equation improvement to match measured data...
 "As the amount of EVs such as Teslas and
Chevrolet Bolts take over the roads amid concerns over the environmental impact
of gasoline-powered vehicles, one of the lead researchers from the university's
Midwest Roadside Safety Facility (MwRSF) warned that there needs to be 'some urgency
to address this issue.' In a study sponsored by the U.S. Army Engineer Research
and Development Center (ERDC) and partnered with Auburn University's Transportation
Research Institute, MwRSF conducted a 'first-of-its-kind
crash test' of an EV pickup truck in October 2023. The test used a 7,148-pound
2022 Rivian R1T truck (Ford
F-150 SuperCab is ~4,500 lb.) that was sent at a barrier at a speed of
60 mph, with footage showing the heavy EV completely blasting through the guardrail
and launching over the concrete wall while sending chunks of it flying..."
 In the 1980s, when I first entered into
the civilian defense electronics contractor realm, I discovered that while all companies
preferred
technicians with military training, the U.S. Navy was considered tops for
turning out qualified personnel. My U.S. Air Force radar maintenance experience
was also a definite advantage when applying for employment at the Westinghouse Oceanic
Division in Annapolis, Maryland. At least half the guys (no girls back in the day)
I worked with there were former military. I don't recall any having been U.S. Army
veterans, but there was at least one U.S. Marine Corps dude. Most of the guys
who had Top Secret security clearances were veterans, probably because in those
days in order to get such a clearance you could not have any history of illicit
drug use, anti-American activity, homosexuality, amoral behavior, or even tattoos.
My own clearance level involved an extensive background investigation...
Thursday the 19th
 Author Thomas Haskett uses this space in
a 1969 issue of Electronics World magazine to clear up misconceptions about
how stereo
FM radio broadcasts are accomplished. It is not only about the mechanics of
frequency modulation itself - defining terms like frequency deviation and modulation
index (often erroneously confused or equated) - but also pre-emphasis, SCA (Subsidiary
Communications Authorization), simplex and multiplex operation, sum and difference
channels, etc. This is a good review of FM broadcasting without all the messy mathematics
on which engineers thrive. SCA, by the way, is the feature that allows FM (and AM,
since 1983) radios to display information about itself on the display. It can also
be used for read-aloud educational services, paging, and even Muzak elevator music...
 "The
standards governing chiplet technology now have a second iteration. The
Universal Chiplet Interconnect
Express (UCIe) Consortium, which was formed in March 2022, recently released
its 2.0 specification with updates that address design challenges for testability,
manageability and debug (DFx) for the SiP lifecycle across multiple chiplets. A
key feature of the update is support for 3D packaging to enable chiplets to dramatically
increase bandwidth density and power efficiency. In a briefing with EE Times, consortium
chair Debendra Das Sharma said that the UCIe 2.0 specification is fully backward
compatible, while introducing optional manageability features..."
 Westinghouse Electric Corporation, one of
the most influential companies in the development of American industry, innovation,
and technology, was founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse (1846-1914). Westinghouse
was an inventor and industrialist who held over 300 patents and had already revolutionized
the railway industry with his invention of the air brake system. He sought to apply
his inventive genius and business acumen to the burgeoning electrical industry,
and his new company would soon become a powerhouse in electrical engineering, energy
production, and consumer electronics. George Westinghouse was a visionary who saw
electricity...
Wednesday the 18th
 Thanks to this 1959 installment of "Mac's
Service Shop," which appeared in Radio & TV News magazine, we now know
who was responsible for the ozone hole discovered in the 1970s: It was the electronics
service industry. Thanks to products like General Cement's "Spray-Koat
Circuit-Cooler," which was pure canned carbon dioxide, ecocriminal technicians
in workshops and living rooms across the country - and across the world - indiscriminately
loosed life-threatening volumes of the gaseous poison into the atmosphere whilst
troubleshooting radios, TVs, stereo systems, tape...
 Exodus Advanced Communications, is a multinational
RF communication equipment and engineering service company serving both commercial
and government entities and their affiliates worldwide. We are pleased to announce
the Exodus Advanced Communications
AMP2025A solid state high power amplifier, which operates from 800 to 2500 MHz
at greater than 300 W. The unit produces >400 W nominal power with >150 W
P1dB. Designed for EMI/RFI, lab, CW/pulse and all communication applications, the
AMP2025A's minimum gain is 55 dB with excellent flatness. Included are amplifier
monitoring parameters for Forward/Reflected power, VSWR, as well as voltage, current &
temperature sensing for optimum reliability & ruggedness...
 Even in this era of incredibly complex electronics,
nearly every communications circuit, whether analog, digital, or a mix thereof has
a
crystal oscillator somewhere at its heart - sometimes even within an integrated
circuit. Technology has advanced significantly in the design and manufacture of
crystals, but fundamentally the key parameters of center frequency, phase noise,
stability over temperature and time (aging), susceptibility to microphonics effects
and magnetic fields, etc., are the same. This 1964 Electronics World magazine
article is a good primer on crystals that explains how they work and how they are
used...
 "The U.S. Space Force has awarded its
Deep-Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) Site 2 contract. This is for a location
in the UK as part of its role as an AUKUS partner. DARC will track objects in the
geosynchronous orbit GEO with the aim of protecting critical satellites. A global
network of three advanced ground-based sensors, it will be operated in collaboration
with AUKUS alliance partners: the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.
The next generation ground system will also be supporting warfighters of the U.S.
and its allies. It is anticipated that Cawdor Barracks (formerly RAF Brawdy) in
Pembrokeshire will be the location for the UK site..."
 Electron current flow (as opposed to conventional
current flow), the movement of electrons from negative to positive, is a fundamental
concept in the study of electricity and electronics. This phenomenon arises due
to the behavior of electrons, the negatively charged particles that are an essential
component of atoms. To fully understand electron current flow, it is important to
grasp both the historical context and the physical principles that define how and
why electrons move the way they do. In the early history of electrical theory, long
before the discovery of the electron, scientists assumed that electric current flowed
from a higher potential (which they called the positive terminal) to a lower potential
(the negative terminal)...
Tuesday the 17th
 The old adage about history repeating itself
is borne out once again in this "News
Briefs" feature in a 1961 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine. When
cellphones, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled portable computers came about, commercial
airlines prohibited turning them on while in flight due to concerns that unintentional
radiation emanating from the devices might interfere with navigation and communications
systems, thereby posing a safety threat. In 1961, the FCC imposed a ban on in-flight
FM radio usage. In other news, CBS announced it was phasing out production of vacuum
tubes, as transistors were dominating the industry. At the same time, Amperex boasted
of a new type cathode which could heat to operating temperature in a tenth of a
second (old guys like me remember waiting for the radio and TV to heat up before
becoming functional). Anyone else...
 An
iconoscope
was an early form of television image capturing tube. Some amateur radio operators
were experimenting with slow scan TV even back when the technology was relatively
new to the world. When this article was written in 1944, there were still large
portions of the United States that did not have television broadcast coverage. Of
course I would argue that at the time of my growing up in the 1960s and early 1970s
a lot of areas - even suburbs - were still not covered by TV signals, based on how
cruddy the reception at my parents' house was. But I digress. The article mentions
that because of the lack of TV coverage...
 "The
global supply chain is currently facing a perfect storm. A confluence of challenges,
including a surge in late payments, a persistent labor crunch, and relentless inflationary
pressures, is creating unprecedented problems in the flow of goods and services
worldwide. From soaring raw material costs to labor shortages in crucial sectors,
these interconnected issues are far-reaching, affecting businesses, consumers, and
the global economy. Recent data from Taulia, a financial technology company, paints
a worrying picture of late payments in global supply chains. The proportion of suppliers
affected by late payments has surged..."
 Amperex Corporation, originally a division
of Philips Electronics, was an influential American manufacturer of electron tubes
and semiconductors, renowned for its innovations in vacuum tubes that powered early
communications, radar systems, and broadcast devices. Established in the early 20th
century, Amperex played a crucial role in the advancement of electronics during
the vacuum tube era and the transition to semiconductor technology. The company's
legacy endures, especially among audiophiles and vintage electronics enthusiasts,
due to the high quality of its products. The origins of Amperex trace back to 1922,
when Michael Pawlowski, a Russian immigrant and expert in vacuum tubes, founded
the company in New York. Amperex was a portmanteau of "American" and "experimental,"
reflecting its commitment to research...
 For those of us who like to wax nostalgic
over our early days of building electronics kits, here is a two-page spread from
Heathkit in a 1969 issue of Electronics World magazine. That year was
pretty much at the beginning of my more serious involvement in electronics, which
had spawned a few years earlier but was really kick-started after getting a "Radio
Experimenter" kit for Christmas. It had parts for an AM radio with a breadboard
that used springs as attachment points for the components. Being "so easy a caveman
could do it" (per a certain set of insurance company commercials), I actually was
able to hear a broadcast through the ear bud from the local AM radio station (WNAV
in Annapolis, Maryland). It would be a couple more years - probably because I had
not heard...
Monday the 16th
 Robert P. Balin created many great
quizzes for Popular Electronics magazine in the 1960s and 1970s (see list
below). This is only the second quiz by Mr. Balin I have seen in Radio-Electronics
magazine (see Sawtooth Sticklers). "Can
You Name These Strange Electronic Effects?" is one of the more difficult quizzes,
because it requires you to know the names of the effects - no list of potential
answers to match with are given. Being an old guy and having posted articles referencing
many of these effects, I was able to eke out a score of 80%. For item #4, I took
a WAG at the answer and got it right, probably because of so many articles about
Lee de Forest's invention of the Audio vacuum tube amplifier. Don't let that
clue fool you though...
 "Scottish inventor
John Logie Baird had a lot of ingenious
ideas, not all of which caught on. His phonovision was an early attempt at video
recording, with the signals preserved on phonograph records. His noctovision used
infrared light to see objects in the dark, which some experts claim was a precursor
to radar. But Baird earned his spot in history with the televisor. On 26 January
1926, select members of the Royal Institution gathered at Baird's lab in London's
Soho neighborhood to witness the broadcast of a small but clearly defined image
of a ventriloquist dummy's face, sent from the televisor's electromechanical transmitter
to its receiver..."
 EIRP -
effective isotropic radiated power - is an important parameter when calculating
both intentional and unintentional electromagnetic emissions. EIRP is a vector quantity
that accounts for both power (magnitude) and 3-dimensional coordinates (direction).
It includes antenna directivity that concentrates power in a particular direction
rather than distributing it equally in all directions (e.g., isotropically). Effective
radiated power factors in modulation type and power envelope shape as well. Knowing
how to measure those quantities can make the difference between passing and failing
FCC (or other countries' spectrum regulating bodies) certification. This 1973 issue
of Popular Electronics magazine provides a good introduction to EIRP...
 "It's the start of the new college year
and we want to help you kick it off in style. Enter [DigiKey's]
Back to School
Giveaway for a chance to win up to $1,000 of DigiKey store credit. That's $1,000
worth of any products currently available on digikey.com. Elevate your projects
to another level, or just keep the parts for your next great idea. Either way, we
understand. We get technical. If you are working on an engineering Senior Design
project or Capstone project, here is your big break." No previous accomplishments
necessary - just a pulse.
 If you were to think the effort to
encourage women to join the ranks of engineers is a recent thing, you'd be wrong.
Contrary to what news media rabble-rousers want you to believe, women have long
been welcome in the engineering world. Some, admittedly, were initially as welcomed
by men into engineering as men were by women into nursing, but those who persisted
usually excelled. As hard as it is for social engineers to accept, evidently most
women, at least at this point in history, would rather pursue career fields other
than engineering. I have posted stories like this one from a 1963 edition of
Electronics World that beseech girls and women to pursue all the fields of
science - not just engineering. See "Making Wartime Engineers" and the "National
Union Radio Corporation" ad in a 1945 issue of Radio Craft...
 Windfreak Technologies designs, manufactures,
tests and sells high value USB powered and controlled radio frequency products such as
RF signal generators, RF synthesizers, RF power detectors, mixers, up / downconverters.
Since the conception of WFT, we have introduced products that have been purchased
by a wide range of customers, from hobbyists to education facilities to government
agencies. Worldwide customers include Europe, Australia, and Asia. Please contact
Windfreak today to learn how they might help you with your current project.
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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