 Friday the 18th
 Here is an unusual twist in waveform recognition
presented by Radio-Electronics' and Popular Electronics' quizmaster,
Robert Balin. If you happen to be a former analog television repairman, then you
will probably recognize the answers based on your many years of diagnosing faulty
horizontal or vertical
sweep circuits. If not, then you might need to strain the "little gray cells"
a bit, as Agatha Christie's premier sleuth Hercule Poirot might say. The instructions
say to assume that if you choose the horizontal sweep sawtooth to be the errant
signal, then assume the vertical sweep sawtooth is correct, and vice versa. Right
off the bat, waveform 8 is unique enough to easily identify the sweep that would
produce it since only one has two repeating components. Most of the others can be
readily deduced, too, by mentally following the x and y points as the "correct"
sweep...
 "An international team of researchers has
developed a
mid-infrared spectrometer smaller than the diameter of a human hair. With potential
applications that range from detecting greenhouse gases to making self-driving vehicles
safer, there has been a great deal of interest in recent years in developing compact,
on-chip spectrometers. Traditional spectrometers, which measure the spectral information
of light, are bulky and expensive. An on-chip spectrometer would greatly expand
the applications and accessibility of the technology. Toward this goal, a team of
researchers in the U.S., Israel, and Japan has developed an ultracompact mid-infrared
spectrometer. The findings were recently published in Nature Photonics. The device
incorporates black phosphorus (BP), a material..."
 The
medical x−ray machine shown here reminds me of the "Illudium Q-36 Explosive
Space Modulator" contraption Marvin the Martian wanted to use in "Hare-Way to the
Stars" to disintegrate the Earth (because it blocks his view of Venus). Of course
our hero Bugs Bunny thwarts his plan, whereupon Marvin asks, "Where's the kaboom?"
Can you imagine being fraught with cancer and getting strapped into a chair with
that huge hypodermic-needle-looking thingy pointed at you, as shown in this 1959
issue of Popular Electronics magazine? The Caduceus sword in the pic doesn't help
matters, either. The trauma of such an experience might have been worse than the
treatment for some people. As usual the pioneers took the arrows so that we can
benefit from the treatments enjoyed today, and the equipment does not look nearly
as intimidating...
 <-- My saved search on eBay for unbuilt Heathkit equipment just turned up this
IM-5258 Harmonic Distortion Analyzer kit. The IM-5258 is in its original packaging.
A "professional grade" THD analyzer (low as 0.03%), 5 Hz to 100 kHz w/5%
full scale accuracy. Here is a
YouTube video. It originally
appeared in the 1970s, and in the
Heathkit Christmas 1979 catalog (p65) the price was $229.95 ($852.64 in 2021 money) unbuilt
and $330.00 built and tested. The auction begins at a whopping $1,648, which seems
way overpriced, but if you are interested in obtaining one of these unbuilt kits,
then keep a watch on it because the price could be lowered. If it does not sell,
chances are it will be re-listed at a lower price. BTW, I receive no compensation
for promoting this or any other items.
 RF
Cafe's raison d'être is and always has been to provide useful, quality content for
engineers, technicians, engineering managers, students, and hobbyists. Part of that
mission is offering to post applicable job openings. HR department employees and/or managers of hiring
companies are welcome to submit opportunities for posting at no charge. 3rd party
recruiters and temp agencies are not included so as to assure a high quality of
listings. Please read through the easy procedure to benefit from RF Cafe's high
quality visitors...
 Exodus Advanced Communications is a multinational
RF communication equipment and engineering service company serving both commercial
and government entities and their affiliates worldwide. Power amplifiers ranging
from 10 kHz to 51 GHz with various output power levels and noise figure
ranges, we fully support custom designs and manufacturing requirements for both
small and large volume levels. decades of combined experience in the RF field for
numerous applications including military jamming, communications, radar, EMI/EMC
and various commercial projects with all designing and manufacturing of our HPA,
MPA, and LNA products in-house.
Thursday the 17th
 According to the article in a 1944 issue
of Radio News magazine,
phosphors were discovered in the 17th century by an Italian physicist. However,
they remained primarily a scientific curiosity until a practical use for them was
found in cathode ray tubes. Phosphors efficiently convert energy of various forms
(beta rays, ultraviolet rays, and others) into visible light. They are available
in a wide variety of colors and exhibit a "memory" which allows them to be used
for storing an image (or other information) for seconds, minutes, hours, or even
days. Anyone old enough to remember the old analog storage oscilloscopes is familiar
with phosphorescent memory. As with many other technologies, phosphor knowledge
gained significant advances during World War II, and the public was promised
virtually limitless new conveniences based on those technologies once the nasty
war was out of the way...
 Triad RF Systems, a leading designer and
manufacturer of innovative RF/Microwave amplifiers and integrated radio systems
for challenging environments, presents their newest Tech Brief entitled, "Key
Considerations for a Successful Custom RF Amplifier Design." To optimize the
RF amplifier section of your communications subsystem several factors must be considered
before the design process even begins. What are the unique environmental conditions,
the exact input DC Power and output RF Power requirements, and the ultimate size,
weight, power (SWaP) objectives? Are you aware of the best tradeoffs to make? What
about the compromises related to cost, design complexity, circuit stability...
 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 $25. We're leading the way again!
 This is really clever. Appearing in the March
1955 edition of Popular Electronics, "The
Electronic Husband" is one wife's attempt to quantify her husband's interest
in all things electronic by adapting forms of Ohm's Law to fit observed behavior.
In the process of writing the parody, Mrs. Jeanne DeGood demonstrates a good basic
knowledge of Mr. DeGood's second passion. I think after all the articles that
Melanie has proof read for me that she probably knows a lot of these equations just
as well.
 There are plenty of trite old saying about
failure and how sometimes it is
necessary
to fail in order to ultimately succeed. After all, people will say, Thomas Edison
tried a couple thousand different alloys for his electric incandescent light bulb
(now deemed by Cancel Culture warriors to be evil and a destroyer of the Earth)
before finally arriving at tungsten. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
No pain, no gain. That sort of thing. Personally, I hate pain and have never felt
like I had more character because of having suffered pain. First pass success is
my preference on everything. If there is a parallel philosophy useful to illustrate
how dumb it is to extol any virtues that failure might have, it is a quote from
George Patton regarding
the oft-touted nobility of dying for one's country: "Now I want you to remember
that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the
other poor dumb bastard die for his country..."
 With more than 1000
custom-built symbols, this has got to be the most comprehensive set of
Visio Symbols available for RF, analog, and digital system and schematic drawings!
Every object has been built to fit proportionally on the provided A-, B- and C-size
drawing page templates (or can use your own). Symbols are provided for equipment
racks and test equipment, system block diagrams, conceptual drawings, and schematics.
Unlike previous versions, these are NOT Stencils, but instead are all contained
on tabbed pages within a single Visio document. That puts everything in front of
you in its full glory. Just copy and paste what you need on your drawing. The file
format is XML so everything plays nicely with Visio 2013 and later...
 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
4-port vector network analyzer (VNA) calibrator, between- and in-series connector
adaptors, attenuators, terminations, DC blocks, torque wrenches, test probes &
probe positioner. Special test fixtures for calibration and multicoax cable assemblies.
Frequency ranges from DC through 110 GHz. Please contact Withwave today to
see how they can help your project succeed.
Wednesday the 16th
 According to author David Lachenbruch - and
others writing on the state of
commercial FM broadcasting - market pundits declared the radio medium dead in
the late 1940s / early 1950s as television experienced a rapid rise in the post-war
years, especially after the FCC lifted its moratorium on issuing new TV station
licenses in 1952. AM radio had already ensconced itself as the news and music delivery
source of choice in the majority of households, businesses, and automobiles, and
there were ample transmitting stations to provide wide area coverage. Sure, static
in the AM broadcast due to man-made (QRM; e.g., sparking motor brushes) and natural
(QRN; e.g., lightning) noise was annoying, but being relieved of its usually temporary
interference was hardly worth the investment in new radios broadcasting equipment
and receivers. That belief pretty much proved true for nearly a decade, but then
as the novelty of TV began to wear off and consumers...
 "Nearly 100% of
all-carbon-based transistors are reclaimed while retaining future functionality
of the materials. There is an ever-growing pile of discarded electronic devices
that either don't work anymore or have been cast away in favor of a newer model.
Part of the problem is that electronic devices are difficult to recycle. While scraps
of copper, aluminum, and steel can be recycled, the silicon chips at the heart of
the devices cannot. Engineers now have developed a completely recyclable, fully
functional transistor made out of three carbon-based inks that can be easily printed
onto paper or other flexible, environmentally friendly surfaces. Carbon nanotubes..."
 Triad RF Systems designs and manufactures
RF power amplifiers
and systems. Triad RF Systems comprises three partners
(hence 'Triad') with over 40 years of accumulated
knowledge of what is required to design, manufacture, market, sell and service RF/Microwave
amplifiers and amplifier systems. PA, LNA, bi-directional, and frequency translating
amplifiers are available, in formats including tower mount, benchtop, rack mount,
and chassis mount. "We view Triad more as a technology partner than a vendor for
our line-of-sight communications product line." Please check to see how they can
help your project.
 This "Electronic
Alphabet Quiz" from a 1963 issue of Popular Electronics magazine is a bit trickier
than others because it requires you to think abstractly rather than concretely.
Quiz-maker Robert Balin presents a series of circuits and components along with
the first letters of the related topics. Your mission, should you decide to accept,
is to match the item to the letter. The example provided is matching the letter
"J" to a drawing of that type of half-wave antenna. I have to admit that my attempt
at matching all of the items and letters was taking a lot of time, so I quit before
finishing all of them; my hard head is better at concrete thinking...
 This assortment of custom-designed themes
by RF Cafe includes T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks, Tote Bags, Coffee Mugs and Steins,
Purses, Sweatshirts, and Baseball Caps. Choose from amazingly clever "We Are the World's Matchmakers"
Smith chart design or the "Engineer's Troubleshooting Flow Chart." My "Matchmaker's"
design has been ripped off by other people and used on their products, so please
be sure to purchase only official RF Cafe gear. My markup is only a paltry 50¢ per
item - Cafe Press gets the rest of your purchase price. These would make excellent
gifts for husbands, wives, kids, significant others, and for handing out at company
events or as rewards for excellent service. It's a great way to help support RF
Cafe. Thanks...
 PCBONLINE supplies complex rigid and flex-rigid
printed circuit
boards (PCBs)，and one-stop production with maximum flexibility ranging from
prototype sample to mass production. Rigid-flex, HDI, multilayer, IC-loadboard,
LCP 5G optical module, ceramic, MCPCB. Materials include Rogers, Taconic, Arlon,
Isola, Bergquist, Kapton, Panasonic, and more. After more than 15 years of continuous
efforts, PCBONLINE constantly updates our equipment, improves our technology, and
serves you with the highest quality. Cost and delivery quotations online without
the need for multiple phone call and/or e-mails.
Tuesday the 15th
 Heap many moons ago I was in the
electrical service business. Prior to enlisting in the USAF as an air traffic
control radar technician, I worked for electrical contractors wiring houses and
buildings. After a couple years of doing that, I started with a different company
where most of my tasks were doing troubleshooting and what is called "old work."
Old work is trade lingo for where you install circuits in preexisting residences
and buildings. In fact, if you go to Lowes or Home Depot and ask the attendant for
an old work box, he will direct you to the electrical boxes that are designed to
be inserted into a hole cut in a wall or ceiling to install a new receptacle, switch,
light fixtures, etc. ...but I digress. For the vast majority of service calls I
made, the customers were very friendly and glad to have me (or anyone able to help)
there fixing what was broken or making a good situation better. Occasionally, however,
the person would be a real pain in the donkey...
 "A team led by Carnegie's Thomas Shiell
and Timothy Strobel developed a new method for synthesizing a
novel crystalline form of silicon with a hexagonal structure that could potentially
be used to create next-generation electronic and energy devices with enhanced properties
that exceed those of the 'normal' cubic form of silicon used today. Their work is
published in Physical Review Letters. Silicon plays an outsized role in human life.
It is the second most abundant element in the Earth's crust. When mixed with other
elements, it is essential for many construction and infrastructure projects. And
in pure elemental form, it is crucial enough..."
 Antenova Ltd, UK-based manufacturer of antennas
and RF antenna modules for M2M and the IoT, is announcing a new flexible embedded
antenna for the next generation of small monitoring devices on North America's 915 MHz
ISM and LoRaWAN networks. This antenna, named
Fera, part no SRFI068, is a flexible printed circuit (FPC) antenna measuring
33 x 13 x 0.15 mm. FPC antennas do not require a ground plane to function,
which is an advantage in small designs where space is tight, as no empty space is
needed around the antenna on the PCB. This antenna is an FPC which can be bent or
curled and inserted precisely into a design and fixed in place by a self-adhesive
patch. This makes the integration of the antenna simpler and is practical for low
to medium manufacturing volumes. Fera is available in two shapes - horizontal and
vertical orientation, so there are two options for integrating it into a design.
It comes with an integral UFL IPEX connector in a choice of two standard cable lengths...
 That John T. Frye was a great short
story writer is evidenced by his decades-long production of the "Carl & Jerry"
series in Popular Electronics, and "Mac's Radio Service Shop" series in Radio &
Television News and Electronics-World magazines. Mr. Frye also wrote many other
short tech-oriented stories. It is easy to look over the fact that he also had artistic
skills as well as evidenced by the pencil drawings that accompanied each installment.
In this episode, our two teenaged electronics hobbyists build a resistor anemometer
to measure wind speed from within their basement workshop. In the usually storyline
style, one boy gives a lesson in circuit design while the other (also you, the reader)
is the attentive student...
 It was a lot of work, but I finally finished
a version of the "RF & Electronics Schematic & Block Diagram Symbols" that
works well with Microsoft Office™ programs Word™, Excel™, and Power Point™.
This is an equivalent of the extensive set of amplifier, mixer, filter, switch,
connector, waveguide, digital, analog, antenna, and other commonly used symbols
for system block diagrams and schematics created for Visio™. Each of the 1,000 or
so symbols was exported individually from Visio in the EMF file format, then imported
into Word on a Drawing Canvas. The EMF format allows an image to be scaled up or
down without becoming pixelated, so all the shapes can be resized in a document
and still look good. The imported symbols can also be UnGrouped into their original
constituent parts for editing. Check them out!
 Nova Microwave is a leader in technically
differentiated electronic and radio frequency Ferrite
Circulators
and Isolators that connect, protect and control critical commercial and military
wireless telecommunications systems. Our staff is dedicated to research and development
of standard and custom design quality Ferrite Circulators and Isolators from 380 MHz
to 26.5 GHz. Available in single or multi-junction topographies, the Nova Microwave
product line of is specifically designed for use in varied environmental and temperature
extremes.
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RfCaFe
autodidacts
 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 15,000 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. If you need your company news to be seen, RF Cafe
is the place to be.
 RF Cascade Workbook 2018 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...
It was a lot of work, but I finally finished
a version of the "RF & Electronics Schematic & Block Diagram Symbols" that
works well with Microsoft Office™ programs Word™, Excel™, and Power Point™.
This is an equivalent of the extensive set of amplifier, mixer, filter, switch,
connector, waveguide, digital, analog, antenna, and other commonly used symbols
for system block diagrams and schematics created for Visio™. Each of the 1,000 or
so symbols was exported individually from Visio in the EMF file format, then imported
into Word on a Drawing Canvas. The EMF format allows an image to be scaled up or
down without becoming pixelated, so all the shapes can be resized in a document
and still look good. The imported symbols can also be UnGrouped into their original
constituent parts for editing. Check them out!
With more than 1000
custom-built symbols, this has got to be the most comprehensive set of
Visio Symbols available for RF, analog, and digital system and schematic drawings!
Every object has been built to fit proportionally on the provided A-, B- and C-size
drawing page templates (or can use your own). Symbols are provided for equipment
racks and test equipment, system block diagrams, conceptual drawings, and schematics.
Unlike previous versions, these are NOT Stencils, but instead are all contained
on tabbed pages within a single Visio document. That puts everything in front of
you in its full glory. Just copy and paste what you need on your drawing. The file
format is XML so everything plays nicely with Visio 2013 and later...
 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 object has been built to fit proportionally on the provided
A-, B- and C-size drawing page templates (or can use your own). Stencils are provided
for equipment racks and test equipment, system block diagrams, conceptual drawings,
and schematics. Unlike previous versions, these are NOT Stencils, but instead are
all contained on tabbed pages within a single Visio document. That puts everything
in front of you in its full glory. Just copy and paste what you need on your drawing.
The file format is XML so everything plays nicely with Visio 2013 and later...
This assortment of custom-designed themes
by RF Cafe includes T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks, Tote Bags, Coffee Mugs and Steins,
Purses, Sweatshirts, and Baseball Caps. Choose from amazingly clever "We Are the World's Matchmakers"
Smith chart design or the "Engineer's Troubleshooting Flow Chart." My "Matchmaker's"
design has been ripped off by other people and used on their products, so please
be sure to purchase only official RF Cafe gear. My markup is only a paltry 50¢ per
item - Cafe Press gets the rest of your purchase price. These would make excellent
gifts for husbands, wives, kids, significant others, and for handing out at company
events or as rewards for excellent service. It's a great way to help support RF
Cafe. Thanks...
RF
Cafe's raison d'être is and always has been to provide useful, quality content for
engineers, technicians, engineering managers, students, and hobbyists. Part of that
mission is offering to post applicable job openings. HR department employees and/or managers of hiring
companies are welcome to submit opportunities for posting at no charge. 3rd party
recruiters and temp agencies are not included so as to assure a high quality of
listings. Please read through the easy procedure to benefit from RF Cafe's high
quality visitors...
|
 "While the basic physics of beamforming were
first identified more than a century ago, it wasn't until the past two decades that
advances in supporting technology enabled the rapid expansion of the types of applications
that can take advantage of this technology. As early adopters of beamforming technology
in the 1960s, aerospace and defense organizations have a lot of experience using
the initial large-scale
active electronically scanned arrays (AESAs) for military radar tracking applications.
As a result of the innovations led by military organizations for several decades,
commercial applications such as weather detection and radio broadcasting were able
to benefit from the use of beamforming..."
 "The electrical double layer capacitor (EDLC)
- most often called a 'supercapacitor'
and sometimes an 'ultracapacitor' - is an amazing passive energy-storage component.
As a result of its high capacitance of multiple farads and small size, it provides
high-density energy storage by both volume and weight. In some remote sensing, IoT,
and energy harvesting-sourced applications, supercaps are an alternative to rechargeable
batteries; in other situations, they are used in conjunction with batteries to overcome
some of the weaknesses of those electrochemical-based energy-storage components..."
 "Quantum
repeaters that can store multiplexed signals; provide heralded signals of entanglement;
and operate at telecommunications wavelengths have been developed by two independent
research teams. Their work could prove to be an important step towards the creation
of a scalable quantum internet. If it can be built, a quantum internet would allow
calculations to be distributed between multiple quantum computers - allowing larger
and more complex problems to be solved. A quantum internet would also provide secure
communications because eavesdropping on the exchange of quantum information can
be easily identified. The backbone of such a quantum network would be quantum-mechanically
entangled links between different network points..."
 "Integrated
circuits have become the backbone of consumer electronics. They are used in medical
equipment, household appliances, personal computers, cellphones, cars, and more.
In fact, chips are in such demand that there's currently a shortage of them. After
ICs were introduced in the 1950s, several variations of the technology emerged:
those based on bipolar transistors, invented in the 1950s; CMOS in the 1960s; and
double-diffused metal oxide semiconductors (DMOS) in the 1970s. But in the early
1980s, some applications demanded all three kinds of chips - which required higher
voltage and chips with faster switching speeds. In 1985
BCD chips - developed by using the super-integrated silicon-gate process - were
invented by semiconductor manufacturer SGS, now STMicroelectronics..."
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