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Today in Science History -
 Check out the number of wheels on the transport
trailer! Note this is DC power - Has Edison won "The War
of the Currents" over Tesla in China? "State Grid's
1.1 MV DC line pushes power from Xinjiang to eastern megacities
over 3000 km to the east. China's primary grid operator has energized its biggest
and most powerful line yet, a 1.1 MV direct current (DC) behemoth that crushes
world records for voltage, distance and power. The new ultra-high voltage DC (UHVDC)
line built by Beijing-based State Grid Corporation of China can transmit up to 12 GW.
That is enough to power 50M Chinese households, according to a statement issued
in Chinese by State Grid last week, and 50% more than most of the 800 kV UHVDC
lines that State Grid has built over the past decade ..."
 When minimum signal loss in a
transmission line is required for maximum power transmission between the receiver
and/or transmitter, nothing come close to waveguide. Waveguide is very expensive
and for frequencies below a gigahertz or so, very impractical (or even impossible)
due to the required physical size. It has the advantage, too, of being nearly impervious
to outside interference or leakage to the outside, and it can handle extremely high
power levels. Waveguide can be installed in almost any manner and anywhere without
concern for signal disruption. Its biggest vulnerability is probably arcing due
to contaminants within when the system has not been purged of humid air and backfilled
with a gas such as dry nitrogen. Coaxial cable has many advantages of waveguide,
but is less expensive and easier to install and maintain ...
 Presenting yourself or your company as being modeled after a person
of great accomplishment has been a common promotional tactic for as long as there
has been print media. The John Hancock chose in this issue of
The Saturday Evening Post to suggest, albeit by an indirect approach, to
elicit the admiration Americans had for Thomas Edison' lust for innovation and desire
to make people's lives better in hopes that readers would associate Edison with
the insurance company. While the juxtaposition is strained, I do like one line in
particular, "He lured electricity into a bottle and taught it to glow with good
cheer." This short tribute to on of the world's greatest engineers is worth your
a few moments of your valuable time ...
 QuinStar Technology engineers have written a variety of application
notes on mm-wave
systems and components. Topics include Sensitive Receivers,Radiometers, Radar
Subsystems,Communication Subsystems, and Radios. QuinStar designs and manufactures
millimeter-wave products for communication, scientific, and test applications. We
excel in millimeter-wave products, microelectronic assembly, rapid prototyping,
and mass customization. As a result, we serve both established and emerging markets
with system applications in the commercial, scientific, and defense arenas ...
 "Wi-Fi Alliance has introduced the next generation
Wi-Fi certification program -
Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6™ - to ensure devices based on IEEE 802.11ax
technology meet industry standards for interoperability and security. The Wi-Fi
Alliance certification program, coming in the third quarter of 2019, will provide
capacity, coverage, and performance required by users to experience next-generation
Wi-Fi use cases, from streaming ultra high-definition (Ultra HD) movies to mission-critical
business applications. Advanced capabilities supported by Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 will
bring innovation for Wi-Fi to excel even in diverse Wi-Fi environments with many
devices. Key benefits include higher data rates ..."
 Concentric Technology Solutions is your one
stop source for RF shield
boxes, RF enclosures, Bluetooth testers, WiMax testers, RFID testers and RF
power amplifiers. CTS can supply off-the-shelf or custom products for your testing
needs requiring maximum RF shielding in order to produce repeatable results in laboratory
and production environments. Manual and pneumatic operation is available. TEM cells,
glove boxes, forensic enclosures, and special purpose per your requirements.
 Just as the evolution from vacuum tubes to
transistors changed the
test equipment (TE) landscape in the 1970s with drastic decreases in physical
size, ruggedness, price, functionality, portability, bandwidth, and power consumption,
today's products move ahead at an equal or even greater pace. Microprocessors make
possible programmability and reconfigurability, mathematical signal processing,
LCD displays, high speed interconnectability, data storage, automation, and intuitive
user interfaces. Surface mount components and other advanced production methods,
super high bandwidth semiconductors, advanced filter construction, and light weight,
rugged packaging have resulted in an amazing selection of special-purpose and multi-purpose
test equipment. This 1972 Popular Electronics article gushed over the relatively
recent advent of triggered sweep oscilloscopes ...
 Skyworks Solutions, an innovator of high
performance analog semiconductors connecting people, places and things, today announced
that its
SkyOne® Ultra 3.0 portfolio is being leveraged by Inseego (NASDAQ: INSG), a
pioneer in 5G and intelligent IoT device-to-cloud solutions, for their next generation
mobile hotspot. Given the significant growth in mobile subscribers and densification
of data traffic - which will intensify with 5G - demand for portable, reliable,
anytime connectivity is rapidly increasing. Skyworks' compact, highly-integrated
front-end system is being utilized in combination with Qualcomm's LTE X20 modem
to power Inseego's MiFi 8800L device, the industry's first commercially available
gigabit LTE platform for Cat 18 ..."
 Chapter 8 of the U.S. Navy's basic electronics
course of study, titled "The
Series Circuit: Why Know Circuits?" introduces the concept of series electrical
circuit analysis. After discussing basic characteristics and applications of resistors,
capacitors, inductors, conductors, and insulators, analyzing series circuits are
traditionally the beginning point for fledgling technicians, scientists, hobbyists,
and engineers. Purely resistive series circuits have just one current path with
the same value through every component, making calculations extremely simple. Things
start getting a bit tougher when reactive components are introduced, but simple
trigonometry takes care of that. The move into parallel circuits is typically the
first barrier that washes out students least likely to succeed. A few guys in my
USAF tech school had to change career fields after about the third weeks of Basic
Electronics because they could not grasp ...
 Copper Mountain Technologies' Steve Sandler
will present a webinar on January 22, at 11 am EST, about
VNA Impedance Measurement for Power Distribution Networks. Almost all modern
circuits are sensitive to power quality, which to a large extent is a measurement
of the power rail impedance. This is because flat impedance power rails result in
much lower noise than power rails that aren't flat. In RF circuits the peaks generally
result in increased phase noise, while in digital circuits the issues are related
to the allowed voltage window for the ASICs. In high-speed transceivers, these peaks
result in jitter, which is also related to phase noise. In analog circuits, the
peaks ...
 Rohde & Schwarz has produced a white paper
titled, "How to Select the Right Power Sensor and Get Results Faster."
One of the most fundamental RF measurement tools is the power sensor . Today , the
marketplace is filled with lots of choices and bold claims of fast speeds and large
numbers of readings per second, but when sifting through the datasheets it can be
difficult to determine what sensor will meet the needs for any particular measurement.
In this white paper we will review the fundamentals of RF power sensors and discuss
what you need to consider when selecting a power sensor. Today, the RF power sensor
marketplace is filled with bold claims of fast speeds and large numbers of readings
per second, but when sifting through the data sheets, it can be difficult to determine ...
 RF Cafe's continued existence depends on
companies like ERZIA providing support. ERZIA produces
microwave and mm-wave modular amplifiers
and integrated assemblies operating from low frequencies up to 100 GHz. Their
catalogue of standard amplifier modules comprises more than 100 different models,
having also a high capacity of customization for amplifiers and integrated assemblies.
Some of products have space heritage and are used in aerospace, commercial, military
and scientific systems, having a wide range of final applications ...
 Amateur radio operators have been blamed
for a lot of radio frequency interference (RFI) and
television interference (TVI) over the years, with some being justified and
a lot being unjustified. The surest sign that a Ham set is interfering with your
entertainment box is when you actually hear voice or a series of dits and dahs.
However, when the interference is a steady or waver buzzing sound or scratchy intermittent
hash, chances are greater that the interference is coming from a noisy motor in
a vacuum cleaner, a kitchen blender, a power tool, or an arcing power line transformer
/ cracked insulator. The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) has jumped through burning
hoops (figuratively) to educate licensed operators on how to avoid complaints by
assuring gear is functioning properly, and educating the public about the likelihood
that the problems they experience are not coming ...
 Antenova, manufacturer of antennas and RF
antenna modules for M2M and the Internet of Things, is to show a
development kit for a certified Cat4/LTE design at CES2019. LTE Category 4 (Cat4)
is the next step in 4G LTE device capability. A Cat4 device uses two antennas -
a main antenna for transmit and receive, and a second antenna for receive only.
The two antennas radiate in different pattern directions which means they will always
provide a good signal in any orientation, as the unit is moved around or turned.
The kit gives designers a short cut to a successful Cat4 design and certifications,
which can otherwise be difficult to achieve ...
 Millimeter waves (mm-waves) are the subject
of a great many articles today describing advances being made in the part of the
spectrum above 30 GHz (Ka and EHF bands); however, when this piece was published
in 1935, it was
decimeter waves that were the big to-do. Crowded frequency bands have been a
problem since the beginning of radio because technology is constantly not only filling
available bandwidth, but also pushing the frontiers higher. The advantage of going
higher in frequency is that required bandwidths for existing modulation schemes
represent a smaller percentage of the center frequency. For example, an 802.11b
WiFi signal's 22 MHz bandwidth represents roughly 1% of its 2.4 MHz center
frequency. 802.11a does 20 MHz at 5 GHz for 0.4%. Extend that center frequency
up to 50 GHz and the channel occupancy ...
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