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Tuesday 10
 If you grew up in the era of rooftop television
antennas, then there is a good chance you are familiar with the electromechanical antenna
pointing systems that were often installed as well. Alliance, Channel Master, Cornell
Dubilier, Radio Shack, RCA, Winegard, and others made low cost, light-duty
rotators
for television antennas. Ham radio antenna rotators were/are more robust in order
to handle higher weight and wind loads. Many television antennas also cover the FM radio
band (88-108 MHz), allowing them to do double duty. Being an unapologetic technology
renaissance man, I recently purchased (on eBay) a vintage Alliance Model U−100 Tenna−Rotor
that was unused in the original ...
 everythingRF recently started covering the DAS and
Wireless Infrastructure categories on their extensive searchable database of companies.
Category examples are RF signal tappers,
multicouplers,
base
station antennas,
tower mount amplifiers,
microwave
backhaul radios, and repeaters. Please contact everythingRF for assistance if needed.
 A lot of innovation went into perfecting
telegraph keys. The earliest keys were the familiar "straight key" tapping type where
the operator uses a single finger to close a set of contacts that "keyed" the transmitter
for a burst of RF energy. The length of each "dit" or "dah" was determined by the operator's
dwell time. It didn't take long for someone to improve on the scheme by designing keys
that assured an adjustable, constant length for a dit or a dah. Poor quality transmitters
with lousy rising and falling edge signatures at the beginning and end, respectively,
of a CW pulse made matters worse. Constant length bursts make it easier for ...
 "What is Ethernet and why is it so much better
than current networks? How will it affect network architecture and what will the impact
be on the
automotive industry? Automation and connectivity are driving the
automotive industry forward, and in answer to the growing need for bandwidth, flexibility,
and cost-effectiveness, in-car networks are evolving. Ethernet is emerging as a preferred
choice. So, what is it and do we need it? Will it have an effect on network architecture ..."
 "The global fabless chip market was worth 27%
of the world's IC sales in 2017, about $100B, in 2017, according to IC Insights. The
total was up 11 percent from about $90B in 2016. When organized by company headquarters
location it can be seen that US companies accounted for 53% of the market, as they did
in 2017. This figure is down from 69% in 2010, due in part to the acquisition of Broadcom
by Singapore-based Avago. Now ..."
Monday 9
 The circuit drawings in this
Series Circuit Quiz are a little hard to read in a few places because the original
page used light red on top of a gray background. The magic of image processing did a
pretty good job of cleaning them up to where you shouldn't have any trouble reading them.
This quiz from Robert Balin appeared in the April 1966 issue of Popular Electronics.
It is one of the easier, so don't tell anyone if you score less than 100% ;-) ...
 SMSgt.
John Pensko (ret.) contacted me with his service info as a USAF radar tech. John
served from 1976 through 1997, with duty ranging from line Technician to Branch Chief
and Career Field Manager. Was was exposed to a very wide assortment of equipment including
mobile and fixed ground-based primary radar, IFF secondary radar, video mappers, UHF
and VHF radios. It is one of the most extensive lists of assignments ever received! John
says he will be sending photos - stand by ...
 Rohde & Schwarz has published an app note
titled, "Design for EMI Testing," available as a free download. "Today, R&D
engineers face challenging time-to-market goals. Extending the product development schedule
and delaying the product launch can prove to be extremely costly in terms of opportunity
cost and lost market share. Nearly 50 % of products fail EMC compliance the first time.
Every day spent on debugging, isolating and correcting the EMI problem increases the
time to market. The time lost could have been used to work on another project or on ..."
 NuWaves Engineering, located in Middletown, Ohio,
currently has an opportunity for an
RF Engineering Technician. This position is part of the product development team
and supports testing and documentation processes in the design of new products, such
as, RF power amplifiers, upconverters, downconverters, RF filters, and low noise amplifiers.
Individuals in this position take direction from engineers, project managers, senior-level
technicians to test, characterize, and troubleshoot electronic circuits and systems ...
 At
Axiom Test Equipment
we provide high-quality services and affordable solutions such as test equipment rental,
test equipment sales, and test equipment repair. These examples of test equipment specials
are a very small sample of our extensive stock available for rental or for purchase.
Axiom Test Equipment can also perform repair and calibration of your gear. Contact us
today with your needs ...
 "Four agencies looking to band together to create
a combined
radar system want more information from commercial spectrum users
and the public on their plan for the project. Just over a year ago, the Federal Aviation
Administration, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration unveiled an idea to combine surveillance,
air safety and weather radar applications into a single, spectrum-conserving 'system
of systems ..."
Sunday 8
 Each week, for the sake of all avid cruciverbalists
amongst us, I create a new
technology-themed crossword puzzle using only words from my custom-created lexicon
related to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc. Words
for clues having an asterisk (*) after them are part of this week's Easter theme. You
will never find among the words names of politicians, mountain ranges, exotic foods or
plants, movie stars, or anything of the sort. You might, however, see someone or something
in the exclusion list who or that is directly related to this puzzle's theme ...
Friday 6
 There are lots of funny T-shirts around, but you
don't often find ones with an
electronics theme. Here are a couple. "Electronics Technician: 1. A person who solves
 problems you can't, 2. One who does precision guesswork
based on unreliable data provided by those
 of questionable knowledge." Also, "I only give negative feedback." And, although not entirely proper
(should be "Electronics") "Happiness Is Being an Electronic Engineer."
 "As newer satellite ventures are getting underway,
an old standby -
Iridium Communications - just celebrated the successful launch of
the fifth set of 10 Iridium Next satellites into orbit. The launch on Friday was conducted
by SpaceX, which just a day before received FCC approval for its own satellite system,
albeit one that uses far more satellites - 4,425 to be precise. SpaceX designed its system
with the primary purpose of providing broadband service directly to end users, particularly
individual households and small businesses. That's not the same base that ..."
 You just never know what names you will find in
vintage electronics magazines. Incredibly - assuming of course that this is who
 it likely is - I ran across
Steve Wozniak (aka "Woz"), later to be co−founder of Apple
Computer, in this November 1966 issue of Popular Electronics. "Woz" first met
Steve Jobs five years later in 1971 while working at Hewlett Packard. If this is "Woz,"
he, having been born in 1950, would have been a 16 year-old high schooler when his entry
was published. The article does not specify who is responsible for which quote. Woz was
a Ham radio ..."
 Copper Mountain Technologies launches their new
FET1854
extenders with frequency range from 18 to 54 GHz. This product is an addition to
the existing CobaltFx mmWave frequency extension system already used by many telecommunications
and consumer electronics companies. With the launch of the new FET1854 extenders, the
CobaltFx system will allow engineers to build a scalable and affordable 5G testing solution.
Anchored by a 2- or 4-port 9 or 20 GHz USB vector network analyzer, CobaltFx includes
extenders ...
 Facebook,
LinkedIn, Twitter, Yahoo, credit car companies, retailers, maybe even your personal bank
account, power grids, corporate databases, government offices, are all vulnerable to
massive hacking. We read about it daily. This free whitepaper titled, "2108 Security Predictions"
gives a little insider view of just how bad things really are.
 "An exuberant Jensen Huang, who gave a keynote
and popped up on stage during various events at Nvidia's 2018 GPU Technology Conference
(GTC) held in San Jose, California last week, repeatedly made the point that due to extreme
advances in technology, graphics processing units (GPUs) are governed by a law of their
own. 'There's a new law going on,' he says, 'a supercharged law.' Huang, who is CEO of
Nvidia, didn't call it Huang's Law; I'm guessing he'll leave that to others. After all,
Gordon Moore wasn't the one who gave Moore's Law its ..."
Thursday 5
 "If whatever signal remains has reached anyone,
it clearly hasn't inspired a reply." - Jill Tarter, SETI, regarding, 'We joke that the
first message extraterrestrials will pick up is I Love Lucy; it was among the first big
broadcasts. But Lucy's light-speed antics are pretty garbled by now." Spring 2018 issue
of Popular Science magazine.
NuWaves Engineering, located in Middletown, Ohio,
currently has an opportunity for an
RF Design
Engineer. This position presents the opportunity to apply expertise in RF engineering
to support NuWaves' primarily DoD projects, ultimately supporting the U.S. military.
Opportunities exist within the Engineering Services and Product Solutions domains across
the company to increase knowledge, grow leadership skills, and continuously improve the
business system. Please contact us today if you qualify ...
 In July 1966, Popular Electronics magazine
invited its readers to submit examples of ridiculous statements made by people supposedly
"in-the-know" about electronics and/or technical subjects. Space was allotted to it in
four later issues, all of which I will eventually post. This initial request included
a couple of the editor's favorite lines. Some of them seem to be more like the speaker
punking another person rather than not really knowing any better. See if you agree ...
 Copper Mountain Technologies develops
innovative and robust RF test and measurement solutions for
 engineers all over the world. Copper Mountain's extensive
line of unique form factor Vector Network Analyzers include an RF measurement module and a software
application which runs on any Windows PC, laptop or tablet ...
 Axiom test Equipment's Newest Blog is titled "Taking Proper Measure to Ensure Safer Products." The blog addresses
electrical safety testing, specifically how basic EST functions such as AC high-potential
(hipot) testing, DC hipot testing, and insulation resistance (IR) measurements can help
to identify and eliminate manufacturing problems before they become too widespread in
production or even become part of shipped products. Performing EST as part of manufacturing
production can provide a great deal of insight into ...
 "Physicists have identified a
new state of matter whose structural order operates by rules more
aligned with quantum mechanics than standard thermodynamic theory. In a classical material
called artificial spin ice, which in certain phases appears disordered, the material
is actually ordered, but in a 'topological' form. 'Our research shows for the first time
that classical systems such as artificial spin ice can be designed to demonstrate topological
ordered phases, which previously have been found only in quantum ..."
Wednesday 4
 "Heisenberg's uncertainty principle posits that there is a fundamental
limit to the precision with which so-called complementary variables, such as position
and momentum, can be measured. That is, the more accurately the speed and direction (and
thus the momentum) of a quantum particle are known, the less certain we can be about
its position. Remarkably, this intrinsic limitation can be relaxed when measurements
extract periodic functions of position and momentum with a characteristic length and
momentum scale ..."
 The manned
space program has unarguably provided mankind with many new and innovative tools, medicines,
electronics, materials, physics, materials, appliances, and mathematics. Known officially
as "spinoffs," products include items like the portable heart defibrillator unit, the
portable vacuum cleaner, freeze-drying food processors, powdered lubricants, memory foam,
quartz clocks and battery-powered tools. Many
NASA inventions
have not found an application in your basement or garage, however, because their purpose
is too specialized. Take, for instance, the ZeRT, or Zero Reaction Tool ...
 "Technique could prevent overheating of laptops,
mobile phones, and other electronics. Plastics are excellent insulators, meaning they
can efficiently trap heat - a quality that can be an advantage in something like a coffee
cup sleeve. But this insulating property is less desirable in products such as
plastic casings for laptops and mobile phones, which can overheat,
in part because the coverings trap the heat that the devices produce. Now a team of engineers
at MIT has developed a polymer thermal conductor - a plastic material that, however counterintuitive,
works ..."
 Robert Balin created scores of
electronics-related quizzes for Popular Electronics magazine. Having appeared in
the December 1965 issue, some of the subjects are a bit dated, but hey, this is an electronics
history quiz. I got 80% - yeah, sort of pathetic, but I don't recall ever hearing of
Heising and I couldn't figure out what item "A" was (hint: it's a TV iconoscope ...
 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. Anatech has introduced three new filter designs: a 120.5 MHz
bandpass filter with N type connectors, a 36 MHz crystal notch filter with SMA connectors,
and a 1-200 MHz 3-way power divider with SMA connectors. Contact Anatech today ...
 "How much data customers are using and how customers
are paying for that
data are perennial questions in the wireless industry. Thanks to
a partnership between FierceWireless and Strategy Analytics, we hope to shed some light
on the situation. The data below, from Strategy Analytics' AppOptix service, show how
often Android wireless users stray from cellular networks and onto Wi-Fi networks - and
how that differs among customers of Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint. But perhaps
more interestingly, Strategy ..."
Tuesday 3
 "Russian ships are skulking around
underwater communications cables, causing the U.S. and its allies
to worry the Kremlin might be taking information warfare to new depths. Is Moscow interested
in cutting or tapping the cables? Does it want the West to worry it might? Is there a
more innocent explanation? Unsurprisingly, Russia isn't saying. But whatever Moscow's
intentions, U.S. and Western officials are increasingly troubled by their rival's interest
in the 400 fiber-optic cables that carry most of world's calls, emails and texts, as
well as $10 trillion worth of daily ..."
 Here is a timeless subject for anyone routinely
subject to exposed high voltages. Most RF Cafe visitors already know that technically,
it is the amount of electric current through the body that determines severity of
electric shock, not the voltage. However, we also know that voltage does play a role
because a certain voltage, per Ohm's law, is needed to induce a commensurate current.
The body's resistance is determined primarily by perspiration (salt and water) and the
path between contact points (e.g., across adjacent skin areas or hand-to-hand via the
heart). MIL-STD-883 and JEDEC* have decided that the proper Human Body Model (HBM) for
testing semiconductor ...
 RF/Microwave Training Webinar Series Title:
RF and Microwave Filters. Date: April 11, 2018. Time: 11am ET. Sponsored
by: National Instruments. Presented by: Dr. Bob Froelich. Description: This webinar introduces
the student to core filter concepts, parameters, and topologies. Lowpass filters with
lumped elements using filter tables, transformation to bandpass, the importance of Q,
impedance inverter concept, coupled-resonator filters, and more. This is a perfect compliment
to my newly published page on
filter denormalization.
 "The FCC has proposed to promote more flexible
and intensive use of the
4.9 GHz band, a segment of spectrum that is currently designated
for public safety communications. They are now asking for proposals, technical in nature,
to encourage greater use of and investment in this public safety band, drawing on input
from the public safety community and other potential users. The Commission's goal is
to promote increased public safety use of the band and protect users from harmful interference
while opening the spectrum to additional uses that will encourage a more robust market
for equipment and greater ..."
Monday 2
 This entire page has been reworked to make the
denormalization of prototype
lowpass filter component values much easier to understand. I have received numerous questions
about the process over the years, particularly regarding the swapping of capacitor and
inductor values for highpass transformations. Bandpass and bandstop transformations can
be equally confusing. The original page pretty much regurgitated the kind of presentation
made by many textbooks, but this new format should make amply clear the transformation
from normalized lowpass component values ...
 Many RF Cafe visitors are new and experienced entrepreneurs
competing with the big boys for a piece of the pie. Big corporations have professional
sale and marketing people on staff or retainer who write these kinds of books.
 RevResponse is offering these two free e-book titled,
"The 7 Things You
Need to Know for Effective Sales Forecasting," and "The Sales Forecasting
Acceleration Guide." Maybe one of one of these e-books will help even the playing
field for you. They are both free for downloading.
 If you have never seen an old-fashioned television
tuner - particularly a color TV tuner - you have missed a truly impressive bit of electromechanical
ingenuity. I include it here for you to marvel over, not because you are likely to need
the information (although some RF Cafe visitors still use and/or service such things).
Unlike a simple parallel plate capacitor tuner used by many radios, the TV tuner contains
inductors, capacitors, resistors, tubes (or transistors), and many switch contacts (which
provide ample opportunity for intermittent or no electrical contact when they inevitably
get dirty). If a radio is a multi-band job, it nearly always has a separate switch or
switch bank to select a particular band. The band ...
 The 19th annual IEEE Wireless and Microwave Technology
Conference (WAMICON 2018) will be held
in Clearwater, Florida on April 9th and 10th, 2018. The conference will address up-to-date
multidisciplinary research needs and interdisciplinary aspects of wireless and RF technology.
The central theme of WAMICON2018 will be "mm-Waves and Internet of Things (IoT) for Commercial
and Defense." We welcome submissions on all aspects of mm-wave and IoT related technologies
including antennas, passive and active circuits, communication theory, and system concepts ...
 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. We're leading the way again!
 "Researchers at Fraunhofer IPMS have created a
wireless,
battery-free RFID sensor that can monitor the temperature and deformations
on metallic rotating parts such as shafts or spindles. Prudent operators of highly automated
production facilities keep a close eye on the condition of their equipment and machinery.
Early identification of faulty processes or premature wear on tools can prevent damage
to machines and production losses as well as optimize operational procedures. Integrating
sensors on tool shafts or spindles is not very easy. It takes great effort to integrate
cables or batteries ..."
Sunday 1
 Each week, for the sake of all avid cruciverbalists
amongst us, I create a new
technology-themed crossword puzzle using only words from my custom-created lexicon
related to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc. Words
for clues having an asterisk (*) after them are part of this week's Easter theme. You
will never find among the words names of politicians, mountain ranges, exotic foods or
plants, movie stars, or anything of the sort. You might, however, see someone or something
in the exclusion list who or that is directly related to this puzzle's theme ...
 Watch the ground track of the
Tiangong-1 satellite, due for a fiery plunge to Earth Sunday afternoon,
on this real-time map. The thumbnail is a screen capture of it passing almost directly
overhead here in Erie, Pennsylvania this morning. It looks like we're out of danger for
now. Check on your own degree of peril. It's amazing to watch how quickly the bird moves ...
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