Friday 26
Robert Radford's (not to be confused with Robert
Redford) "Electromaze
Puzzle" is a unique - and weird - sort of word puzzle that first appeared in this
February 1966 issue of Popular Electronics magazine. Some people have been confused
about the strategy, believing that all the white spaces needed to be filled in. They
do not. Just because a letter might have an empty square adjacent to it does not imply
that another letter must fill it. Also, read the instruction carefully, especially the
part about the last letter of one word being the first letter of another word. You will
probably want to print out the maze grid and find an old guy who should still have a
pencil stowed away somewhere you can borrow to use for filling in the boxes ...
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Copper
Mountain Technologies'
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If you appreciate the legacy of the people and
facilities of early electronics manufacturers, then you will want to visit Mr. Tom
McKee's (K4ZAD) website titled, "General Electric's Mobile Radio History." He has loads of photos
of facilities and equipment from all across the country. Having worked for a while at
the Syracuse (Liverpool, more accurately), NY, GE Electronics Park campus, I particularly
like seeing photos of the heydays when the company turned out military radars and sonars,
and lots of consumer products like televisions, radios, washing machines, and refrigerators.
Tom has fairly extensive archival information that you might not find anywhere else.
Take a few minutes to look around, especially if you or someone you knew worked for GE;
maybe you will recognize a face ...
Transient Specialists, a leader in EMC rentals
for over 30 years, announces that they will be offering continued support for
electrostatic discharge products. There are a variety of ESD simulators, or ESD gun
manufacturers, however it is crucial to consider the application when selecting a gun.
Having the ability to buy or rent components to enhance testing capabilities could pay
dividends down the road. Many simulators, including the Dito, NSG 437, and ESD3000
have the ability to remove and change discharge networks. This allows for additional
testing beyond the 150 pf / 300 Ω the commonly tested to IEC 61000-4-2. Transient
Specialists conveniently located in the mid-west offers a variety of EMC test equipment
rentals to accommodate your testing needs ...
Axiom Test Equipment allows
you to rent
or buy test
equipment, repair test
equipment, or sell or trade
test equipment. They are committed to providing superior customer service and high quality
electronic test equipment. Axiom offers customers several practical, efficient, and cost
effective solutions for their projects' TE needs and is committed to providing superior
customer service and high quality electronic test equipment. Please check out Axiom Test
Equipment today! ...
"Graphene-based remote epitaxy enables inexpensive
copying of gallium arsenide and gallium nitride chips. Future high-efficiency solar cells
molded to the surface of a car, ultrasmall photonics chips, and low-power, long-lasting
wearable devices will all require something no one's yet been able to achieve, namely
chips made from high-efficiency materials that are
flexible, thin, and inexpensive to manufacture. A research group
at MIT has announced a couple of developments in recent weeks that bring such a confluence
of innovations closer to the achievable. Jeehwan Kim's research group announced separately
this month ..."
Thursday 25
Erie Technological Products, located in my adopted
hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania, was a re-branding of Erie Resistor Company as the concern
had begun manufacturing a wide variety of discrete electronic devices - resistors, capacitors,
feed-through filters, silicon rectifiers. The Erie Resistor complex on 12th Street in
Erie occupies a huge amount of real estate on both sides of the road. The overhead foot
bridge can be seen in this photo. The buildings have long been vacated and stand with
many others as reminders of the thriving manufacturing center that Erie once was. We
still have a good bit of manufacturing here, but nothing like back in the hey days of
the last century ...
We might just have a major scandal on our hands.
Whilst perusing the October issue of Microwaves & RF magazine I saw this ad for
Mini-Circuits
filters. I really liked how they showed the internal construction of the various
filter types - cavity, slab line, microstrip, ceramic resonator, MMIC. Then, I noticed
the lid is shown installed on the lumped-element filter. "What are they trying to hide?"
I asked myself (not really). It is reasonable to ask, though, why the cover is on the
LC filter? Is there some proprietary, top-secret method being used that would blunt their
competitive edge - maybe superconductor inductors with infinite Qs and/or graphene capacitors?
Someone needs to ask Mini-Circuits whazzup wit dat? The world deserves to know.
It is probably safe to say that most people, especially
today, believe that the United States was suddenly and unexpectedly thrust into involvement
in
World War II on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese navy launched a surprise
attack on Pearl Harbor. The fact is the U.S. was "unofficially" engaged for over a year
beforehand by "lending" both equipment and personnel to British, Russian, Chinese, French,
and other militaries as part of their effort to drive back invading German, Italian,
and Japanese Axis forces. World War II actually began in the Fall of1939 with Hitler's
invasion of Poland. Americans, being safely separated from the front lines by the Seven
Seas, knew little of and were concerned little about the goings on "Over There." Once
the call to arms was sounded with the Pearl Harbor attack, the country quickly and enthusiastically
converted to full wartime mode. Manufacturing plants ...
Anatech Electronics, a manufacturer of RF and microwave
filters, has published its October newsletter. In it, Anatech founder and owner Sam Benzacar
discusses the finally come-of-age
Microelectromechanical
systems (MEMS) switch for RF use. A MEMS switch is smaller and lighter than any other
switch technology, has very little insertion loss, provides very high isolation, can
theoretically operate into the millimeter-wave region, and can handle substantial amounts
of RF power. RF MEMS switches' Achilles heel at the moment is relatively low isolation
(~25 dB) compared to other types of RF switches. Sam also includes some relevant
telecomm industry headline news ...
Centric RF is a company offering from stock various
RF and Microwave coaxial
components, including attenuators, adapters, cable assemblies, terminations, power
dividers, and more. We believe in offering high performance parts from stock at a reasonable
cost. Frequency ranges of 0-110 GHz at power levels from 0.5-500 watts are available
off the sheld. Order today, ship today! Centric RF is currently looking for vendors to
partner with them. Please visit Centric RF today ...
"If you position yourself between a stationary
transmitter and receiver, it's possible to deflect signals and
steal information. Society is poised to enjoy a major communications
upgrade with the widespread launch of commercial 5G networks. Meanwhile, a handful of
researchers have already started to think ahead to
6G - the next
(next) generation of wireless and cellular technology. Just as 5G networks will transmit
data on higher frequencies than previous generations, preliminary research suggests that
the trend may well continue with
6G networks.
Harnessing these waves brings a wealth of benefits. Along with offering more bandwidth
for data transfers ..."
Wednesday 24
"Pharrowtech, a spin-off initiative from imec,
demonstrated a prototype of a
60 GHz active phased array at the Telecom Infra Project Summit in
London. This solution paves the way for telecom OEMs to dramatically increase range and
field of view of backhaul nodes, access points and home units. It is built using low-cost,
high-volume chip and antenna technologies. This marks an important step towards accelerated
deployment of cost-effective high-speed internet solutions for rural, urban and suburban
environments ..."
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 $99. We're leading the way again!
In this saga of YL (young lady) and OM (old man)
Ham radio operators, General license holder
Carole H. Allen elucidates, with a touch of humor, the woes beset upon women pertaining
to repairing radio equipment. Mrs. Allen's lament is in fact not the treatment of
women participating in the communication aspect of Ham radio, but the reluctance of men
to allow them to engage in the technical aspects of the electronic equipment. From an
operator standpoint, guessing the gender of the Ham on the other end of the signal can
be nearly impossible, particularly with CW (Morse code). Poor transmission quality can
make phone (voice) determination of YL or OM difficult sometimes as well. Back in the
1960s it was not possible to simply surf to the FCC's Universal License System website ...
Skyworks Solutions, an innovator of high performance
analog semiconductors connecting people, places and things, today announced that its
advanced wireless engines are enabling
Philips' CityTouch end-to-end street lighting management platforms. Specifically,
Skyworks' connectivity solutions provide superior efficiency, extended range and complete
network coverage to facilitate seamless communication between Philips' smart street lamps
and cellular base stations. These innovative devices allow city operators to reduce power
consumption and support public safety through adaptive scheduling and remote services.
Installations of CityTouch have commenced worldwide, fostering more livable ...
Since 1961, MECA Electronics
has designed and manufactured an extensive line of
RF & microwave
components for in-building, satellite, radar, radio, telemetry, mobile radio, aviation &
ATC. Attenuators, directional & hybrid couplers, isolators & circulators, power
dividers & combiners, loads, DC blocks, bias-Ts and adapters & cables. MECA has
long been the 'backbone' of high performance wired and air-interfaced networks such as
in-building applications, satellite communications, radar, radio communications, telemetry
applications, mobile radio, aviation & air traffic communications ...
"Just like their biological counterparts, hardware
that mimics the neural circuitry of the brain requires building blocks that can adjust
how they synapse, with some connections strengthening at the expense of others. One such
approach, called
memristors, uses current resistance to store this information. New
work looks to overcome reliability issues in these devices by scaling memristors to the
atomic level. A group of researchers demonstrated a new type of compound synapse that
can achieve synaptic weight programming and conduct vector-matrix multiplication with
significant advances over the current state of the art. Publishing its work in the Journal
of Applied Physics, from AIP Publishing, the group's compound synapse is constructed ..."
Tuesday 23
Here is a good, brief introduction to
harmonic and intermodulation distortion measurement methods that were commonly used
in the 1960s. Total harmonic distortion (THD) was used often, especially for audio equipment,
which of course most frequency conversion circuits ultimately were in the era since digital
data transmission over the air was not too common. Author Charles Moore worked for Hewlett-Packard
(HP) and references HP Application Note 15, "Distortion and Intermodulation" which,
thankfully, is made available by Hewlett-Packard / Agilent / Keysight on their website.
In fact, a complete list of all the vintage app notes are available on this page by downloading
the Excel file. I highly recommend that you download and save all you think ...
"Boy Scouts of America
Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) Coordinator Jim Wilson, K5ND, is urging
JOTA participants to file post-JOTA reports. JOTA and the companions Jamboree on the
Internet (JOTI) took place over the October 19-21 weekend. The reporting system combines
JOTA and JOTI reports. 'It's critical that we demonstrate the activity level for this
event to support further work in developing support systems, information, and activities
for the 2019 JOTA-JOTI event,' Wilson said. Station information will be compiled into
the US JOTA-JOTI report and filed with the World Organization of the Scout Movement for
their overall 2018 JOTA-JOTI report ..."
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 227,460 products from more than 1210 companies across 285 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 ...
The following article / app note titled, "Bias
T, Band Splitter and Other RF Diplexers," was submitted to RF Cafe by
Bree Engineering. It is a brief
introduction to and explanation of the theory and application of the named frequency
selective devices. A Bias-T is frequency dependent just as much so as a band splitter
or diplexer; it differentiates between DC (0 Hz) and the RF frequency. Bree Engineering
Corporation was founded in 1999 and is a manufacturer of custom electronic filters, multiplexers,
filter banks and other related types of components in the frequency range of 0.1 MHz
to 40 GHz. Designs include Chebychev, Bessel, Butterworth, Gaussian, transitional,
elliptic-function and pseudo-elliptic-function filters in lumped element, cavity, combline,
interdigital ...
It's time for a few more
electronics-themed comics. This set from four different artists comes from the September
1967 issue of Popular Electronics magazine. Users of modern, solid state radio
gear are not familiar with the kinds of problems that plagued the older vacuum tube equipment
- mainly overheating and a tendency for that smoke that is supposed to remain inside
resistors and capacitors leaking out and breaking the set. One good thing about the overheated
components that help with troubleshooting is that the designers at the factory added
a chemical to give off the unique burnt resistor or capacitor odor that let you sniff
out the faulty part; you know, kind of like the odor added to natural gas (which itself
is odorless) to alert you to a leak. Be sure to use one or more of these in the opening
slides of your next presentation ...
ConductRF is continually innovating and developing
new and improved solutions for RF Interconnect needs. See the latest
TESTeCON RF Test
Cables for labs. ConductRF makes production and test coax cable assemblies for amplitude
and phased matched VNA applications as well as standard & precision RF connectors.
Over 1,000 solutions for low PIM in-building to choose from in the iBwave component library.
They also provide custom coax solutions for applications where some standard just won't
do. A partnership with Newark assures fast, reliable access. Please visit
ConductRF
today to see how they can help your project!
"The GAO revealed the presence of several vulnerabilities
in the weapons that were never fixed. 'In operational testing, DOD routinely found mission-critical
cyber vulnerabilities in systems that were under development, yet
program officials GAO met with believed their systems were secure and discounted some
test results as unrealistic.' reads the report. 'Using relatively simple tools and techniques,
testers were able to take control of systems and largely operate undetected, due in part
to basic issues such as poor password management and unencrypted communications.' The
report was committed by the Senate Armed Services Committee that requested to review
the way the Pentagon was securing its weapons systems ..."
Monday 22
"Graphene Flagship researchers have shown in a
paper published in Science Advances how
heterostructures built from graphene and topological insulators have
strong, proximity induced spin-orbit coupling which can form the basis of novel information
processing technologies. Spin-orbit coupling is at the heart of spintronics. Graphene's
spin-orbit coupling and high electron mobility make it appealing for long spin coherence
length at room temperature. Graphene Flagship researchers from Chalmers University of
Technology (Sweden), Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology - ICN2 (Spain),
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain) ..."
ConductRF offers an extensive line of
RF and mixed signal cable harnesses and assemblies with custom configurations, lengths
and markings. Thousands of combinations of coaxial, power, and digital and analog signal
connectors available. Flexible phase-stable, low-loss, phase-matching, high power, and
other options per your requirements. Broad insert connector solution choices including
BMA, SMPM, for cable sizes #8, #12 & #16 Custom marking and ruggedization enhancements
capability. Contact ConductRF today and let us help your project ...
INSTOCK Wireless Components designs & manufactures
UHF/RF power dividers, bias tees, GPS antenna signal splitters, DC blocking L-Band splitters,
high-power combiners, and current steering splitters with more than three hundred twenty-five
models in 2-way thru 64-way configurations with Type N, SMA, TNC, BNC, & QMA connectors
covering frequencies from 10 MHz to 6 GHz. Custom configurations also available
including mix-and-match connector options, IP67 outdoor weatherproof, rackmount, and
micro-sized units. Our comprehensive portfolio of RF splitter combiners encompasses all
UHF, RF, and microwave frequency applications within the ranges 350-1000 MHz, 698-2700 MHz,
1-2 GHz, and 2.4-6.0 GHz ...
If only eBay had been around at the end of World
War II, this surplus equipment would have dominated the electronics and electromechanical
gizmo categories. Electronics magazines of the post-WWII era were filled for years with
advertisements like this one from
G & G Radio Supply Company in a 1953 issue of Radio & Television
News. That B-29 bomb sight, like the one used on the Enola Gay, could be purchased
brand new for a scant $295, which even in equivalent 2018 dollars of $2,758 (per the
BLS), is a steal. This is not the famous Norden bombsight, but it's still a sweet collector's
item, which is available on eBay today if you would like to own one. Already have a B-29
bombsight? How about a complete IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) secondary radar system?
For a mere $350 ...
Rohde & Schwarz develops, produces and markets
test & measurement, information and communications technology.
Focus is on test and measurement, broadcast and media, cybersecurity, secure communications,
monitoring and network testing. Markets serviced are wireless, the automotive industry,
aerospace and defense, industrial electronics, research and education, broadcast and
media network operations, consumer electronics, cybersecurity for business and governments,
communications and security solutions for critical infrastructures and the armed forces,
reconnaissance equipment for homeland and external security, and much more ...
"Organic semiconductor materials have the potential
to be used in innovative applications such as transparent and flexible devices, and their
low cost makes their potential use particularly attractive. The properties of
organic semiconductor materials can be tuned by controlling their
structure at the molecular level through parts of the structure known as electron-accepting
units. A group of researchers centered at Osaka University has specifically tailored
an electron-accepting unit that was then successfully used in an organic semiconductor
applied in solar cell device that showed high photovoltaic performance. Their findings
were published in NPG Asia Materials. 'Electron-accepting units are important elements
of organic semiconductors,' study corresponding ..."
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