Friday 26
Thursday 25
Wednesday 24
Tuesday 23
 "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 ..."
|
 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 ...
|
 "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 ..."
 Just in time for Halloween... "Resurrecting the
dead, mind control, radiation gone wrong, and man-eating robots, we've rounded up 10
of history's creepiest true tales of
science and engineering gone wrong. Some of your favorite horror
movies have nothing on the real thing. History is full of plenty of true-to-life tales
of mad science. Whether it was malicious or unintentional, the effect is the same and
the stories here are certified nightmare fuel. From experiments gone wrong to misguided
inventions and occult rituals, you won't believe some of the things that have happened
in the name of science ..."
 "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 ..."
 "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 ..."
 "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 ..."
 "U.S. Army researchers are surveying industry for
companies able to design a secure small, lightweight wireless communications module to
tie together
wearable electronics on the individual infantry warfighter without
eavesdropping or interference from the enemy. Officials of the Army Contracting Command
at Fort Belvoir, Va., issued a source-sought notice on Tuesday (W909MY-19-R-0002) for
the Secure Intra-Soldier Wireless Module with Reduced Size and Power (ICW Chipset) project.
Intra-soldier wireless (ICW) technology seeks to link pieces of the infantry warfighter's
kit, such as wearable computers, radios, and electro-optical rifle sights ..."
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