Friday 17
Thursday 16
Wednesday 15
Tuesday 14
  Alliance Test sells
used / refurbished test equipment,
we offer short- and long-term rentals. They also offer repair, maintenance and calibration.
Prices discounted up to 80% off list price. Agilent/HP, Tektronix, Anritsu, Fluke, R&S
and other major brands. A global organization with ability to source hard to find equipment
through our network of suppliers. Please visit Allied Test Equipment today to see how
they can help your project ...
 Hugo Gernsback was well-known not just for his
technical prowess, but for an uncanny ability to predict future developments in electronics,
transportation, and production methods. Barely three years had passed since Messrs. Bardeen,
Shockley, and Brattain, announced their invention of the transistor when this editorial
titled, "Transistor
Transition" appeared in Radio-Electronics magazine. Gernsback mentions the
concept of "appliqued circuits" (i.e., printed circuits) and "roll-up display" transistor
picture tubes (i.e., flexible displays), and "pocket radios" that can be held up to
the ear. Production prices for transistors at the time
were about $8 apiece, which is the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $76 in 2018. At that
price point, who could blame the pro-tube, never-transistor crowd from denying the possibility
of transistors ever replacing tubes ...
 Please welcome
Rohde & Schwarz as RF Cafe's newest Banner Advertiser in a 160x600−px
slot! R&S has been a long-time supporter. Dr. Lothar Rohde and Dr. Hermann
Schwarz founded the company Munich, Germany, in 1933. Per a Wikipedia entry, R&S
received a electronics equipment depot maintenance contract in 1945 from the U.S. Army,
which might be their first presence here in the U.S., providing serious competition to
Hewlett Packard. I found this
Rohde & Schwarz ad in a 1965 issue of Electronics magazine. Rohde &
Schwarz is now a premier player in the communications test equipment realm. Lab benches
and production test stations have taken on a noticeably blue hue thanks to all the R&S
equipment in use ...
 If the December 13, 1965, edition of Electronics
magazine had a theme, it was undoubtedly reporting on the current state of
Japanese technology. The cover photo is a shot of a microwave antennas dominating
Tokyo's skyline. Japanese technology companies worked hard to overcome the largely undeserved
negative connotation that a "Made in Japan" label carried in the day. Do you remember
the scene in the movie "Back to the Future Part III" where Doc, having traveled back
in time from the 1950s, is trying to fix his DeLorean time travel car and discovers a
burnt out circuit and claims, "No wonder this circuit failed, it says made in Japan?"
Marty, who travelled from the 1980s, replied, "What do you mean doc, all the best stuff
is made in Japan." There is no denying the Japanese people succeeded at their goal ...
 Greg Boone was in technical school at Keesler AFB,
MS, during my time there in 1989. We were both AFSC 303x1 radar maintenance techs, although
he began a couple months before I arrived. His service info is now in the
USAF Radar Techs list. Greg
was part of a group of guys, including Jim Flinn
and me, who used to take stashes of firecrackers and bottle rockets to a road construction
site in the Biloxi, Mississippi, area and play "war games" against opposing sides. As
far as I know, none of us ever face any real fire while in the service. At least back
in the era, a commonly repeated saying was that the Air Force is the only branch of service
where the officers are sent into the heat of battle while the enlisted stay safely behind
the lines ...
 Call to action - contact NIST to continue
WWV and WWVH broadcasts. "The National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) FY 2019 budget request includes shutting down NIST radio stations in
Colorado and Hawaii - in other words, WWV and WWVH. Radio amateurs, HF listeners, and
others around the world routinely make use of the time and frequency standard signals,
which also include propagation information. NIST said eliminating funding currently 'supporting
fundamental measurement dissemination' would include putting WWV and WWVH off the air
for a saving of $6.3M. The NIST FY 2019 budget request for efforts related to Fundamental
Measurement, Quantum Science and Measurement Dissemination is $127M ..."
Monday 13
 "The Aerospace Corporation announced a milestone
with the Optical Communications and Sensor Demonstration (OCSD) mission. The laser communication
system, carried by the two low-Earth-orbiting OCSD
CubeSats also known as AeroCube-7B and Aerocube-7C, successfully
transmitted data at a rate of 100 megabits per second which is 50 times greater than
typical communication systems for this size spacecraft. 'This is a significant achievement,
given that high speed laser communications is mostly done from larger satellite systems,'
said Steve Isakowitz, Aerospace president and CEO ..."
 EDI CON USA, the industry event that brings together
RF/microwave and high-speed digital design engineers and system integrators, announces
its plenary keynote speakers -
Ovi Jacob and
Ransom Stephens - for the 2018 conference, which will be held in Santa Clara, CA
October 17 and 18. All pass holders will be eligible to see these talks, each happening
at 11:30AM. On Wednesday, October 17, 2018, Ovi Jacob, Director of Business Development
at Vayyar Imaging, will provide a fascinating glimpse at technology that is changing
the world, and our ability to survive in it. In his talk, "Looking Deeper: Using Radar
to Save Lives and Improve the World" Jacob will address how radar is being used for life-saving
cancer detection, as well as in everyday applications ...
 Electrocution has always been - and always should
be - a hot topic (pun intended) in the realm of electrical and electronics servicing
and usage. Trade and hobby magazines have dedicated many column inches to it over the
years. A lot of people are deathly (there I go with the puns again) afraid of being anywhere
in the proximity of an exposed electrical connection. My father, a newspaper classified
advertising manager, was one of those people. He would cringe when I took the cover off
the fuse panel in the house to work on it. He could barely bring himself to replace a
blown fuse, which was not a completely unjustified fear given the low standards of older
electrical wiring. Those screw-in fuses had a threaded metal perimeter around the bottom
portion with a button connection at the bottom center. Theoretically, that threaded metal
perimeter is at ground potential ...
 RF Cafe typically receives
10,000-15,000 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 7,000 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. Items added on the homepage are broadcast on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
Banner advertising begins at $150/month ...
 At VidaRF, the phrase 'Providing Simple Solutions
for Complex Connections' is more than just a slogan – it's a mindset, a mission, and
a driving force behind everything we do. Their pledge is to design and distribute high
performance, cost effective
RF Microwave
products to fit each customer's unique applications. Please visit VidaRF today to
see how their lines of attenuators & terminations, directional couplers, power dividers,
coaxial connectors, and circulator & isolators can be of use to your project. "When
the standard just will not do, VidaRF has the solution for you!"
...
 "Topology is a global aspect of materials, leading
to fundamental new properties for compounds with large relativistic effects. The incorporation
of heavy elements gives rise to non-trivial topological phases of matter, such as topological
insulators, Dirac and
Weyl semimetals. The semimetals are characterized by band-touching
points with linear dispersion, similar to massless relativistic particles in high energy
physics. The interplay of symmetry, relativistic effects and, in magnetic materials,
the magnetic structure, allows for the realization of a wide variety of topological phases
through Berry curvature design. The Berry curvature describes the entanglement ..."
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 Believe it or not, there was a time when the Internet
did not exist and getting quality information could be difficult. Offices, cubicles,
laboratories, company technical libraries, even hallways, were piled high with reference
books, magazines, component books, applications notes, datasheets, white papers, and
every other form of information that might be useful.
Watkins-Johnson Tech-Notes were particularly notable for their practical
design and application content. Thanks to Mr. Larry Jugler for providing these three
new Watkins-Johnson Tech-Notes for adding to my collection of PDF files:
-
Competitive Receiver Technologies
-
RF Signal Processing Before the Receiver
-
Software Design of Microprocessor-Controlled Receivers
|
 "ABI Research estimates the smart home segment
could potentially be worth in the region of $11.2B by 2022, but the diversification question
still remains for the telcos. The smart home is a concept which has been on the horizon
for some time, we've been debating the merits of talking fridges for years, but until
recently it has perhaps been little more than a gimmick. The advantages of the expensive
upgrades were limited, and in all honesty, there seem like little point in connecting
your toilet to the internet. That said, during the last 12-18 months applications and
services have started to appear to make the prospect genuinely interesting..."
 "Discovery may herald high-performance computer
hard disks where lack of friction enables greater data storage It has long been known
that layered solid materials, particularly graphite, can act as lubricants. A joint project
between Tel Aviv and Tsinghua Universities has now found that the interface between graphite
and a two-dimensional material, hexagonal boron nitride, exhibits a property known as
superlubricity where friction between two surfaces virtually disappears
altogether. 'Superlubricity is a highly intriguing physical phenomenon, a state of practically
zero or ultra-low friction between two contacting surfaces,' said Prof Oded Hod ..."
 "Researchers in the U.S. have developed a way to
manipulate and mix droplets of fluids by having them surf on
acoustic
waves in oil. The group, from Duke University in North Carolina, claims that the
technology could form the basis of a reusable and programmable biomedical chip for applications
ranging from diagnostics to laboratory-based research. So-called lab-on-a-chip systems
have played an increasingly important role in the biomedical and pharmaceutical sectors,
but because these devices rely on solid surfaces their application has been hindered
by problems related to surface absorption ..."
 "The physical structure of
liquid metal is altered by incorporating a conductive nano- or micro-nickel
filler. Liquid metal printing is integral to the flexible electronics field. Additive
manufacturing enables fast fabrication of intricate designs and circuitry. The field
features a range of products including electrically conductive textiles; bendable displays;
sensors for torque, pressure, and other types of strain; wearable sensor suits, such
as those used in the development of video games; antennae; and biomedical sensors. Soft
robots, flexible computer screens, and other stretchable electronic devices also can
be created ..."
 "At Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, researcher
says theoretical threat to ships, planes and military is 'no longer theoretical.' The
satellite communications that ships, planes and the military use to connect to the internet
are vulnerable to hackers that, in the worst-case scenario, could carry out 'cyber-physical
attacks,' turning
satellite antennas into weapons that operate, essentially, like microwave
ovens. According to research presented at the Black Hat information security conference
in Las Vegas, a number of popular satellite communication systems are vulnerable to the
attacks ..."
RF Cafe typically receives
810,000-15,000 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 7,000 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, Facebook,
and Twitter. If you need your company news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be.
Banner advertising begins at $150/month ...
RF Cascade Workbook 2018 is the next phase in the evolution of RF Cafe's long-running
series, RF Cascade Workbook. 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 ...
With more than 780 custom-built symbols, 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 from scratch to fit proportionally on the provided A- and B-size drawing page
templates (you can use your own page if preferred). Components
are provided for equipment racks (EIA and ETSI) and test
equipment, system block diagrams and conceptual drawings, and for schematics
...
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