|
 The 1958-59
International Geophysical Year was an unprecedented eighteen-month global scientific
initiative involving 30,000 participants from 66 nations who invested up to 1.5
billion dollars to study Earth's interior, oceans, and atmosphere. Utilizing military
rockets and emerging satellite technology, researchers achieved major breakthroughs,
most notably Dr. James Van Allen's discovery of the radiation belts surrounding
Earth and enhanced understanding of ionospheric radio propagation, solar flares,
and geomagnetism. While the project aimed to improve communications...
 When I first saw an
Erie Resistor Corporation advertisement in the December 1958 issue
of Popular Electronics, I decided to research its history here in Erie,
Pennsylvania, where I live. Click on that hyperlink if you are interested in what
I discovered. This advertisement appeared in the January 1952 issue of Radio &
Television News magazine, so I figured I'd post it as well...
 Windfreak Technologies is proud to announces
the availability of our
FT108, an innovative
programmable bidirectional filter bank spanning a frequency range of 5 MHz
to 8 GHz in 15 bands. Band selection can be controlled through USB, UART or
at high speeds through powerful triggering modes. Each unit is factory tested via
network analyzer with unique data stored in the device to help with its use. Crossover
frequencies are stored so the user can send a frequency command and the FT108 will
utilizes Intelligent Band Selection logic to automatically toggle the optimal
filter path based on minimum insertion loss. Readback of FT108 insertion loss at
any frequency between crossover points allows for easy amplitude leveling...
 An article title with both "radar" and "Great
Lakes" in the title is sure to catch my attention, as did this. Author Norman Schorr
reports on the state of the art of radar equipment and usage for the purpose of
maritime navigation. Research and development, along with an ample
surplus of components left over from World War II facilitated a rapid adaptation
of radar to many venues. Included among its applications were airway and waterway
navigation, rocket trajectory tracking, security systems, speed measurement, weather
observation, and aerial mapping...
 Johanson Technology (originally part of
Johanson Dielectrics), located in Camarillo, CA, has for over 25 years designed
and manufactured high quality RF & microwave ceramic chip capacitors, inductors
and integrated passives. These includes chip-format antennas, capacitors, lowpass,
highpass, and bandpass filters, couplers, inductors, baluns, power dividers, substrates,
chipsets.
 Details the evolution of infrared technology,
tracing its origins from William Herschel's 1800 discovery to its deployment in
military and industrial sectors, are presented in this 1959 Radio &
TV News magazine article. It emphasizes the shift from active, illuminating
systems to passive, sensitive detectors capable of identifying thermal signatures
in total darkness. The piece highlights infrared's superior resolution compared
to radar, noting its utility in applications ranging from missile guidance and ballistic
tracking to industrial quality control and chemical analysis. Since the publication
of this article, infrared technology has achieved remarkable sophistication, evolving
from bulky lab instruments into the invisible, ubiquitous...
 An ample supply of surplus coaxial cable
after the end of World War II provided an inexpensive and easy to use form
of transmission line. Not having to worry about cable routing and unintentional
radiation makes transitions through walls, running along metal surfaces, and routing
high power transmission lines near habitable areas a no-brainer. Issues like power
handling, bend radius, and higher attenuation need more attention during the installation
design phase, but that pales in comparison to coaxial cable's advantages. Author
Byron Goodman addresses some of the issues Hams accustomed to using
flat
transmission lines...
 Not surprisingly, there is a website dedicated
to only the
Regency TR-1 transistor radio and its history from development
through retail sales. As reported in this January 1955 issue of Radio and Television
News, The TR-1 was the world's first commercially available, fully transistorized
portable radio. A complete schematic and functional description is provided. It
used four germanium transistors and operated on a 22-1/2 volt battery, which provided
about twenty hours of listening pleasure. The unit weighed eleven ounces and cost
$49.95...
 This
is a must-read article for all persons interested in the history of wireless communications.
Seriously. Stop what you are doing and read it. I guarantee the vast majority have
never heard of this challenge to the veracity of
Mr. Guglielmo Marconi's bestowed title of "father of wireless
telegraphy." Most of us are at least passingly familiar with challenges to Samuel
Morse's, Thomas Edison's, and a few other notables' claims to being the first at
a particular technical breakthrough, but herein, as penned by of
Lieutenant-Commander Edward H. Loftin, is a first-hand account
of multiple successful challenges by the U.S. Patent Office against...
 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!
 This nomograph from a 1959 issue of
Radio & TV News magazine simplifies matching a source (sending - s) impedance
(Zs) and a load (receiving - r) impedance (Zr) using a
quarter-wave transmission line. To use it, locate your Zs value on the left
vertical scale and your Zr value on the right scale. Lay a straightedge across these
points; the intersection with the center vertical scale reveals the required surge
impedance - also called characteristic impedance - (Z0). Surge impedance is the
ratio of voltage to current for a wave traveling along an infinite transmission
line, dictated by the physical geometry and dielectric properties of the cable,
defined as Z0 = sqrt (L/C), where L is inductance per unit length and C is
capacitance per unit length. The quarter-wave transformer relies...
 Here is a batch of
electronics-themed comics that appeared in the January 1949 edition
of Radio & Television News. The scene seen (hey,
homonyms) on the page 138 comic was commonplace in the 1940s when televisions
were relatively new and not every household had a set. The scenario repeated itself
in the 1960s when color sets were hitting the consumer market. Now, people can watch
TV on their smartphones while not at home so gathering 'round the television display
in a store is relegated pretty much to little kids watching the Disney movies that
seem to always running on them. There is a growing list of other comics at the bottom
of the page...
 December
1942 was just a year into America's "official" involvement in World War II.
Already, both wired and wireless communications had made major advances and were
indisputably vital in both the logistical and strategic aspects of troop movement,
supply chains, fighting battles, and evacuation of wounded personnel. It also played
a large part in propaganda campaigns. This was all true for both Axis and Allied
forces. Ham radio operators provided a huge boost to the Signal Corps
because they came at least partially trained for the jobs. These dozen and a half
photos from the field exhibit the state of the art at the time. Maybe you'll
recognize a father, grandfather, or uncle in one of them. For that matter, you might
even recognize a mother, grandmother...
 Exodus Advanced Communications, is a multinational
RF communication equipment and engineering service company serving both commercial
and government entities and their affiliates worldwide. Exodus'
AMP20026 is a rugged 2.0 to 6.0 GHz solid state amplifier delivering a
minimum of 200 W with clean, stable 53 dB gain. It offers excellent gain
flatness, a 20 dB control range, and full protection circuitry. Built for EMI/RFI,
lab, CW/pulse, and EW environments, it delivers instantaneous bandwidth, superb
reliability, rack mount configuration...
 In April of 1952 when this article appeared
in Radio & Television News magazine, the
bipolar junction transistor (BJT) had only made it out of the
experimental laboratory of Messrs. Bardeen, Shockley, and Brattain at Bell Labs
a mere three years earlier in December of 1948. It did not take long for commercial
production to begin. Along with being a great primer for anyone new to transistors,
herein is also some background on how the now ubiquitous BJT schematic symbol was
created. Interestingly, only Dr. William Shockley is mentioned, making me wonder
whether the contributions of Dr. John Bardeen, and Dr. Walter H. Brattain was
not widely publicized early on. Not to worry, though, because all three were duly...
 Mac's Service Shop captures here a moment
of technological transition in 1961 where a new "Loud-speaking
Telephone" impresses his right-hand man, Barney. The device utilizes vacuum-tube
amplifiers and a bulky external control box to allow hands-free communication, enabling
Mac to work while handling customer inquiries. Mac, ever the mentor, contrasts this
tube-based unit with the emerging technology of transistorized speakerphones, which
eliminate the need for external control boxes, external power supplies, and warm-up
times. The 1961 "Loud-speaking" setup, occupying significant space under a workbench,
has been completely replaced by modern smartphones and integrated VoIP systems...
 As with all
RF Cafe
crossword puzzles, this one uses only words pertaining to engineering, science,
mathematics, mechanics, chemistry, astronomy, etc. As always, this crossword puzzle
contains no names of politicians, mountain ranges, exotic foods or plants, movie
stars, or anything of the sort unless it/he/she is related to this puzzle's technology
theme (e.g., Hedy Lamarr or the Bikini Atoll). The technically inclined cruciverbalists
amongst us will appreciate the effort. Enjoy!
  The microwave klystron was invented in 1937
by brothers
Russell and Sigurd Varian. If you have been in the microwave design
business for a couple decades, you undoubtedly recognize the company name of Varian
Associates, especially if you worked in the aerospace or defense electronics business.
There is a video on YouTube of a segment on Varian done sometime around 1990 by
Walter Cronkite. There is also a historical piece on Varian Associates on the Communications &
Power Industries website. This circa 1952 article covers the fundamentals of klystron
operation and reports on the increasing use of klystrons in high frequency application
- including by amateur radio operators exploring...
 Werbel Microwave began as a consulting firm,
specializing in RF components design, with the ability to rapidly spin low volume
prototypes, and has quickly grown into a major designer and manufacturer with volume
production capacities. The
WMRD02-7.2-S is a resistive splitter that covers up to 7.2 GHz with ultra-wide
bandwidth. This design is useful when there are many low power signals within a
wide spectrum. By design, the nominal insertion loss and isolation is 6 dB,
hence it is often referred to as a "6 dB splitter." Its small size makes it
easy to integrate into compact systems. Designed, assembled, and tested in the USA.
"No Worries with Werbel!"
 Contributors to the Wikipedia article on
the
Yagi–Uda antenna credit Japanese professor Shintaro Uda primarily for the antenna's
development, with Hidetsugu Yagi having played a "lesser role." Other sources assign
the primary role to Yagi. Regardless, history - and this article's author, rightly
or wrongly, has decreed that this highly popular design be referred to commonly
as the Yagi antenna and not the Uda antenna. I don't recall seeing advertisements
for "'Uda" television or amateur radio antennas. Harold Harris, of Channel Master
Corporation, does a nice job explaining the fundamentals of the Yagi antenna. Another
Yagi article appeared in the October 1952 issue of QST magazine...
 Established in 1990,
dB Control supplies mission-critical,
often sole-source, products worldwide to military organizations, as well as to major
defense contractors and commercial manufacturers. dB Control designs and manufactures
high-power TWT amplifiers, microwave power modules, transmitters, high- and low-voltage
power supplies, and modulators for radar, ECM, and data link applications. Modularity
enables rapid configuration of custom products for a variety of platforms, including
ground-based and high-altitude military manned and unmanned aircraft. Custom RF
sources and receivers, components and integrated microwave subsystems as well as
precision electromechanical switches. dB Control also offers specialized contract
manufacturing and repair depot services.
 The production of high-performance transistors
necessitated new methods to achieve extreme purity levels, far beyond standard industrial
capabilities. To reach the required purity of
one part in ten billion, engineers adopted zone melting, a sophisticated technique
pioneered by W. G. Pfann. In this process, radio-frequency heating coils melt a
narrow zone of a semiconductor rod, which is then moved along the crystal to sweep
impurities to one end. Beyond purification, zone melting allows for the precise,
uniform introduction of "dopants" like antimony or indium, which are essential for
creating p-type and n-type semiconductor characteristics. By refining these methods
through continuous processing and floating-zone techniques, manufacturers significantly...
 Here's another advertisement that you probably
wouldn't see in a contemporary RF / microwave engineering magazine. For that matter
you probably wouldn't see it on a contemporary RF / microwave engineering website
... except on RF Cafe where political correctness gets no respect.
Adson Radio & Electronics was located on Fulton Street in New York City,
just a block from the 911 Memorial. the original building might have been destroyed
when the...
 My first thought when seeing the cover for
this edition of Radio-Craft magazine was that it was an April Fools gag,
but it turns out the "hat" being worn by the radio receiver's designer is a
loop antenna for AM reception. Ya' know, he does look like he
could be a suicide bomber. In a way it is the opposite of a tinfoil hat in that
this headgear invites electromagnetic energy around the wearer's head rather than
shielding it. Back in 1936, being seen in public donning a contraption like this
radio would have been akin to Google Glass today - you'd be a superhero to fellow
nerds, and just be confirming your otherworldly nerd status to non-nerds...
 Vreeland Corporation was an early radio
manufacturer located in Hoboken, New Jersey, with multiple patents on file for innovative
circuits. The
Vreeland band selector system mentioned here was originally filed
in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in August of 1927 and had not been awarded
by the time of this November 1929 article in Radio-Craft magazine. In fact,
it wasn't until five years later, in 1932, that the patent was finally assigned.
The official description reads in part, "The general purpose of the invention is
to receive the component frequencies of such a band with such uniformity as to avoid
material distortion of the modulated wave, and to exclude frequencies outside of
the band which the system is designed to receive. Another purpose of the invention
is to provide means for shifting the position of the band...
 In this 1959 Radio-Electronics
magazine promo, Bell Telephone Laboratories showcased its advanced
radio-inertial guidance system, a technological breakthrough enabling precise
long-range missile flight. Developed for the Air Force's Ballistic Missile Division,
this innovation proved its efficacy by guiding a Thor-Able nose cone to a precise
target five thousand miles away, allowing for a successful aerial and maritime recovery.
The system utilized a missile-borne transmitter to feed continuous data to ground-based
radar and a Remington Rand Univac computer, which calculated real-time steering
corrections. By keeping the primary command equipment on the ground...
|
 • Ham
HOA Antenna Protection in Indiana
• FCC Expands
Use of Broadband Spectrum
• UK's
Fractile Chip Facility Gets £100m Expansion
• Choosing an
Antenna for Compliance Testing
• Huawei
Wins 8 GLOMO Awards at MWC Barcelona
 The
RF Cafe Homepage Archive
is a comprehensive collection of every item appearing daily on this website since
2008 - and many from earlier years. Many thousands of pages of unique content have
been added since then.
 A
grid dip meter (aka a grid dip oscillator, dipper, or dipmeter)
has long been the instrument of choice for fine tuning LC-tuned receivers for maximum
sensitivity at a particular frequency. It is a simple device that oscillates at
a predetermined frequency and has a meter in the grid bias circuit to measure current.
When the grid dip meter tuning circuit's inductor is in close proximity to an external
inductor-capacitor tank circuit that is tuned to the "dipper's" output frequency,
the grid current exhibits a significant reduction in value - hence the name grid
dip meter. Modern versions no longer use vacuum tubes that have screen grids, but
the name persists even with the use of transistors that, for BJTs, have a base junction
and FETs, that have a gate...
 This custom made
Science & Scientists theme crossword puzzle for February 20th is provided
compliments of RF Cafe. All RF Cafe crossword puzzles are custom made
by me, Kirt Blattenberger, and have only words and clues related to RF, microwave,
and mm-wave engineering, optics, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and other technical
subjects. As always, this crossword puzzle contains no names of politicians, mountain
ranges, exotic foods or plants, movie stars, or anything of the sort unless it/he/she
is related to this puzzle's technology theme (e.g., Reginald Denny or the Tunguska
event in Siberia). The technically inclined cruciverbalists amongst us will appreciate
the effort. Enjoy!
 One of the interesting aspects of reading
through vintage magazines is finding current-at-the-time accounts of industry happenings
with people and companies still familiar to contemporary people in the realm. In
this June 1961 instance in Radio-Electronics magazine,
Dr. Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductors is mentioned. Most people
today associate him with the founding of Intel. The Microcircuit Flipflop was one
of Fairchild's early integrated circuits, housed in metal TO-5 and TO-18 cans. The
FCC had just approved a method of "stereo multiplex" on the FM radio band that facilitated
coexistence of monaural (mono) and binaural (stereo) broadcasts. Hard to believe
that was more than sixty years ago (I was three years old). Also, sadly, news of
Mr. Paul Crosley's - of radio, car, and home appliance fame - passing was announced.
Atmospheric effects on VLF, and use of ultrasonics for welding plastic also made
the editors' cut...
 Electronics symbols
for schematics and wiring diagrams have remained amazingly consistent for the last
hundred years, although obviously many new ones have been added. You can see from
this set of standardized wiring diagram and schematic symbols from a 1955 edition
of Popular Electronics what I mean. Even symbols for newly introduced devices tend
not to change. There are some variations such as whether or not to draw a circle
around a transistor or how many lightning bolt lines to use with photon emitters
and detectors, but that's about it. The digital world adopted IEEE Standard 91-1984
for logic and microprocessors, although you will still occasionally see variants
in symbols, especially in early digital circuit schematics. The ARRL publishes its
own version of standardized electrical schematic symbols, but even the ARRL
Handbook, in which the symbols are printed, does not strictly conform to its
own standards.
 Almost certainly the earliest observed evidence
of the existence of an ionosphere as part of the Earth's atmosphere is aurora activity.
Alley Oop, B.C., and friends had no idea that the wavering colors were the
result of high energy, charged particles from our sun interacting at altitude with
the Earth's magnetic field. This article from a 1935 issue of Short Wave Craft
magazine gives a nice introduction to what was known of the ionosphere at the time,
which wasn't a whole lot since no in situ measurements had yet been made via sounding
balloon or rocket. All that was known was inferred from the behavior of radio waves
as they were affected by the charged space. It wasn't until 1926 that Scottish physicist
Robert Watson-Watt coined the term "ionosphere."
Although not mentioned here, it was amateur radio operators who first discovered
the ability of the ionosphere to reflect and bend short wave radio waves to enable
round-the-world communications. Ironically - or perhaps expectedly - the U.S. Congress
in 1912 passed the Radio Act of 1912 that restricted amateur radio operation to
frequencies above 1.5 MHz (a wavelength of 200 meters or less). Shortly thereafter,
the FCC reclaimed much of the spectrum for itself...
 Bell Labs, having been responsible for creating
the first positive amplification point contact transistor just before Christmas
1947, continued to lead the way in semiconductor research and new product announcements
for many decades. This little tidbit was tucked away at the bottom of page 120 in
the May 1954 issue of Radio & Television News magazine. It reported on "the
purest substances in the world" being created there in the form of 99.99999999%
(aka 10N)
pure germanium crystals, which are used as seed for growing boules for device
production. That's one rogue impurity atom in ten billion germanium atoms. Modern
monocrystalline silicon boules are typically 7N or better...
 Today is the July 20, 1969 anniversary of
Apollo 11's landing on the moon, so I figured this article would be a timely
reminder of the contributions made to electronics technology as part of the immense
effort. The thumbnail to the left is the front page of my hometown newspaper on
July 21, 1969 (my father was the classified ad department manager there - see inset).
Apollo 16 launched on April 16 of 1972 and landed on the moon on April 19.
By then, as with Space Shuttle flights, moon landings were no longer front page
news; The Evening Capital carried the story on page 2. Popular Electronics
magazine editor Snitzer wrote this short piece extolling the critical role that
electronics played in mission success. Apollo 17 flew next and December 10,
1972, marked the last time mankind ever set foot on the moon. President Trump has
asked NASA to explore the possibilities of returning to the moon by 2019, possibly
as a next step toward a mission to Mars. It is now 2023 and we're not there yet...
 Homepage
Archives for May 2022. Items on the RF Cafe homepage come and go at a pretty
fast rate. In order to facilitate fast page loading, I keep the size reasonable - under a megabyte (ebay, Amazon, NY Times, etc., are multiple
megabytes). New items are added at the top of the content area, and within a few
days they shift off the bottom. If you recall seeing something on the homepage
but now it is gone, fret not because many years I have maintained
Homepage Archives.
 This "Radio Service Data Sheet" from a 1948
issue of Radio News provides schematics and parts lists for
Arvin
Models 152T and 153T receivers. Most - if not all - electronics servicemen had
subscriptions to these magazines because they were a ready source of not just these
service sheets, but because of the extensive articles offering advice on servicing
radios and televisions. In fact, many electronics manufacturers had a policy of
supplying service data only to bona fide shops. A large list is included at the
bottom of the page of similar documents from vintage receiver schematics, troubleshooting
tips, and alignment procedures. They were originally published in magazines like
Radio-Craft, Radio and Television News, Radio News, etc.
I scan and post them for the benefit of hobbyists who restore and service vintage
electronics equipment...
 In 1959, Popular Electronics magazine
ran a 5-part series on test equipment usage. This final article is on the use of
a
vacuum tube voltmeter (VTVM) for making accurate AC and resistance measurements.
Also in this edition is a construction article for RCA's VoltOhmyst VTVM kit, so
the two compliment each other. Author Larry Klein discusses mainly the AC and ohmmeter
functions, providing both functional descriptions of the circuits and how to use
them for making accurate measurements. A very high input impedance is important
to minimize the loading effect of the instrument by keeping it from becoming a part
of the circuit under test. FET-input digital multimeters (DMMs) have nearly totally
replaced VTVMs, but they can still be found in some older electronics development
labs and hobby benches...
 Here is a brief article about implementing
over-the-horizon (OTH) transmissions for television and phone signals. It appeared
in a 1955 issue of Popular Electronics magazine, only a decade after the end of
World War II and at the tail end of the Korean War, when the majority of households
had at least one TV set. Being able to exploit OTH would eliminate numerous relay
towers in-between which are not only expensive, but often are difficult to locate
due to property acquisition issues. The article suggests the possibility 200 mile
spacing between towers. A transmission tower 1,000 feet tall looking out over flat
land sees the horizon at about 38 miles, so another 1,000-foot tower another 38.7
miles in line from the horizon would give 77.4 miles total between towers, but that
assumes perfect line-of-sight propagation without refraction, reflection...
 At least for now, I am going to only scan
and post Radio Service Data Sheets like this one featuring the
Belmont 4-Tube Model 408 (Series A) Battery "Farm" Superhet radio in graphical
format, rather than run OCR on them to separate the textual content. It appeared
in the October 1938 issue of Radio-Craft magazine. There are still many
people who restore and service these vintage radios, and often it can be difficult
or impossible to find schematics and/or tuning information. No example of this radio
could be found on the WWW...
 On a whim, I did a search for the earliest
appearance of Nikola Tesla's name in U.S. newspapers included in the NewspaperArchive.com
database. This story from Mr. George Grantham Bain appeared in multiple newspapers
within a few days of this March 5, 1896 edition of The Warren Times in
Warren, Pennsylvania, which coincidentally is only a few miles from me here in Erie.
The article reports on the role that Tesla's high voltage generators played in the
development of x-ray images on fluorescent displays and on film (which Tesla termed
"cathode photography"). It mentions how the term "cathode" is relatively new to
the general public even though it had been around since 1832 when Michael Faraday
introduced it in his work. Wilhelm Röentgen made the world's first x-ray image...
 Back in my days at defense contractor companies,
first as a technician and then as an engineer, it was virtually unheard of for anyone
with the title of "Engineer"
to not have at least a Bachelor's degree in engineering or science. Only one instance,
while at Westinghouse Oceanic Division in Annapolis, MD, comes to mind. I suspect
the requirement was dictated by the government, since many times (if not always),
part of a proposal included submitting resumes for many of the key personnel who
would be working on the project being bid upon. In the commercial realm, again,
only one person that I can recall (at Comsat) had achieved the rank of engineer
without a degree. Now, after working at a commercial communications IC design and
manufacturing company for many years, I have yet to run into any "engineers" who
do not have at least a BSEE degree. Is it because people with engineering degrees
are so easy to come by that there is no need to even consider someone without the
degree? Are there any non-degreed engineers remaining? If so, are they a dying breed
that will not be replaced? Probably you, and definitely I...
 The more things change, the more things
stay the same. That old saying will live on forever. Radio-Electronics
editor Forest Belt discusses in a 1967 issue of the magazine the debate between
those companies and customers who are
Pay-TV proponents and those who are Pay-TV opponents. Although you can read
the entire article to draw your own conclusions, basically it boils down to whether
being required to pay hard-earned money for commercial-free programs and movies
will improve the quality. You can probably make a similar argument being made at
every stage of broadcast entertainment on cable, Internet, and smartphones. Personally,
I gave up on 99.9% of all programming newer than around 1985, so I have no dog in
the hunt, so to speak. Mr. Belt presciently states regarding current-day airings,
"Viewers therefore disparage the quality of programs they now get on TV (while watching
them insatiably), call the commercials lousy, and grumble that TV is the country's
great time-waster..."
 One aspect of advertising on the RF Cafe
website I have not covered is using
Google AdSense.
The reason is that I never took the time to explore how - or even whether it is
possible - to target a specific website for displaying your banner ads. A couple
display opportunities have always been provided for Google Ads to display, but the
vast majority of advertising on RF Cafe is done via private advertisers. That is,
companies deal with me directly and I handle inserting their banner ads into the
html page code that randomly selects and displays them. My advertising scheme is
what the industry refers to as a "Tenancy Campaign," whereby a flat price per month
is paid regardless of number of impressions or clicks. It is the simplest format
and has seemed to work well for many companies. With nearly 4 million pageviews
per year for RFCafe.com, the average impression rate per banner ad is about 225,000k per
year (in eight locations on each page, with >17k pages)...
 Gaining a design engineering position with
Google is (or at least was) notoriously difficult because of some of the tests that
are administered - depending on the hoped-for job. Skills in logic, creativity,
problem solving, and fundamental mathematics and science are among the capabilities
that must be demonstrated. IBM was known to have tough entry requirements for customer
field service representatives back in the early days of computers - for technicians
as well as for engineers. "A man who can think his way through a problem can learn
electronics, but a person lacking in analytic abilities will never be a good service
engineer," said an employment manager. Successful candidates could expect to earn
$400/month or more. That was in 1957 dollars, which is $4,041 (~$48k/year) in 2021
dollars (per BLS inflation calculator) - not too awful. Field-experienced, well-qualified
service engineers earned $500 to $750 per month ($5.1k to $7.6k per month, or $61k
to $91k per year)...
 Yes, this is another article that will probably
appeal to a small percentage of RF Cafe visitors, but please countenance my indulgence
in things aeronautical as well as things electrical. The early 1930s was a time
when both airplanes and electronics were a wonder and a mystery to most of the public
worldwide. Of course today both are still a mystery to the public but the wonder
is gone - it's merely taken for granted. Many idiosyncrasies of
airborne electronic communications were encountered for the first
time, like the need for proper grounding and static electricity dissipation. Ruggedization
of chassis assemblies in terms of mechanical vibration and shock as well as for
temperature extremes was a real challenge to engineers, technicians, and pilots... |
