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Today in Science History -
 Just as you will never get
everyone to agree on who was the first person to successfully fly a powered aircraft
(Wright, Whitehead, Curtiss, etc.), there will never be a consensus on
who invented
the radio. Most people would probably agree that it was Guglielmo Marconi, but this author makes
a case for none other than Thomas Edison. I don't recall ever hear anyone making
that claim before, but before you dismiss the opinion, read on...
 Most people working in the RF and microwave
realm are familiar with
Gore coaxial cable and shielding products. They
have been around since 1958 - the year of NASA's birth (and mind, BTW). You might
be interested in the story of Gore's many contributions the space program. From
their webpage: "Gore Space Facts: Gore has provided highly reliable wire and cable
solutions for the space industry since its start over 60 years ago. In fact, Gore
began prototyping designs for fluorocarbon insulated wires and ribbon cables for
use in space vehicles. In 1958, the same year NASA was established Gore began. Gore
products have a 100% failure-free flight record. Gore has been a part of more than
100 spaceflight programs ..."
 One of the most interesting things I remember
about what we learned from the Apollo program is that
the moon has a smell. Upon removing their helmets
after the moon walk, Neil Armstrong remarked, 'We were aware of a new scent in the
air of the cabin that clearly came from all the lunar material that had accumulated
on and in our clothes.' Buzz Aldrin described it as 'the smell in the air after
a firecracker has gone off.'
 Did you ever wonder what would have transpired
if the lunar module (LM) rockets had failed to fire for a return to the orbiting
Command Module (CM)? Read "In the Event of Moon Disaster" that was prepared
for President Nixon to broadcast to the world if the unthinkable happened. Of course
NASA had all potential scenarios covered in their
Abort Planning document, complimented by extensive
scenario training. Some fools wanted to shut off communications with the LM to prevent
a record of Armstrong and Aldrin panicking which, of course, would never have happen
with the two seasoned professional military aviators.
 Today, July 19, 2019, marks the 20th year
of existence for RFCafe.com. It was on this date in 1999 that I registered the domain
name (and the .net version) with Network Solutions, which was the only domain name
registrar at the time. RF Cafe really began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL
screen name web space totaling 2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with
ready access to commonly needed formulas and reference material while performing
my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer. The Internet was still largely
an unknown entity at the time, and not much was available in the form of WYSIWYG
editors; in fact, my early pages were written using Notepad ...
 Custom MMIC, a leading designer and manufacturer
of high performance monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs), is proud to
present its annual Women in Engineering Scholarship Award to three accomplished
and deserving young women who personify academic excellence in the fields of math,
science and engineering. The three recipients for 2019 are: Lillian Geller (Westford
Academy), Ananya Gopalan (Chelmsford High School) and Lina Abu-Absi (Groton-Dunstable
Regional High School). These candidates were carefully selected from a large group
of well-qualified and thoroughly impressive applicants from the three target high
schools in towns near Custom MMIC's facility ...
 "Scientists from Osaka University in Japan
have taken
single-molecule conductors and straightened them
in an effort to improve their performance. The team of scientists made single-molecule
nanowires that measured up to 10 nanometers in length. Through their research, experts
learned that taking the ribbon-like chains and forcing them to lay flat dramatically
improved their conductivity, as opposed to their traditional twisted form. Scientists
believe that this discovery could potentially help them to develop a new generation
of high-tech devices, such as photovoltaics and smartphone screens, that are both
powerful and inexpensive ..."
 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!
 The December 13, 1965 issue of Electronics
magazine was largely dedicated to assessing
Japan's status in the electronics industry. Japan, with the help of the United
States, made a remarkable recovery from defeat during World War II to have
become an emerging power in electronics. "Made in Japan" labels on products had
transformed from being the butt of jokes because of pre-war low quality products
to representing assurance of low cost, high functionality and high value products.
It still does to this day. The Japanese people have worked hard to acquire the world's
respect as smart innovators and hard workers, and have been sure to maintain manufacturing
bases within their borders. When you read this article, be prepared for a few dated
terms like a "Kita" diode ...
 Dr. Andrei Muller, progenitor of the
world's first
3D Smith Chart™ software program, has teamed with a handful of able
colleagues to release a commercial version of this paradigm-changing design and
analysis tool. IMHO, it is only a matter of time before one of the major players
in RF/microwave simulation (NI/AWR, Keysight, COMSOL, et al) integrates this incredible
analysis tool into a software package. The following press release was issued on
July 17, 2019. "3D Smith Chart™ announces a new version (1.02) of the 3D Smith Chart
with new features. The original 3D Smith Chart tool (version 1.01) extended the
Smith Chart capabilities for the first time since the 1939s to make it usable for
circuits with negative resistance based on a unit sphere that plots circuits with
reflection coefficient magnitudes larger than 1 by mapping them as arcs ..."
 Citizen Band (CB) radios were all the rage
during my high school years (1973-76). Previously the domain of over-the-road haulers,
by then everybody who was anybody had a 23-channel CB in his/her car or pickup truck.
My 1969 Camaro SS, of course, sported one - probably the cheapest model available.
Those were the days of C.W. McCall's "Convoy" and Cledus Maggard's "The White Knight"
lyrics. Everybody knew the words to it. Smokey and the Bandit fed the craze.
After all, there were no cellphones. Rather than learning text messaging shortcuts
like OMG, *$ (the company didn't even exist then), B4N, and IMHO, we learned to
use clever words and phrases like "10-4," "bear in the air," and "what's your 20?"
It's been a long time ...
!["That's One Small Step for [a] Man..." - RF Cafe](miscellany/homepage-archive/2019/images2/armstrong-one-small-step.gif) "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant
leap for mankind." -
Neil Armstrong, from the moon on July 20,
1969. Armstrong says he did utter the word "a," and that the scratchy radio transmission
masked it. Having been a huge fan (short for "fanatic") of the space program and
builder / launcher of model rockets, I was sure to watch the momentous event on
TV as it was broadcast live from the moon on a Sunday evening at 10:56 PM EDT, a
month before turning 11 years old. The
Estes model rocket company issued certificates to rocketeers
who launched any model during the flight time of Apollo 11; of course I got
mine with an Alpha rocket.
 ConductRF, an industry leader in high quality
RF cable assemblies, introduces their line of
POWeRUN RF cables. POWeRUN RF cables are designed for superior performance in
the DC to 18 GHz frequency range at powers up to 170 watts for the WSA74 series
and 345 watts for the WSA84 series. High phase and amplitude stability is, and low
loss is standard across the series. Flexible construction is designed for high power
and long cable runs. Rugged outer covering over cable supports outdoor use. Ideal
for commercial and military applications ...
  The
title of this
IEEE article is misleading in that NASA did not
"draft" Barbie - only Snoopy (and Charlie Brown, BTW). "Snoopy" was the official
name of the Apollo 10 lunar module (LM) and "Charlie Brown" was the
name of the moon-orbiting command module (CM). There was a Gemini astronaut
GI Joe at the time, too. Actually, it was the
Apollo 10 astronauts who chose the Peanuts characters as mascots because of
the popularity of the comic strip and Charles Schulz's giving Snoopy the alter ego
of an astronaut (and, of course, a WWI flying ace). Here is the
Kennedy Space Center account of the history of
NASA's adoption of Snoopy. This Saturday, July 20th, marks the 50th anniversary
of the
Apollo 11 moon landing.
 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 shelf. Order today, ship today!
Centric RF is currently looking for vendors to partner with them. Please visit Centric
RF today.
 The
American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) was founded as part of the
Bell Telephone System to build a nationwide wired, long distance communications
service. When this advertisement was printed in a 1917 issue of The Saturday Evening
Post magazine, many American households still did not have a telephone installed,
and most of those that did subscribed to "party line" hookups. Party lines were
a service sharing agreement whereby multiple users were connected to the same telephone
number and agreed to share the line. The upside was a discounted phone bill, but
the downside was the any other member of the "party" could listen in on your conversation.
I remember back in the 1960s when our house had a party line. My sister and I (both
preteens) would sometimes carefully pick up the phone receiver and listen in hopes
of ...
 EDI CON Online, a new interactive event being
held online September 10-12, 2019, has announced its line up of technical session
speakers. The interactive technical sessions will occur at no cost to attendees,
and sponsors have the opportunity to present workshops and keynote sessions as part
of the daily schedule. The sessions on September 10th will focus on 5G and IoT,
September 11th on radar and antennas, and September 12th on signal integrity and
power integrity. Attendees select the sessions for the online event in a single
sign-on registration portal and can participate ...
 That's a lot of gold-plated connector contacts
and gold wire bonding stock (about 63.5 kilomiles of 1 mil wire)! This feature
about the Perth Mint (Australia) having set a new Guinness world record by minting
this one metric tonne (2,204.6 pounds avoirdupois)
solid gold coin has been in the news the last
couple days. It is on display at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The current
spot price of $1,411.10 per ounce sets its bullion value to 2204.6 lb. x 16 oz.
x 1411.1 $/oz. = $49,774,576.96, or $50M in round numbers.
 RF Cafe's continued existence depends on
companies like ERZIA providing support. ERZIA produces
microwave and mm-wave
modular amplifiers and integrated assemblies operating from low frequencies
up to 100 GHz. Their catalogue of standard amplifier modules comprises more
than 100 different models, having also a high capacity of customization for amplifiers
and integrated assemblies. Some of products have space heritage and are used in
aerospace, commercial, military and scientific systems, having a wide range of final
applications.
 A part of Design News' "Space Week 2019"
feature is this "8 Technologies We Owe to the Apollo Space Program."
Not mentioned in the list of NASA innovations are freeze-dried food, space blankets
(those foil-looking things), miniaturized quartz crystal timekeeping, joystick controllers,
and smoke detectors. NASA popularized but did not invent Velcro, Tang, or Teflon.
Says the author, "The innovations of the Apollo program didn't stop at the Moon.
Many technologies were created, or innovated into what they are today, thanks to
the space program."
 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.
 Montgomery Ward (aka "Wards" or even "Monkey
Wards") had their own line of radios, electric guitars, and other products that
went by the name of "Airline." Sears, Roebuck and Company, by the way, had the "Silvertone"
series of radios, electric guitars and, other electronics products. This 2-page
radio service data sheet for the
Montgomery Ward Airline Model 04BR-1105A console type radio appeared in a 1941
issue of Radio-Craft magazine. Some of the electronics magazines of the
era ran these features to help out people who wanted to attempt troubleshooting
and aligning their own equipment. Many electronics manufacturers would sell service
data documentation only to authorized dealers and repair shops. Unlike today ...
 Linx Technologies, a Merlin, OR based developer
and manufacturer of antennas, is pleased to introduce the
nanoSplatch™ nSP250 dual-band WiFi/WLAN antenna for embedded applications. nanoSplatch
antennas are a reduced-size evolution of Linx Technologies successful surface-mount
embedded Splatch™ and microSplatch™ antennas. The nanoSplatch™ nSP250 is an ideal
embedded antenna for use in compact or portable devices targeting WiFi/WLAN and
other 2.4 GHz or 5.8 GHz ISM frequency band technologies such as Bluetooth® and
ZigBee®. The surface-mount nSP250 antenna uses just 80.6 mm2 of board space and
costs under one dollar in volume. In addition, Linx designed the antenna to accommodate
close proximity effects ...
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