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Today in Science History -
 Most people have heard of the incredibly accurate
Norden bombsight that was credited for revolutionizing accuracy of heavy bombers like
B-17s, B-25s, and B-29s. It was an electromechanical device that took bombardier inputs
of altitude, airspeed, heading, and wind speed and direction, then calculated the impact
point of the bomb. An accuracy of 75 feet was claimed under ideal conditions - provided
by a mechanical computing device. By 1956 when this article was published, the Norden
had been replaced by radar-integrated bombing systems. Additionally,
ground-based radar measurement systems were
…
 Here is why government control over the U.S. taxpayer-funded
development of the Internet should not be ceded - it makes us vulnerable to the whims
of a few megalomaniac chieftains. "Don't expect Amazon to follow Google's lead when it
comes to working with the
U.S. Department of Defense. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made a surprise
appearance at the Wired 25 conference in San Francisco on Monday. In light of Google's
decision last week to pull out of a bid for the DoD's JEDI cloud computing project, he
was asked about his philosophy in regard to big tech companies working with government.
'We are going to continue to support the DoD, and I think we should,' Bezos said ..."
5G Brings New RF Challenges for Handsets
 Open your smartphone and count the antennas within.
They take on many form factors and are often multi-band, making it difficult for the
untrained eye to discern the implementation. It is a true wonder of antenna engineering.
Factor in that they have to work regardless of whether being held in a hand, pressed
between a shoulder and ear, or sitting in a pocket or handbag. Genius is at work there.
I remember during my reverse engineering days when there were maybe three antennas in
a handset. Take a look at the block diagram in this "5G Brings New RF Challenges for Handsets" MWJ article by
Ben Thomas of Qorvo and note the 8 antennas depicted. How many people can pull off such
a challenge? Beyond that there is RF signal switching and isolation, analog and digital
processing, filtering, AGC, ALC, and other tasks ...
 Just to remind you that patent laws are continually
being monkeyed with by lawmakers and challenged in court by litigants, here is a news
item from a 1965 issue of Electronics magazine reporting on a Supreme Court
case brought by Hazeltine Research regarding their
patent application for a microwave switch. Evidently over time the Supreme Court
had been raising the bar on patent filings by requiring a higher degree of uniqueness
for new inventions. The 1952 U.S. Patent Act, enacted by the U.S. Congress, simplified
the terms of claims for new patents, thus making them easier to obtain, but according
to critics, making new patents less valuable in the process. Now (in 1965), the Supreme
court was moving itself back to ward the pre-1952 criteria. Judicial activism, anyone ...
 ERZIA serves critical aerospace and defense missions
by designing and manufacturing RF, microwave, and mm-wave
amplifiers, integrated assemblies operating from low frequencies up to 100 GHz,
and by providing high reliable satellite communications. The company was founded in 2002
to become a worldwide reference of advanced engineering, performance, reliability and
ruggedness. 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 ...
 "Telrad Networks has announced the release of
its
MU-MIMO technology after completing a successful trial. The new technology
is set to help operators increase capacity in a network by up to 70%, and thereby increasing
subscriber connectivity rates. The new feature was tested in the trial by long-term customer
Seaside Wireless Communications, a Canadian Wireless Internet Service Provider located
in Nova Scotia. The company in recent times has been able to double its spectral efficiency
during this trial, which meant they could add subscribers to their network within the
current spectrum they already utilize. The new feature falls into an overall strategy
by the company to increase capacity ..."
 The lesson learnt (or learned) by Barney in this
Mac's Radio Service Shop saga is one that he has learned (or learnt) before, if you
are an regular reader of the feature. As always, the story is a combination docudrama
and tutorial concerned with troubleshooting, handing customers, giving air to some newfangled
device, or instruction on circuit theory. Proprietor Mac McGregor is usually the teacher
and Barney the pupil, but on rare occasions the roles are reversed. As you will see in
this episode, radio and television set designers ginned up all kinds of ways to accomplish
the same end objective - whether to avoid patent infringements or preferred exercising
of creativity - and the nuances between them could cause no end of frustration to even
highly trained and experienced troubleshooters ...
 SAW and BAW devices have been around for many
decades. They have not always been inexpensive commodities during that time, however.
When I first entered the defense electronics realm as an engineer in the late 1980's,
a SAW filter in the 70 MHz band (common for IF's in the day) could easily cost $20
in volume quantities. They had high insertion losses and did not handle much power. Now,
of course, SAW's are dirt cheap and have much better performance. This article titled,
"SAW/BAW New Market Entrants Offer New Approaches," which appears in the October issue
of Microwave Journal, reports on some new techniques being utilized by vendors ...
 PierCon Solutions, a solid, tenured, and proven
wireless consulting and engineering firm, is in need of an experienced
RF Engineer. Based
in Lincoln Park, NJ, PierCon is dedicated to providing world-class engineering and consulting
services to our customers. PierCon is a recognized leader in the wireless designs of
in-building coverage, Broadband, WiMAX/LTE, Microwave, Cellular, Public Safety, Interoperability,
PCS, iDEN (ESMR), In-Building First Responder and In-Building cellular and WiFi, and
interference mitigation. In this RF Engineer position you will routinely assists in zoning
and testimony preparation by creating maps, summary sheets and zoning exhibits using
information collected from the Client. Occasionally performs testing of new and existing
cell sites test equipment. Supports investigation ...
 As someone who has been a Windows user since version
2.0, I have followed Microsoft co-founders
PPaul Allen and Bill Gates in the tech news for more than 3 decades.
Mr. Allen, a mere 5 years my senior, died on Monday, October 15, 2018, from complications
of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He generously end enthusiastically funded aerospace research,
including in conjunction with
Burt Rutan, whom I greatly admire. Looking at the included photo,
it is hard to imagine we were all that young at one time. Time is a cruel master. Tempus
fugit, and even a billion dollar fortune and good works cannot buy immortality. RIP,
Paul Allen ...
 Triad RF Systems designs and manufactures
RF power amplifiers and systems. Triad
RF Systems comprises three partners (hence 'Triad') with
over 40 years of accumulated knowledge of what is required to design, manufacture, market,
sell and service RF/Microwave amplifiers and amplifier systems. PA, LNA, bi-directional,
and frequency translating amplifiers are available, in formats including tower mount,
benchtop, rack mount, and chassis mount. "We view Triad more as a technology partner
than a vendor for our line-of-sight communications product line." Please check to see
how they can help your project ...
 "5G networks will likely consume more energy than
4G, but one expert says the problem may not be as bad as it seems. A lurking threat behind
the promise of 5G delivering up to 1,000 times as much data as today’s networks is that
5G could also consume up to 1,000 times as much energy. Concerns over
energy efficiency are beginning to show up at conferences about 5G
deployments, where methods for reducing energy consumption have become a hot topic. The
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has published challenging, measurable requirements
on the data rates, latency, and reliability that a network needs to satisfy to be called
5G. While the ITU has also aimed for greater energy efficiency, it hasn't established
any measurable goals for it ..."
 The extreme level of complexity and consolidation
of circuit functions in today's functional integrated circuit (IC) blocks makes it so
that people with almost no instruction or experience in circuit and system design can
assemble and make work some pretty impressive creations. The days of vacuum tubes and
early discrete semiconductors required a designer to know how to properly bias and interface
various sections of circuits and systems. Nowadays, with the ready availability of impedance-matched
amplifiers, filters, mixers, couplers, detectors, and other pre-packaged components,
even RF and microwave frequency systems are within the reach of relative amateurs. Likewise,
people interested in digital and microprocessor circuits ...
 Electronic Design Innovation Conference and Exhibition
(EDI CON) USA, the industry event that brings together RF/microwave and high-speed digital
design engineers and system integrators, is pleased to introduce its
EDI CON University 2018 program
at its event this October 17 and 18 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. These 2-hour
sessions offer in-depth training in a particular topic, such as MIMO Test, Amplifier
Design, and Measuring Impedance. All conference pass holders are eligible to attend,
but pre-registration happens during the registration process. After attending an EDI
CON University course, attendees can earn IEEE Continuing Education Unit/Personal Development
Hour ...
 Rohde & Schwarz USA (R&S USA) has produced
an Educational Note titled, "Modulation
and Signal Generation with R&S® Signal Generators." Signal generators play a
vital role in electrical test and measurement; however, choosing the right one often
requires a look beyond the banner specs. This application note does exactly that. How
do analog-, vector- or arbitrary signal generators work? What are the parameters to look
at? What important information is not obvious from the datasheet? And how do I generate
a modulated signal? Download this application note and find out more about: What a Signal
Generator is and why you need one What types of Signal Generators ...
 This is the electronics market prediction for
Russia, circa 1966. It was part of a comprehensive assessment by the editors of
Electronics magazine of the state of commercial, military, and consumer electronics
at the end of 1965. Then, as now, Russian electronics products are not considered to
be serious competition to U.S. markets. For that matter, when is the last product of
any type you bought with a "Made in Russia" stamp on it? Even though the Soviet Iron
Curtain fell in 1992, very little progress has been made with mending fences with them.
Unless you can find a news story on the state of the industry, detailed reports must
be purchased from research companies ...
 Providing full solution service is our motto,
not just selling goods. RF & Connector Technology has persistently pursued a management
policy stressing quality assurance system and technological advancement. From your very
first contact, you will be supported by competent RF specialists; all of them have several
years of field experience in this industry allowing them to suggest a fundamental solution
and troubleshooting approach. Coaxial RF connectors, cable assemblies, antennas, terminations,
attenuators, couplers, dividers, and more. Practically, we put priority on process inspection
at each step of workflow as well as during final inspection in order to actualize "Zero
Defects ..."
 RF Cafe's raison d'être is and always has been
to provide useful, quality content for engineers, technicians, engineering managers,
students, and hobbyists. Part of that mission is offering to post applicable
job openings. HR department employees and/or managers of
hiring companies are welcome to submit opportunities for posting at no charge (of course
a gratuity will be graciously accepted). 3rd party recruiters and temp agencies are not
included so as to assure a high quality of listings. Please read through the easy procedure
to benefit from RF Cafe's high quality visitors ...
 "One of the most enduring 'Holy Grail' experiments
in science has been attempts to directly observe
atomic motions during structural changes. This prospect underpins
the entire field of chemistry because a chemical process occurs during a transition state
- the point of no return separating the reactant configuration from the product configuration.
What does that transition state look like and, given the enormous number of different
possible nuclear configurations, how does a system even find a way to make it happen?
Now in the journal Applied Physics Letters, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for
the Structure and Dynamics of Matter ..."
 Out of the nearly half a hundred quizzes I have
posted from vintage Popular Electronics magazines, this
Semiconductor Quiz that appeared in a 1967 issue is the first I can remember that
was not created by Robert P. Balin. A fellow named Warren Todd made it. If you are younger
than maybe 50 years old, symbols B and I might stump you, but the rest are still pretty
common. Some of the labels (names) presented in the quiz are a little outdated so I have
identified the abbreviations for you. That will make things much easier. For example,
SBS is a silicon bidirectional switch. Bonne chance ...
Author:
Kirt
Blattenberger
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Microsoft Cofounder Paul Allen Dies at 65
