Kirt Blattenberger
Erie, PA
(814) 833-1967
rfcafe@earthlink.net

Copyright
Acknowledgements
Disclaimer

RF Cafe 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. After a couple years of adding material to the website, I noticed that the hit counter would sometimes record a hundred or more hits in a single day, which clued me in to the reality that other people were finding my site useful. E-mails began arriving with suggestions, corrections, and even a few compliments.

That was enough to convince me to expand the presence, so I hijacked web space from my kids' AOL area for storing files, and linked to them from RF Tools. In July of 1999, I purchased the rfcafe.com domain (and later rfcafe.net) and launched the RF Tools content as "RF Cafe." The RF Cafe name was chosen due to its brevity for typing, its simplicity for remembering, and, perhaps most importantly, because it hints at my appreciation for a good cup of coffee (starbucks.com was already taken!). Besides, names like "e-Something" and "Something Cafe" were in vogue at the time. That was before the big "e-TechCrash."

After many years of handling all the webmaster duties myself, the demand increased to the point that I needed assistance to handle the many additions and revisions that are performed on a daily basis. I have always had a fulltime+ job while running RF Cafe, so maintenance consumed the evenings and a good part of the weekends. I scan the Internet daily for interesting headlines, write Kirt's Cogitations, the research day in history items, generate the crossword puzzles, constantly search for new content, write the spreadsheets and other software, design advertiser ads, choose good books for display, manage the overall website format, and everything else that requires a more in-depth engineering knowledge. Finally, in April of 2007, I left RF Micro Devices (RFMD, a great company) after more than five years with them to work at RF Cafe fulltime. It has been seven months (now November), and I truly wonder how I ever got enough done because even now I spend all day and evening working on the website.

RF Cafe currently enjoys the status of being one of the most highly rated engineering websites on the Internet. Typical weekday visitor counts are more than 8,000, and those are honest page hits that don't include every downloaded image file on the page like many sites report. The attraction for our much-appreciated regular visitors is the laid-back atmosphere, the extensive collection of resources, and the daily fresh content. Paying advertisers appreciate the huge amount of exposure to engineers for a ridiculously low price, and nearly instant access to me for service. I plan to grow this empire to the maximum extent possible  ;-)

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and be sure to drop us an e-mail or phone call any time with your suggestions, comments and questions. Please be sure to visit our advertisers in appreciation for their helping to fund the website. Oh, and buy stuff too!!!

Kirt Blattenberger

Dunn & Bradstreet:  005 660 324 DUNS