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Today in Science History -
 Working crossword puzzles can be contagious.
This April 5, 2020,
tech-themed crossword puzzle may even go viral. It contains only clues and terms
associated with engineering, science, physical, astronomy, mathematics, chemistry,
etc., which I have personally built over nearly two decades. That includes the cause
for our planet's current dilemma. Many new words and company names have been added
that had not even been created when I started in the year 2002. You will never find
a word taxing your knowledge of a numbnut soap opera star or the name of some obscure
village in the Andes mountains. You might, however, encounter the name of a movie
star like Hedy Lamarr or a geographical location like Tunguska, Russia, for reasons
which, if you don't already know, might surprise you...
 Comics in modern magazines are a rather
rare phenomenon for some reason, but they were fairly regular features up until
a couple decades ago. This set of
comics from the July 1963 edition of Popular Electronics deals with
high fidelity (Hi-Fi) stereo equipment, which was considered somewhat exotic and
high-end for many people's budgets in the day. Inexplicably (not), that is about
the time that increases in hearing losses among younger people were first being
noticed in audiograms.
 Skyworks Solutions is empowering the wireless
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compatible with 1.7 to 3.6 V CMOS levels...
 $5,000 in 1956 currency is equivalent to
about $46,000 in 2020, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' "Inflation Calculator."
That is the value of the amateur radio equipment used by
Mrs. Mary Burke in her work handling "an average of 3000 messages per month,
principally for service personnel overseas." For her tireless wireless efforts,
she was the first woman to win the coveted Edison Award Cup (sponsored by General
Electric). Most of Mrs. Burke's communications was via Morse code, where she restrained
herself to "about 30 words a minute to maintain accuracy". Way to go, Mary!
 "Researchers at the University of California
San Diego developed a wearable technology that can
hide its wearer from heat-detecting sensors such as night vision goggles, even
when the ambient temperature changes. It's a feat that current state of the art
technology cannot match. The new technology can adapt to temperature changes in
just a few minutes, while keeping the wearer comfortable. The device, which is at
the proof-of-concept stage, has a surface that quickly cools down or heats up to
match ambient temperatures, camouflaging the wearer's body heat. The surface can
go from 10 to 38°C in less than a minute. Meanwhile, the inside remains at the same
temperature as human skin, making it comfortable for the wearer. The wireless device..."
 Electronic Design's 2019 Salary & Career
Survey asked readers, among other topics, what their attitudes were regarding
continuing education. The main question in that sections was, "What are some
of the ways in which you continue your engineering education?" I could not find
the total number of respondents to the survey, but of those who did, 87% held a
Bachelor's degree or higher. Among resources used to maintain currency in their
professions, 60% say they use printed engineering & technology publications
while 57% use similar websites. 60% use seminars and webcasts and 65% read whitepapers.
13% attend in-classroom instruction while 31% use online courses. About 45% of employers
reimburse costs for seminars and trade shows, 32% pay for college courses, and 23%
cover nothing at all. Click the link above for the full report, as well as to access
the
Job Satisfaction section from last week.
 TotalTemp Technologies has more than 40 years
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 This installment of the multi-month series
of articles on antenna principles covers
directional
arrays for 300 MHz and higher. Keep in mind that in 1947 when this appeared
in Radio-Craft magazine, wavelengths of a meter or less were considered
to be at the upper end of the operational range. Parabolic reflector antennas were
the domain primarily of ground-based installations due to the physical size and
weight being prohibitive in airborne platforms, and even then they were rarely used
at the time. Most ground and airborne installations were composed of dipole antennas
with various configurations of reflector and director elements for desired gain
and directivity characteristics. Special applications like for direction finding
and longer wavelength radio communications used loop and long wire antennas, respectively.
Highly directive dipole...
 Withwave offers
ANSYS HFSS 3D EM(Electromagnetic) Simulation Model of board connectors and panel
type connectors for customer design. These 3D models allows RF designers and engineers
to simulate the RF performance of these connectors which is launched on various
types of high frequency PCB. They can reduce time to assemble the connectors and
verify the performance prior to placing an order. we hope to make a commitment to
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Mechanical Layout (STEP file)...
 Echo 1 launched in August of 1960, finally
allowing America to participate in the Space Race, which until then was roundly
being won by the USSR. Electronics magazines of the day were filled with prognostications
of the future of
space communications. Electronics World dedicated most of their November issue
to satellite Earth stations and advancements being made in ultra sensitive receivers
and powerful transmitters. Since the earliest satellites were literally metallic
balls for reflecting radio signals, it was necessary to optimize both ends of the
communications path since there were no circuits onboard the satellite to perform
signal processing and re-transmission. Bell Labs, of course, was at the forefront
of the technology. In fact a famously serendipitous discovery was made by a couple
scientists in 1964 using the very antenna featured in this advertisement...
 Manufacturing
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rated from -55ºC to 125ºC. Cables are in stock and available immediately from Digi−Key.
Here is an interview with ConductRF founder
Dean Gammell.
 "Transistors in computer chips work electrically,
but data can be transmitted more quickly with light. Researchers have therefore
been looking for a way to integrate a laser directly into silicon chips for a long
time. A team of physicists at the Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies
(C2N), in collaboration with researchers at Germany's Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ)
and STMicroelectronics, have implemented a new material engineering method to fabricate
a laser microdisk in a
strained germanium-tin (GeSn) alloy. They have demonstrated the laser device
with a group IV compound, compatible with Silicon, operating with ultra-low threshold
and under continuous-wave excitation. Optical data transmission enables significantly
higher data rates and ranges than conventional electronic processes, while using
less energy. In data centers, optical cables of a length of around 1 meter are therefore
standard..."
 Wakeup call to everyone: By Ana Swanson in
the March 11, 2020 edition of
The New York Times newspaper, "While the United States remains a global leader
in drug discovery, much of the manufacturing has moved offshore. The last American
plant to make key ingredients for penicillin announced it would close its doors
in 2004. Chinese pharmaceutical companies have supplied more than 90% of U.S. antibiotics,
vitamin C, ibuprofen and hydrocortisone, as well as 70% of acetaminophen and 40
to 45% of heparin in recent years, according to Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow
for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations..."
 Custom MMIC is a
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 Probably the first exposure most of us have
had to an
electrocardiogram (ECG) is from a television show or a movie. Earlier instances
appeared in hospital settings in a patient's room or in the operating room. Around
the time this installment of "Mac's Service Shop" appeared in Popular Electronics
magazine (1974), the TV show "Emergency" introduced my generation to the field-portable
ECG machine as deployed by Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) responders Johnny
Gage and Roy DeSoto. I remember some of the first episodes had the emergency room
doctors lamenting not having equipment available on the scene that could wirelessly
send critical heart status parameters along with the standard fare of the victim's
"vital signs." Then, one day a portable ECG unit was finally available, ostensibly
revolutionizing the profession...
 Keysight Technologies, a leading technology
company that helps enterprises, service providers and governments accelerate innovation
to connect and secure the world, has launched the
Innovate Anywhere program in response to COVID-19, spanning three key areas:
90-day software trials, remote learning, and scalable live network testing. "At
Keysight, we are committed to helping customers maintain their engineering productivity
no matter where they are working," stated Marie Hattar, CMO at Keysight. "We recognize
COVID-19 is causing drastic changes across the globe, in our communities, our homes,
and our workplaces. We want to help provide a sense of normalcy and enable customers
to do what they do best: to innovate, from anywhere..."
 "Honeywell says that it will release the
world's most powerful
commercial quantum computer by mid-2020. The U.S.-based manufacturer of scientific
and commercial equipment says that the device is based on trapped ions, which is
a different technology than that being pursued by most other commercial developers
including Google and IBM. Honeywell researchers have published details of a smaller
version of the machine that has a 'quantum volume' of 16 and say that it should
be straightforward to scale this up to 64. The fundamental requirement for quantum
computation is a set of quantum bits (qubits) that can interact to form quantum
logic gates that process quantum information. In principle, quantum computers can
perform certain computational task much faster than conventional computers. However,
qubits tend to be very fragile so creating..."
 Z-Communications' new CRO6750X2-LF utilizes
a doubled CRO oscillator design to cover the frequency range of
6750-6750 MHz within a tuning window of 0.5-4.5 Vdc. This new ceramic resonator
VCO features phase noise of -101 dBc/Hz @ 10 kHz offset and is available in Z-COMM's
standard MINI-16-SM package measuring 0.5 in. x 0.5 in. x 0.22 in. The CRO6750X2-LF
is well suited for radar systems requiring optimal spectral purity. This unmatched
VCO is configured to deliver output power of 0±3 dBm into a 50 ohms load and covers
the operating frequency with a low Kvco figure of 5 MHz/V all while operating over
the industrial temperature range of -40 to 85°C. It is specified to run off a 5.0
Vdc supply while drawing only 30 mA of current. The CRO6750X2-LF suppresses both
the ½ and 2nd harmonic to better than -20dBc while limiting pulling...
 Raise your hand if you have ever owned a
CB (Citizens Band) radio. Waaaaay back before everyone carried a cellphone (pre-late-1990s),
the most common form of
unlicensed communication was CB radio. Actually, up through the mid 1970s you
were supposed to purchase a license from the FCC, although no test was required
as it was for amateur radio. My first CB was a 23 channel job that I installed in
my 1969 Chevy Camaro SS, during my senior year in Southern Senior High School.
It was right in the middle of big CB radio craze with CW McCall's "Convoy" song
topping the U.S. Billboard charts. My self-appointed 'handle' was "RC Flyer." Most
people had no idea what it referred to (radio-controlled model airplanes). Now that
all cellphones use internal antennas, almost nobody even thinks of them as being
radios. CB radios reminded you of their true nature by requiring that a 1/4-wave
vertical antenna (typically with a loading coil to keep it shorter than its 27 MHz
operational frequency...
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