Homepage Archive - June 2018 (page 1)

These archive pages are provided in order to make it easier for you to find items that you remember seeing on the RF Cafe homepage. Of course probably the easiest way to find anything on the website is to use the "Search RF Cafe" box at the top of every page. About RF Cafe.

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See Page 1 | 2 | 3 of the June 2018 homepage archives.


Sunday 10

June 10th RF Cafe Crossword Puzzle w/Weekly Headlines

RF Cafe Engineering Crossword Puzzle w/Weekly Headlines June 10, 2018At least 10 clues with an asterisk (*) in this technology-themed crossword puzzle are pulled from this past week's (6/4 - 6/8) "Tech Industry Headlines" column on the RF Cafe homepage. For the sake of all the avid cruciverbalists amongst us, each week I create a new technology-themed crossword puzzle using only words from my custom-created related to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc. You will never find among the words names of politicians, mountain ranges, exotic foods or plants, movie stars, or anything of the sort. You might, however, see someone or something in the exclusion list who or that is directly related to this puzzle's theme ...

Friday 8

Implanted Medical Devices Receive Power Wirelessly

Implanted Medical Devices Receive Power Wirelessly - RF Cafe"In use, the devices could deliver drugs, monitor conditions inside the body, or treat disease by stimulating the brain with electricity or light. The implants are powered by radio frequency waves and in animal tests the researchers showed that the waves can power devices located 10 cm deep in tissue from a distance of 1 m. 'This opens up entirely new types of medical applications,' said Fadel Adib, an assistant professor in MIT's Media Lab and a senior author of a paper describing the research, which will be presented at the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Data Communication conference ..."

Saelig Intros Modulated RF Power Amplifiers for Pre-compliance Testing

Saelig Intros Economical Modulated RF Power Amplifiers for Pre-compliance Testing - RF CafeSaelig Company announces the availability of the TekBox TBMDA2 / TBMDA3 modulated wideband power amplifiers, which are designed to create an inexpensive signal source for pre-compliance immunity testing of electronic PCBs and products. Driven by the tracking generator output of a spectrum analyzer, they provide the increased RF power outputs required by many test environments. With an input power range of up to -8 dBm / 0 dBm, these amplifiers can boost the output power of a tracking generator up to 500 mW / 5 W ...

IMS 2018 Exhibitor Floor Map of RF Cafe Advertisers

IMS 2018 Exhibitor Floor Map of RF Cafe Advertisers

The 2018 International Microwave Symposium (IMS2018) is upon us already, beginning on Sunday, June 10th, and running through Friday the 15th. This year's venue is the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Please be sure to stop by the booths of RF Cafe's advertisers and say, "Hello." It wouldn't hurt to mention that you appreciate their support in making RF Cafe available. Thank you, and enjoy the experience ...

She Wore a Red Germanium

She Wore a Red Germanium, January 1965 Popular Electronics - RF CafeAllegory is not an often seen style of prose in the electronics writing world, and typically is not meant to be humorous; however, there have been a few instances of it in the vintage electronics magazines I read. One of the most famous examples of allegory is a story by Paul Bunyan titled "Pilgrim's Progress." "She Wore a Red Germanium," by Leta Foster Ide, is a more contemporary form of allegory that RF Cafe visitors will appreciate. Mike R. Fonic (microphonic) is the lead character in the story who complains to his doctor, "I'm off my feed. Got no capacity. Fact is, I'm in a breakdown." Mike's wife's Aunt Enna (antenna) is no help, evidently. Come to think of it, the author's name, Leta Foster Ide ...

Pasternack Private-Label Agreement with Planar Monolithics Industries

Pasternack Announces Private-Label Agreement with Planar Monolithics Industries - RF Cafe"Planar Monolithics Industries, Inc. (PMI), a leading provider of state-of-the-art Hybrid RF/Microwave and Monolithics Integrated Circuits (MIC/MMIC), components, supercomponents, and subsystems, has signed an agreement with Pasternack Enterprises who will private-label a selection of PMI manufactured products under the Pasternack brand name. Through Pasternack Enterprises, this selection of products will be available off-the-shelf for immediate shipping. Through this private-label agreement, PMI will have an opportunity to provide customers with off-the- shelf solutions in situations where immediate need does not allow for long lead times ..."

Co-Prime Frequency and Aperture for HF Surveillance, Wideband Radar

Co-Prime Frequency and Aperture Design for HF Surveillance, Wideband Radar - RF Cafe"Developing novel co-prime sampling and array design strategies to achieve high-resolution estimation of spectral power distributions and signal direction-of-arrivals (DOAs). A co-prime array uses two uniform linear sub-arrays to construct an effective difference co-array with certain desirable characteristics, such as a high number of degrees-of-freedom for DOA estimation. In this research, the co-prime array concept has been generalized with two operations. The first operation is through the compression of the inter-element spacing ..."

Thursday 7

Shake-up to U.S. Graduate Education Needed

Shake-up to U.S. Graduate Education Needed - RF Cafe"The US must make big changes to graduate education in the sciences and related fields if it is to meet the evolving needs of students. That is according to a report published on 29 May by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which looks at graduate education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. The report calls for increased emphasis on teaching and mentoring of students as well as recognition that increasing numbers of graduate students will find careers outside of academia. The report was commissioned in the wake of increased evidence that many graduate programmes ..."

Free Engineering Magazines & Whitepapers

Engineering White Papers & Books, June 2018 - RF CafeWhitepapers, pamphlets, books, magazines, and chapter examples listed here are a small sample of a lot of new items that are offered for FREE through TradePub. The publishers make them available to qualifying people as a promotional campaign for their full line of offerings. Whitepaper topics include careers, manufacturing, and engineering, while magazine titles include Microwave Engineering Europe, Electronic Design, and Microwave Product Digest ...

Quadrature FM Detectors: Function and Failure

Quadrature FM Detectors: Function and Failure, December 1959 Electronics World - RF CafeQuadrature modulation and demodulation is as commonplace and unremarkable today as were Space Shuttle launches before NASA cancelled the program in 2011 (eliminating America's ability to send astronauts into space). However, before integrated circuit implementation was available, it was a relatively rarely employed scheme. Yes, there were many applications using analog quadrature systems, but use with digital communications requires closely matched (amplitude and phase) pairs of mixers and power splitters / combiners, along with close tracking over time and temperature. The "magic" of quadrature systems is ...

ATEC Adds Harmonics and Flicker Cal to ISO 17025 Scope of Accreditation

ATEC Adds Harmonics and Flicker Calibrations to ISO 17025 Scope of Accreditation - RF CafeAdvanced Test Equipment Rentals (ATEC), today announced that it has added harmonics & flicker calibrations to their A2LA certified ISO 17025 Scope of Accreditation, allowing ATEC to calibrate harmonics and flicker testing devices with ATEC's accredited lab. ATEC is the leading rental provider of test equipment for EMC, communications, aerospace, automotive, semiconductor, consumer electronics and many other sectors, and now a calibration service provider. The testing for harmonics and flicker fluctuations and disturbances which interfere with power supplies, presents a continuous challenge for manufacturers. Companies required to meet standards like ...

Please Visit Triad RF Systems to Thank Them for Their Support

Triad RF SystemsTriad 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. "We view Triad more as a technology partner than a vendor for our line-of-sight communications product line." Please check to see how we can help your project ...

Physicists Propose Measure of Scientific "Broadness"

Physicists Propose Measure of Scientific "Broadness" - RF Cafe"Plasma physicists who publish on the arXiv preprint server have the widest range of research interests. That is according to a new analysis carried out by theorist Sabine Hossenfelder at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) in Germany and Tom Price, who have introduced a new way to quantify a scientist's 'scientific broadness.' The authors of the paper, which is published on arXiv, say that determining broadness could be used alongside other metrics to measure a researcher's output. Scientists have long determined their output by using quantities such as the h-index - a measure of the quality ..."

Wednesday 6

Is It Time to Finally Get Yourself an Arduino Experimenter Kit?

Elegoo EL-KIT-001 UNO R3 Project Complete Starter Kit with Tutorial for Arduino (63 Items) - RF CafeArduino project kits are today's equivalent of those electronics experimenter sets that Sears and Radio Shack used to sell - the ones with spring terminal posts and assorted components like resistors, capacitors, flashlight bulbs, a solenoid, a switch or two, and a handful of lengths of hookup wire. This Elegoo EL-KIT-001 UNO R3 Project Complete Starter Kit with Tutorial for Arduino includes more than 200 items for 63 different projects. A processor board, solderless breadboard, keypad, LEDs, wireless remote, speaker, various sensors, and other parts that make up modern devices are included. This is a mid-cost set that costs less than $50 - that's about $11 in 1976 money (the year I graduated from high school) ...

Atomically Thin Nanowires Convert Heat to Electricity More Efficiently

Atomically Thin Nanowires Convert Heat to Electricity More Efficiently - RF Cafe"Waste heat can be converted to electricity more efficiently using one-dimensional nanoscale materials as thin as an atom - ushering a new way of generating sustainable energy - thanks to new research by the University of Warwick. Led by Drs Andrij Vasylenko, Samuel Marks, Jeremy Sloan and David Quigley from Warwick's Department of Physics, in collaboration with the Universities of Cambridge and Birmingham, the researchers have found that the most effective thermoelectric materials can be realised by shaping them into the thinnest possible nanowires. Thermoelectric materials harvest waste heat ..."

Build a Steam Powered Ham Rig

Build a Steam Powered Ham Rig, July 1965 Popular Electronics - RF CafeIn today's lingo this project might be considered a cross between the Steampunk and the Maker realms. It is more than just a desktop conversation piece - although it would be a very fitting fixture - in that the "Milliwatter" Morse code transceiver is fully functional, portable (with it's steam engine power source) radio. All the parts needed to build your own model - miniature working steam engine, DC generator (aka a Dc motor), code keyer, and electronic components - are still available. It appears you can build a bare-bones version for under $100, or go all out with vintage-looking components for about $300-$400. If you undertake this project, I'll be glad to post a photo of your masterpiece here ...

Empower RF Systems to Hold Live Demo at IMS 2018: Booth #1048

Empower RF Systems to Hold Live Demo at IMS 2018 - RF CafeEmpower RF Systems is once again conducting live demos of broadband, high power amplifiers with compelling performance, industry leading small size, IOT interface, and user selectable functionality that dares to challenge legacy products offered in the market. Next appearing at IMS 2018 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, we will be showcasing a variety of RF modules along with our 1 to 3 GHz, 1 kW HPA in a 5U chassis. This is an extraordinary design which includes an integrated (internal) dual directional coupler and instrument grade power metering ...

D-Day: June 6, 1944

D-Day, June 6, 1944 - RF CafePresident Franklin Delano Roosevelt, June 6, 1944: "My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far. And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer: Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong ..."

New Subsea Cable to Boost Connectivity in South Pacific

New Subsea Cable to Boost Connectivity in South Pacific - RF Cafe"TE Subcom is to build a new subsea data cable to connect island nations in the South Pacific. The ICN2 submarine cable project will progress in collaboration with Interchange Limited and will connect the nations of Vanuatu and The Solomon Islands, dramatically improving connectivity in the region. 'This submarine cable link is an important part of connectivity for this area of the world,' said Sanjay Chowbey, president of TE SubCom. 'We are pleased to work with Interchange Limited and apply our expertise and regional knowledge ..."

Tuesday 5

Financing a Service Business

Financing a Service Business, December 1959 Electronics World - RF CafeThe exact details and methods of raising financing and seed money for both new and existing businesses have changed over time, but the fundamentals have not changed. Most important is to have a product or service that people think they need or can be convinced that they need - the "create a need and then fill it" philosophy versus "find a need and then fill it." Today's entrepreneurs have the benefit of the Internet and its broad reach that makes just about anyone "discoverable" via angel investment groups, Kickstarter type individual investors, and access to countless numbers of establishment banks. Social networking with total strangers might provide the spark needed to set an effort on fire. Overnight successes ...

Evidence of Magnetism at Edges of Graphene

Evidence of Magnetism at Edges of Graphene - RF CafeA team of researchers from the U.K., Germany and Russia has found evidence of magnetism at the edges of graphene. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the researchers describe how they made their discovery and why they believe it is important. Graphene is, of course, a 2-D layer of carbon atoms forming a sheet. A lot of research has been conducted into its unique properties seeking novel applications. One such possibility is using it to build a truly quantum computer. But that idea has been held back by the inability of researchers to take advantage of theorized magnetism on the edges of graphene sheets. In this new effort, the researchers report ...

Visit ConductRF in Booth 1650 at IMS2018

ConductRF in Booth # 1650 at IMS2018 - RF CafeWhile you are roaming the floors at the 2018 International Microwave Symposium (IMS2018), please be sure to stop by the ConductRF booth (#1650) and talk to those fine folks about your cable and connector requirements. "ConductRF is continually innovating and developing new and improved solutions for RF customers. As applications shift to higher frequencies, we continually find customers that need our support. Our manufacturing capabilities include phase matching, PIM testing, over-molding and much more." Please also thank them for supporting RF Cafe with advertising ...

RF GaN on Si Meets CMOS Manufacturing

RF GaN on Si Meets CMOS Manufacturing - RF CafeTim Boles, of MACOM and Ferdinando Iucolano, of STMicroelectronics, recently published an article titled, "RF GaN on Si Meets CMOS Manufacturing," in Microwave Journal. Even after a couple decades of GaN (gallium nitride) research and improved manufacturing techniques, its cost is still very high compared to GaAs and Si devices. Their report discusses a new tack for attempting to overcome the price barriers. "GaN's pathway to mainstream RF Ferdinando Iucolano and Tim Boles - RF Cafecommercialization hinges on its ability to support the volume and cost requirements of end applications, including 4G and 5G base stations and emerging RF energy applications - cooking, lighting, industrial heating and drying, medical, pharmaceutical ..."

Phosphors and Their Uses

Phosphors and Their Uses, December 1959 Electronics World - RF CafePhosphorous: From Latin phosphorus "light-bringing," from Greek Phosphoros "morning star," literally "torchbearer," from phos "light," contraction of phaos "light, daylight" + phoros "bearer," from pherein "to carry." Long before mankind had developed methods of bombarding phosphorous compounds with electron beams to make them glow, 17th-century scientist Hennig Brand observed the characteristic light emitting property of phosphorous when exposed to oxygen. No doubt the Ancients noticed the naturally occurring glow of bioluminescent plants and animals, and maybe even luminescent glow caused by the breaking open of phosphorous-containing rocks. Radioactive decay in the vicinity of phosphorescent materials can also cause a ...

Transistor Material Provides Additional Computing Degrees of Freedom

Transistor Material Provides Additional Computing Degrees of Freedom - RF Cafe"The 'valleytronics' transistor material could enable chipmakers to pack more computing power onto microchips, extending the limits of Moore's Law. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California For several decades, improvements in conventional transistor materials have been sufficient to sustain Moore's Law - the historical pattern of microchip manufacturers packing more transistors (and thus more information storage and handling capacity) into a given volume of silicon. Today, however, chipmakers are concerned that they might soon reach the fundamental limits of conventional materials ..."

Monday 4

Please Welcome Concentric Technology Solutions as Sponsor!

Concentric Technology Solutions (CTS) - RF CafeConcentric Technology Solutions (CTS) has graciously decided to sponsor RF Cafe as an advertiser. CTS manufactures the industry's finest RF shielded enclosures for test and measurement. CTS has the solution to your needs for off-the-shelf manually or pneumatically operated RF shield boxes and TEM cells for wireless product testing. Bluetooth, RFID, WiFi, cellular, and ISM bands can be accommodated when you need maximum RF shielding and testing features with a solid RF shielded enclosure to produce repeatable results. CTS also will be glad to work with you on a custom solution if needed. Please contact CTS today to see how they can help your project ...

Satellites on the Air

Satellites on the Air, January 1965 Popular Electronics - RF CafeIn 1965, there were only two countries that had rockets capable of launching orbiting telecommunications satellites: the United States of America (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Three other countries, the United Kingdom (UK), Canada, and France, had placed satellites in orbit atop U.S. rockets by then. A total of 45 had been launched by 1965 according to a list on Wikipedia; however, many - if not most - had re-entered the atmosphere by then due to their low initial orbits and three of them targeted the sun, Venus, and Mars. Others might still have been orbiting, but their power supplies had expired. Many of the electronics magazines at the time published a monthly list of active satellites that were available for tracking and monitoring of signals - a nerd sport of the era. OSCAR 1 ...

IEEE 5G Summit

IEEE 5G Summit - RF CafeWhile at the IMS show next week, you might want to attend the IEEE 5G Summit on Tuesday, June 12 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Room 103ABC. "The IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) and the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) have been working together to organize a special joint 5G Summit with expert speakers covering both the hardware / systems and networking/services aspects for the fifth-generation (5G) communication. As part of the 5G Summit series, this summit will provide a platform for leaders, innovators, and researchers from both industrial and academic communities ..."

Aircraft Scatter Radio Communications

Aircraft Scatter Radio Communications - RF CafeThe June 2018 issue of the ARRL's QST magazine has an interesting article titled "Aircraft Scatter," which addresses a relatively recent method of making long distance (DX) contacts by AircraftScatter Sharp - RF Cafebouncing radio signals off high altitude commercial aircraft. The technique and equations are akin to bistatic radar (W3EP), and are the basis for W3SZ's AircraftScatter Sharp software(click thumbnail) that uses information culled from online flight tracking databases to calculate aircraft scatter contact geometries and signal properties. This is typical of the extreme level of technical prowess employed by Hams to accomplish their goals. Of course you also have the option used by early practitioners of aircraft scatter, which is to simply look up into the sky for an airplane at which to point your antenna ...

Prototype Nuclear Battery Packs 10x More Energy

Prototype Nuclear Battery Packs 10x More Power - RF Cafe"Russian researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), the Technological Institute for Superhard and Novel Carbon Materials (TISNCM), and the National University of Science and Technology MISIS have optimized the design of a nuclear battery generating power from the beta decay of nickel-63, a radioactive isotope. Their new battery prototype packs about 3,300 milliwatt-hours of energy per gram, which is more than in any other nuclear battery based on nickel-63, and 10 times more than the specific energy of commercial chemical cells ..."

Sunday 3

June 3 Engineering Crossword Puzzle w/Weekly Headlines

RF Cafe Engineering Crossword Puzzle w/Weekly Headlines June 3, 2018At least 10 clues with an asterisk (*) in this technology-themed crossword puzzle are pulled from this past week's (5/28 - 6/1) "Tech Industry Headlines" column on the RF Cafe homepage. For the sake of all the avid cruciverbalists amongst us, each week I create a new technology-themed crossword puzzle using only words from my custom-created related to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc. You will never find among the words names of politicians, mountain ranges, exotic foods or plants, movie stars, or anything of the sort. You might, however, see someone or something in the exclusion list who or that is directly related to this puzzle's theme ...

Friday 1

Electronic Geometry Quiz

Electronic Geometry Quiz, January 1965 Popular Electronics - RF CafeUnless I find one I missed from my collection of vintage Popular Electronics magazines, this could be the last Friday electronics quiz for a while. All of the quizzes were created by Robert p. Balin, and range in difficulty from relatively easy to head scratchers (for typical test takers like myownself). Sometimes modern readers will be stumped by references to dated drawings and/or terms like vacuum tubes and CRTs (which are themselves vacuum tubes, of course). This Electronics Geometry Quiz might require a Millennial handicap on item "E" if you spaz out over the picture, but if you get the other nine correct, you'll get all ten by default. This is probably ...

It's Never Too Early to Think About 6G

It's Never Too Early to Think About 6G - RF CafeThat's right, and RF Cafe covered the first 6G report years ago. "Companies have barely begun deploying 5G networks, but that just means researchers are thinking about what comes next. The first thought that popped into your head as soon as you read this article's headline was likely something along the lines of 'Wait, I thought we were still waiting on 5G.' And that's true: This is the year 5G deployment is finally picking up steam. But that's precisely why ComSenTer, a multi-university research effort into the fundamentals of what 6G might look like, is already turning its attention to the next ..."

Fix Those Printed-Board Defects

Fix Those Printed-Board Defects, December 1959 Electronics World - RF CafeMy long-established collection of soldering aid and tuning wand tools still gets a fairly regular workout - but not necessarily for soldering tasks. Because of their purpose-designed ends, they come in handy for all sorts of model building activities. Most are non-metallic, meant for bending and poking, and are very strong and heat resistant. The metal types are still required for direct contact with molten solder. One of the best tips offered in this Electronics World article is for when replacing a leaded component on a printed circuit board (PCB). If possible, rather than heating the landing pad and plated through-via to remove the leads, just clip the leads far enough from the PCB surface to create a post or loop to solder the new component to ...

You Might Be an Engineer If...

You Might Be an Engineer If... - RF CafeRob Spiegel, at Design News, posted a piece titled, "You Might Be an Engineer If...," where he presents 15 images and challenges you identify which one does not fit the theme (aka a "fake image"). Reading the viewer comments leads you to believe the answer is subjective rather than objective. I've got my own choice, but will withhold it for now - in case I'm wrong ;-)  The "real" answer had better be very clearly obvious and irrefutable or Mr. Spiegel might be the recipient of some heated arguments ...

White Paper: Doherty Amplifiers in UHF

Doherty Amplifiers in UHF (Ampelon) - RF CafeWalter Sneijers, an RF Applications Engineer at Ampleon, offers this paper titled "Doherty Amplifiers in UHF." It is an abbreviated version of his more extensive white paper titled "Doherty Architecture in UHF," both of which feature Ampelon's BLF8xx transistor family. An introduction to the Doherty amplifier is given along with basic design and test configurations. Both the classical 2-way and the ultra wide-band (UWB) architectures are discussed ...

Engineered Band Gap Pushes Graphene Closer to Displacing Silicon

Engineered Band Gap Pushes Graphene Closer to Displacing Silicon - RF Cafe"Graphene might be the best conductor of electrons we know. However, as a pure conductor it can't stop the flow of electrons like a semiconductor such as silicon can. Silicon's ability to create an on/off state for the flow of electrons makes it possible to create the "0" and "1" of binary digital logic for computing. While many believe this has pretty much taken graphene out of the running for digital logic applications that depend on turning the flow of electrons on and off, it hasn't stopped researchers from looking to see if there's a way to engineer a band gap into it that will make graphene behave like a semiconductor ..."