Homepage Archive - June 2018 (page 2)

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Wednesday 20

Future Quantum Technologies May Exploit Identical Particle Entanglement

Future Quantum Technologies May Exploit Identical Particle Entanglement - RF Cafe"Usually when physicists perform quantum entanglement between particles - whether it be qubits, atoms, photons, electrons, etc. - the particles are distinguishable in some way. Only recently have physicists demonstrated the feasibility of generating entanglement between particles that are completely identical. Interestingly, this entanglement exists just because of the indistinguishability of the particles, without any interaction between them. Now in a new paper, physicists have gone a step further, showing that the entanglement between identical particles can be harnessed and potentially used for quantum applications. The physicists, Rosario Lo Franco and Giuseppe Compagno ..."

Smartphone Screen Replacement Kit

Smartphone Screen Replacement Kit - RF CafeHave you been living with a cracked smartphone screen protector glass because you don't want to spend the money and/or time to have someone else fix it? A few years ago I replaced the protective glass on my Samsung Galaxy S4 phone in about an hour. I also bought a kit to replace the glass on my daughter's S8. The S4 was a piece of cake, but the S8 takes longer because disassembling it is a lot more work. There are plenty of how-to videos on the Web to help you through the process. Kits are available for iPhones, too, most for well under $50.

Algorithms to Antenna: Massive-MIMO Hybrid Beamforming

Algorithms to Antenna: Massive-MIMO Hybrid Beamforming - RF CafeBeam forming used to be primarily the realm of radars and sonars, but in the last decade or so cellphone and WiFi small cell technology has been using it to facilitate high traffic in dense user environments. Smart beam forming systems can simultaneously scan wide areas in search of new targets while tracking active targets. This article by Rick Gentile titled, "Algorithms to Antenna: Massive-MIMO Hybrid Beamforming," appears in Microwaves & RF magazine. It probably will not be long until smartphones begin implementing some form of phased array antenna ...

Bell Telephone Advertisement - Microwave Towers

Bell Telephone Ad, Microwave Towers, July 1959 Electronics World - RF CafeBell Telephone Laboratories was largely responsible for designing and building a communications system that was the envy of the world. Innovation on the part of Bell engineers, manufacturing staff that produced the equipment, and technicians who serviced the systems deserve the credit as do management types who made funds and opportunity available to the aforementioned. As the number of telephone service subscribers grew and reliability became even more vital to business, law enforcement, and national defense, new methods had to be devised. In the late 1950s, Bell introduced the concept of wireless microwave links at 11 GHz (X band) ...

Inkjet-Printed Graphene + Laser Yields Washable Electronics

Inkjet-Printed Graphene + Laser Yields Washable Electronics - RF Cafe"Printing an ultrathin layer of graphene on a substrate and using direct-pulsed laser writing produced a structure for electronic circuitry that can be worn and even washed. When professors Sir Andre Geim and Sir Kostya Novoselov of the University of Manchester (UK) discovered and isolated a single atomic layer of carbon for the first time - now known as graphene - there was both praise and concern. Some comments were similar to those which, decades before, accompanied the first demonstration of the optical ..."

Tuesday 19

Canada Puts Limit on R.F. Interference

Canada Puts Limit on R.F. Interference, February 1960 Electronics World - RF CafeIf you think the ISM (Industrial, Scientific, and Medical) unlicensed bands were a relatively new spectrum allocation, you might find this 1960 Electronics World news piece interesting. Individual countries generally acknowledge the ISM emissions specifications set forth by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which created the bands in 1947. The 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz, and 5.8 GHz WiFi bands are well known to most people. 24 GHz is gaining traction as current spectrum gets more and more crowded and high bandwidth data channels are needed. Interestingly, the first few ISM bands are integer harmonics of the lowest (6.78 MHz, center of band 1). To wit: 2 * 6.78 = 13.56 MHz (band 2), 4 * 6.78 = 2 * 13.56 = 27.12 MHz (band 3), 6 * 6.78 = 2 * 13.56 = 40.68 MHz (band 4) ...

More Reliable Carbon-Based Microelectronics

Research Charts the Way to More Reliable Carbon-Based Microelectronics - RF Cafe"Carbon nanotubes - cylindrical formations of carbon atoms with incredible strength and electrical conductivity - hold great promise for creating new micron-scale low-power electronic devices. But finding a way to build a reliable computing platform based on the carbon material has been a major challenge for researchers. Now, a team of mechanical and materials engineers at Georgia Institute of Technology has devised a method for identifying performance variabilities in transistors made from carbon nanotube networks. The new approach could help researchers ..."

Aluminum-Diamond Metal-Matrix Heat Spreaders for GaN Devices

Aluminum-Diamond Metal-Matrix Heat Spreaders for GaN Devices - RF CafeI'm not clear on the distinction between a heat sink and a heat spreader, other than maybe the former typically tends to have fins and the latter does not. This MWJ article by Kevin Loutfy, with Nano Materials International Corporation, titled, "Aluminum-Diamond Metal-Matrix Heat Spreaders for GaN Devices," describes use of synthetic aluminum-diamond material (which his company manufactures) to raise the operational temperature and reliability of high power GaN devices. Their metal-matrix composite (MMC) process was announced in 2011 ...

An Odd Sort of "Tube" Problem

An Odd Sort of "Tube" Problem, March 1960 Electronics World - RF CafeElectronics repair shops - what's left of them - probably don't experience the sort of problem illustrated in this story composed after the manner of John Frye's "Mac's Service Shop" dramas. However, similar situations can and almost certainly do crop up in many other customer service venues. The point of the article is how easily, especially in the span of an entire year, seemingly minor oversights repeated with regularity, can add up to alarmingly large numbers. Actually, the phenomenon occurs for you with many things when you bother to tally them up. Example: According to the U.S. census Bureau's 2017 report, the average one-way commute time is about 26 minutes both to and from work, or about 52 minutes per day. Allowing for two weeks of vacation, two weeks ...

A Better Device for Measuring Electromagnetic Radiation

A Better Device for Measuring Electromagnetic Radiation - RF Cafe"Bolometers, devices that monitor electromagnetic radiation through heating of an absorbing material, are used by astronomers and homeowners alike. But most such devices have limited bandwidth and must be operated at ultralow temperatures. Now, researchers say they've found a ultrafast yet highly sensitive alternative that can work at room temperature - and may be much less expensive. The findings, published today in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, could help pave the way toward new kinds of astronomical observatories for long-wavelength emissions ..."

Monday 18

Custom Dials for Your Equipment

Custom Dials for Your Equipment, March 1960 Electronics World - RF CafeSome day in the not too distant future, a generation of electronics enthusiasts will read magazines like Nuts & Volts, QST, Make, and other hobbyist publications and be amazed at how crude our present day methods for building homebrew projects were. They might even feel sorry for us. Having digital cameras, sophisticated graphics software, high resolution inkjet and laser printers, and vinyl cutting machines for adorning chassis and panels are a godsend here in twenty-teens compared to the film-based analog cameras, chemical-based photo processing labs, and rub-on lettering and shape stencils ...

RIGOL Announces New 7000 Series Digital Oscilloscope

RIGOL Announces New 7000 Series Digital Oscilloscope - RF CafeRIGOL Technologies announces a significant addition to its oscilloscope portfolio with the introduction of the new 7000 Series Digital Oscilloscope. The 7000 Series delivers unmatched price/performance capability in a mid-range oscilloscope. With 10GSa/sec Sample rate and up to 500M Record Length the 7000 Series can deliver 20X Oversampling on a 500 MHz signal providing unmatched signal resolution while still capturing a full 50 ms; significantly longer than available in competitive products. The core of the 7000 Series Oscilloscope is RIGOL's new UltraVision II architecture and its Phoenix chip-set ...

Scatter Radio Communications

Cover Story: Scatter Radio Communications, March 1960 Electronics World - RF CafeWhen this article on ionospheric and tropospheric scatter radio communications was published in 1960, satellite communications was in its infancy and only a very few subsea telephone and telegraph cables had been laid between continents. Wideband communications was typically considered to mean a few hundred kilohertz worth of data. Less than two decades had passed since it was discovered that the theoretical prediction of cripplingly high attenuation above a "smooth earth" would ultimately limit the usefulness of over-the-horizon (i.e., not line-of-sight) HF, VHF, and UHF transmissions to a few hundred miles. In fact, so thoroughly had the commercial broadcast community ...

Surprise 12 Volt Battery Mobile Device Charger

12 Volt Battery Mobile Device Charger (Gary Miller Chrysler/Jeep, Erie, PA) - RF CafeSitting in the waiting room in the local Jeep dealership, waiting for the technicians to do the annual inspection on the 2011 Patriot, I noticed a 12 volt car battery sitting on a table. At first I assumed it was just a sales pitch for a new battery, but then I noticed a bunch of small cables coming from its bottom edge. As you can see in the photo I took of it, those cables are mobile device charging cords with mating connectors for Apple, USB, and miniUSB ports. An Internet search did not turn up any of these things, so maybe Mopar engineers came up with it. Times sure have changed from when ...

Intel's New Path to Quantum Computing

Intel's New Path to Quantum Computing - RF Cafe"Intel's director of quantum hardware, Jim Clarke, explains the company's two quantum computing technologies. Despite a comparatively late start, Intel is progressing quickly along the road to a useful quantum computer. The company's director of quantum hardware, Jim Clarke, came by IEEE Spectrum's offices on 9 May to prove it. He brought with him samples of two technologies that show why the chip fabrication powerhouse can make a unique contribution to the quest for exponentially-faster computing. The first was a Tangle Lake, a specially packaged chip containing 49-superconducting qubits ..."

Sunday 17

Engineering & Science Crossword Puzzle for June 17

RF Cafe Engineering & Science Crossword Puzzle June 17, 2018Each week, for the sake of all avid cruciverbalists amongst us, I create a new technology-themed crossword puzzle using only words from my custom-created lexicon 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, such as Hedy Lamar or the Bikini Atoll ...

Friday 15

Comics with an Electronics Theme, Aug 1965 Popular Electronics

Comics with an Electronics Theme, January 1965, July 1965, and August 1965 Popular Electronics - RF CafeSince I don't have another Popular Electronics electronics quiz for this week, hopefully these electronics-themed comics will suffice as Friday afternoon relief at the end of a tough work week. My favorite is the one with the Ham dude misinterpreting advice and connecting his antenna to... well, you'll see. The other two are pretty good as well. There is a yuge (a little NYC lingo) list of other technology-themed comics at the bottom of the page ...

MilSatCom 2018 USA

MilSatCom 2018 USA - RF CafeMilSatCom USA series as it returns to Arlington, Virginia on June 27th and 28th 2018. With the FY18 National Defense Authorization Act (NDA Act) promising "Fundamental Reform of National Security Space" as well as the Wideband Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) expected to conclude in the first half of the year, MilSatCom USA will provide the perfect forum to address pressing issues facing the future of US MilSatCom programmes. This year's conference will return as the leading forum in the US with a specific MilSatCom focus bringing together senior military, government and industry representatives from US and allied forces ...

2 Halos Stacked for 2 Meters

2 Halos Stacked for 2 Meters, January 1965 Popular Electronics - RF CafeThe stacked halo antenna is a compact configuration for obtaining a nearly omnidirectional radiation pattern with nearly 8 dB of gain. An ideal half-wave dipole antenna provides 2.15 dB, so adding 5 to 6 more decibels by merely stacking two halo antennas (which are essentially curved half-waves) might seem like getting more than the sum of the parts. That extra gain is obtained by concentrating the vertical radiation pattern lower to the horizon as compared to a straight half-wave, even though the horizontal pattern loses a bit of gain contribution from the translation to a nearly omnidirectional nature. There is nowadays a plethora of information available on the Internet regarding stacked halo antennas, but in 1965, this Popular Electronics article ...

Saelig Intros Rigol 7000 Series 100/500MHz 10GSa/s O-scopes

Saelig Introduces New Rigol 7000 Series 100/500MHz 10GSa/s Oscilloscopes - RF CafeSaelig Company announces the availability of the Rigol DS/MSO7000 series of oscilloscopes, 4-channel advanced specification oscilloscopes with an excellent 10 GSa/s real-time sample rate. They come in four bandwidth versions (100 / 250 / 350 / 500 MHz) as well as mixed-signal versions that offer 16 digital debug channels. Based on Rigol's new UltraVision II architecture and innovative proprietary Phoenix chipset these scopes offer 100Mpts memory depth (500 Mpts option) and a very high waveform capture rate of over 600,000 waveforms per second. This scope series integrates several independent instruments into one ...

Unique Spin-Orbit Interactions Discovered in Silicon

Unique Spin-Orbit Interactions Discovered in Silicon - RF Cafe"Researchers from from Purdue University, the Technological University of Delft, Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered that silicon has unique spin-orbit interactions that can enable the manipulation of qubits using electric fields, without the need for any artificial agents. 'Qubits encoded in the spins of electrons are especially long-lived in silicon, but they are difficult to control by electric fields. Spin-orbit interaction is an important knob for the design of qubits that was thought to be small in this material, traditionally,' says Rajib Rahman, research assistant professor in Purdue's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering ..."

Thursday 14

Resuscitation for Electric Shock

Resuscitation for Electric Shock, December 1959 Electronics World - RF CafeElectric shock, depending on severity, can range in damage from mere discomfort to body organ damage to instant death. If you have experience an electric shock, you know that avoiding another incident is top priority when working around high voltages. My worse electric shock was either the time when I got hit with a 3-phase 440 VAC supply on an industrial air compressor motor, or the B+ vacuum tube plate supply on the air traffic control radar systems I worked on in the USAF. Both were, thankfully, from finger to finger or finger to forearm (no vital organs in the current path). I've been zapped a few other times, but nothing severe enough to require being resuscitated. Neither have I ever witnessed anyone else being shocked to the point of needing resuscitation. There are probably some gruesome ...

Slideshow: 10 Ways X-Ray Can Help Identify Counterfeit Parts

10 Ways X-Ray Can Help Identify Counterfeit Parts - RF CafeSlideshow: "Lead times on components of all types, from passives to semiconductors, are stretching out with no end in sight. As OEMs scramble to get the parts they need, they are increasingly likely to turn to less reliable sources, providing an opportunity for counterfeiters. 'Shortages go in cycles,' said Robin Gray, chief counsel of the Electronic Component Industry Association (ECIA). 'For years, it was tantalum capacitors but not its many types of passives, including multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs), as well as certain semiconductors. A key takeaway is that when times ..."

ConductRF Ruggedized VNA Cables to Replace the Tired and Worn!

ConductRF Ruggedized VNA Cables to Replace the Tired and Worn! - RF CafeConductRF has a ready supply of ruggedized VNA cables to replace your tired and worn stock. "We have many standards for applications at 18 GHz, 27 GHz and 40 GHz. Precision Ruggedized VNA Cables from ConductRF offer RF Engineers great alternatives to costly OEM cables that are now past their best days. Our torque resistant connector heads and phase stable constructions ensure great performance for many tests to come. Features include excellent low loss & VSWR, phase stability under flex, and nonconductive weave outer protection ..."

Recent Developments in Electronics

Recent Developments in Electronics, March 1960 Electronics World - RF CafeAs one born in 1958, it's hard to accept that 1960 news is nearly six decades old. I still find myself thinking of the 1970s and 80s as just a few years ago. The first integrated semiconductor circuits were still being developed in corporate and university laboratories in 1960. Fairchild announced a year after this Electronics World article appeared their first commercial IC series, named "Micrologic." Until then, an integrated circuit meant something like the compact module of interconnected ceramic substrates with printed thick film resistors and miniature discrete components. In other news, Raytheon was ready to deploy their giant ICBM tracking radar system to deal with the emerging global nuclear war threat ...

Guerrilla RF Announces New RF Mixer Family

Guerrilla RF Announces New RF Mixer Family - RF CafeGuerrilla RF Inc, a leading provider of high performance MMICs, today launches a new frequency conversion family with the introduction of the GRF7001, a high linearity mixer with integrated LO buffer. This device features low conversion loss and may be used as an up or down converter. The GRF7001 inputs and outputs are single-ended and internally matched to 50 ohms. The device implementation requires an external image-reject filter on the RF port, and an IF bandpass filter on the IF port. Pins 4 and 6 can be used for either RF or IF with appropriate filtering in place. The integrated LO buffer is operated ..."

Wirelessly Charging Devices Implanted Inside Human Body

Wirelessly Charging Devices Implanted Inside Human Body - RF Cafe"MIT researchers along with scientists from Brigham and Women's Hospital have developed a new way to power and communicate with devices implanted deep within the human body. Such devices could be used to 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, which can safely pass through human tissues. In tests in animals, the researchers showed that the waves can power devices located 10 cm deep in tissue, from a distance of 1 meter. Even though these tiny ..."

Wednesday 13

Material and PCB Fabrication for the Different Bands of 5G

Material and PCB Fabrication Considerations for the Different Bands of 5G - RF CafeMWJ and Rogers Corporation's John Coonrod will be presenting a free webinar / infomercial titled "Material and PCB Fabrication Considerations for the Different Bands of 5G," on June 20 at 11:00 am ET. "Abstract: 5G technology is very different than previous communication infrastructures and one noteworthy characteristic is that 5G will use multiple bands of frequency for its applications. On the surface, different bands of frequency may not appear that significant, however, the choice of high frequency materials and PCB fabrication considerations can be very different for applications at significantly different frequencies ..."

Wireless Transceiver Design

Wireless Transceiver Design: Mastering the Design of Modern Wireless Equipment and Systems - RF CafeWireless Transceiver Design: Mastering the Design of Modern Wireless Equipment and Systems, by Ariel Luzzatto and Motti Haridim, 400 pages, $81.64, published 2016. "[A]n accessible textbook that explains the concepts of wireless transceiver design in detail. The architectures and the detailed design of both traditional and advanced all-digital wireless transceivers are discussed in a thorough and systematic manner, while carefully watching out for clarity and simplicity. Many practical examples and solved problems at the end of each chapter allow students to thoroughly understand the mechanisms involved ..."

Many Thanks to ConductRF for Continued Support!

ConductRF coaxial cables & connectors - RF CafeConductRF (Booth #1650 at IMS2018) is continually innovating and developing new and improved solutions for RF Interconnect needs. See the latest TESTeCON RF Test Cables for labs. ConductRF makes production and test coax cable assemblies as well as standard & precision RF connectors. Over 1,000 solutions for low PIM in-building to choose from in the iBwave component library. They also provide custom coax solutions for applications where some standard just won't do. Please visit ConductRF today to see how they can help your project!

"Line-Cord" Antennas: Fact and Fiction

"Line-Cord" Antennas: Fact and Fiction, March 1960 Electronics World - RF CafeDo you have an FM radio in your cellphone? If so, its antenna is the headphone or ear bud wires. You can buy an external FM antenna that plus into the headphone jack. Do you remember the type of line cord antenna described here? It was actually not a bad idea in many situations. Although the appliance might look a bit scary, there is no direct physical contact between the antenna wires and the house AC supply. Either a capacitor with low impedance in the radio and/or television band was connected to the plug blade or a capacitively coupled plate was placed around the AC wires to pick up signals. 60 (or 50) cycle content on the antenna would be minimal and rejected by the receiver front end filtering. Many of the problems people had with this or any twin-lead transmission cable were due ...

Crosley 03CB Vintage Console Radio for Sale on eBay

Crosley 03CB Vintage Console Radio - RF CafeEvery couple years a Crosley 03CB console radio shows up on eBay. I keep a Saved Search to get an e-mail when one becomes available, mainly to get an idea of how many are still around. My research based on Newspaper.com issues of old newspaper advertisements indicates the Crosley 03CB models were primarily sold in the PA, NJ, NY, DE, CT, OH, and MD areas. Per the eBay listing: "Working condition, lights up and plays some stations. Need some refinishing on the cabinet." If you are looking for a restoration project, this would be a good subject for only $50. As can be seen from my restored Crosley 03CB radio, the cabinet and electronics are very robust and attractive. It's worth a look ...

New Laser Makes Silicon "Sing"

New Laser Makes Silicon "Sing" - RF Cafe"Yale scientists have created a new type of silicon laser that uses sounds waves to amplify light. A study about the discovery appears June 8 in the online edition of the journal Science. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in translating optical technologies - such as fiber optics and free-space lasers - into tiny optical or 'photonic' integrated circuits. Using light rather than electricity for integrated circuits permits sending and processing information at speeds that would be impossible with conventional electronics. Researchers say silicon photonics - optical circuits based on silicon chips - are one of the leading platforms for such technologies, thanks to their compatibility ..."

Tuesday 12

Blending Ship Radar and Communications Antennas

Blending Ship Radar and Communications Antennas - RF Cafe"U.S. Navy shipboard electronics experts are pushing forward with a project to design dynamic multi-mission radar antennas able to carry out functions like surveillance, communications and EW)simultaneously. Officials of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) announced a $9.5M order to the Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems segment, on Wednesday for the Flexible Distributed Array Radar (FlexDAR) effort. In this order, Raytheon will demonstrate how combining every-element digital beamforming, network coordination, and precise time synchronization can enable multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) operation ..."

Know Your Electronic Chemicals - Part 2

Know Your Electronic Chemicals Part 2, March 1960 Electronics World - RF CafeIn my nearly 60 years of building model aircraft, cars, boats, and rockets, working on cars, maintaining houses and yards, working with electrical and electronic apparati[sic], and many other activities, I have inhaled and had skin contact with many types of chemicals (all legal, BTW). You probably have, too, if you are near my age. At least by the 1960s the public was becoming aware of the dangers of exposure to common household and workplace substances, but viewing older pictures and films showing people working with no eye, ear, or skin protection explains the all-too-common common sight of crippled and disfigured people back in the days. In the early and mid 1970s I worked regularly with MEK until it was removed due to being labeled as a suspected carcinogen ...

Math Logic Puzzles from the 1961 Old Farmer's Almanac

Math Logic Puzzles from the 1961 Old Farmer's Almanac (Kirt's Cogitation #304) - RF CafeFarmers must be a lot smarter than we tend to give them credit for being. These math and logic puzzles that appeared in the 1961 Old Farmer's Almanac are not a duffer's task to complete. Be careful to consider units of measure based on the venues. Puzzle I is a relatively simple trigonometry problem, although the wording of the problem statement is very confusing; it took some head scratching to figure out what was meant. Puzzle III required me to opt for a graphical solution since I could not come up with enough independent equations for the number of unknowns. If you look at the OFA page scan ...

everything RF Providing IMS 2018 Event Coverage

everything RF Providing IMS 2018 Event Coverage - RF Cafeeverything RF is once again provide extensive coverage of the International Microwave Symposium (IMS) show. The 2018 venue is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from June 10th to the 15th. Details are posted on the everything RF website, but if you are roaming the exhibition floor, please be sure to stop by Booth #536 to say hello! ...

Tokamak Energy Hits 15 °MC Fusion Milestone

Tokamak Energy Mits 15 °MC Fusion Milestone - RF Cafe"Privately funded UK venture Tokamak Energy has hit plasma temperatures hotter than the sun's core for the first time, reaching 15 million degrees Celsius. The milestone was achieved using the ST40 device, the latest in a line of tokamaks the company has built in pursuit of commercial fusion. Using a technique known as merging compression, the ST40 releases energy as rings of plasma that crash together and magnetic fields in the plasma reconfigure - a process known as magnetic reconnection. Merging compression involves high electric currents running through the internal coils ..."

Monday 11

Mac's Service Shop: Grasshoppers & Compatibility

Mac's Service Shop: Grasshoppers & Compatibility, December 1959 Electronics World - RF CafeI wondered while reading this adventure of Mac's Service Shop whether author John Frye held stock in the Allen Bradley (now Rockwell) company (you'll understand why). This might be one of the earliest instances of literary product placement in a techno-drama. That A-B resistor is part of the "grasshopper" theme of this saga, which as always is part fiction and part tutorial. Also discussed is the increasing level of difficulty in servicing modern electronics as the transition from all point-to-point wiring to use of printed circuit boards progressed. If Mac and Barney thought PCBs and leaded transistors caused headaches, they would be having brain aneurysms with today's integrated circuits sporting ultra fine BGA's, some with more than 500 contacts ...

Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone Claim 1st European NB-IoT Roaming Trial

Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone Claim 1st European NB-IoT Roaming Trial - RF Cafe"Low power IoT network technology isn't much good if it can't easily cross national borders, so DT and Vodafone have been looking into that with the help of the GSMA. In fact the GSMA was the one to make the announcement, claiming the two operator groups 'have successfully completed the first international roaming trial in Europe using licensed NB-IoT technology.' NB-IoT is generally accepted to be the default LPWAN technology, for which Vodafone has been one of the most active cheerleader, so it's no surprise to see it involved in this. 'The success of these trials is an important milestone ..."

Many Thanks to Axiom Test Equipment for Continued Support!

Axiom Test Equipment - RF CafeAxiom Test Equipment allows you to rent or buy test equipment, repair test equipment, or sell or trade Axiom Test Equipmenttest 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! ...

Triad RF Systems Intros a 800 - 2500 MHz, 13 W Broadband Amplifier

Triad RF Systems Intros a 800 - 2500 MHz, 13 W Broadband Amplifier - RF CafeThe TA1148 is a wideband 13 watt power amplifier that operates from 800 to 2500 MHz, offering up to 40 dB of gain across the band. This amplifier also includes under/over voltage protection, reverse voltage protection, and is extremely linear across the operating frequency band. The TA1148 is in stock and available for same day shipping. This class A GaAs module is designed for both military and commercial applications. It is capable of supporting any signal type and modulation format, including but not limited to 3 - 4G telecom, WLAN, OFDM, DVB, and CW/AM/FM. The latest device ...

Build a 144-MHz Swiss Quad Antenna

Build a 144-MC. Swiss Quad Antenna, July 1965 Popular Electronics - RF CafeHere is another article from a vintage issue of Popular Electronics magazine that I am posting for the benefit of Hams who happen to be searching for information on Swiss quad antennas. As with most topics, there are many sources on the Worldwide Web (when's the last time you heard the Internet referred to as the WWW?) covering how to build and tune Swiss quad antennas, but this one might have just the right slant on things that the reader is looking for. It probably is not of great interest to most visitors, but having it appear on the RF Cafe homepage guarantees that Google, Bing, and other major search engines will pick it up within hours. Thanks for your indulgence ...

Painted-on Coating Transforms Walls into Sensors and Interactive Surfaces

Painted-on Coating Transforms Walls into Sensors and Interactive Surfaces - RF Cafe"Walls often make up more than half of indoor surface area, especially in residential and office buildings. In addition to delimiting spaces, both for functional and social purposes, they also hide infrastructure such as wiring and HVAC. However, they are generally inactive structural elements, offering no inherent interactive or computational abilities (other than at small attached silos, e.g., thermostats and light switches), and thus present an opportunity for augmentation, especially considering their ubiquity. Researchers have transformed walls into smart walls at relatively low cost - about $20 per square meter - using simple tools and techniques ..."