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 Each month, the American Radio Relay League's
(ARRL's) QST magazine runs a feature called "Member Spotlight." Usually, the person
being paid homage is a non-celebrity who has done remarkable work to promote Ham
radio. Occasionally, a well-known celebrity type gets the honor, as is the case
with the December 2023 issue's personality,
Joe
Walsh (WB6ACU), who has been the lead guitarist with the Eagles rock band since
the mid-1970s. Joe earned his license waaaay back in the year 1960, when Morse code
proficiency was a requirement. In the articles he states, "I'm an analog guy.
I like knobs more than a mouse." Many older Hams share the sentiment. Having
spent my teenage years in the 1970s, I am of course very familiar with the Eagles
and the name Joe Walsh. Don Henley, though, is probably the name most associated
with the Eagles...
 The
International
Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2023, the RF, microwave, and wireless industry's premier
trade show, is happening this week in San Diego, California. It runs from Sunday,
June 11th, through Friday, June 16th at the San Diego Convention Center. Many of
RF Cafe's generous sponsors have display booths set up on the Exhibit Floor. Their
locations are labeled on the layout shown above. Clicking on the image will open
a much larger version with legible print. While you are roaming, cruising, and perusing,
please be sure to stop by and say hello to them and thank them for supporting RF
Cafe. The matrix of company thumbnails on the left side represent all that are currently
on RF Cafe, though some are not attending the show. BTW, be sure to see the Historical
Exhibit for some amazing bits of our industry's development...
 Since January, I have used ChatGPT to generate
many mini essays on various technical topics such as company histories, biographies
on notable engineers and scientists, physics principles, and industry standards.
My goal is to reduce the amount of references to off-site information like Wikipedia.
A careful reading of ChatGPTs replies is always performed because inaccuracies appear
fairly often. Overall, I find it very useful, but caution is needed. In example,
today I queried ChatGPT for an equation of the
voltage distribution along a half-wave dipole antenna. It took three rounds
of correcting its response to finally get an accurate answer...
Miscellaneous Earlier Smorgasbords and Factoids:
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