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 Charles Babbage, born on December 26, 1791, in London, England, was one of the foremost mathematicians and inventors of the 19th century, best known for his pioneering work on the concept of a programmable computer. He was the son of Benjamin Babbage, a banker, and Betsy Plumleigh Teape, who hailed from a relatively affluent family. His upbringing was comfortable, allowing him access to an education that would later foster his intellectual pursuits. His father's wealth enabled Charles to attend some of the finest schools of the time, although his formal education started somewhat later than usual due to early childhood illness.
Babbage's schooling began at a local academy in Alphington and later at the King Edward VI Grammar School in Totnes,
Devon. He was a highly curious child...
 "Yesterday, NASA successfully launched the
Europa Clipper, the largest spacecraft the agency has ever built for a planetary
mission. Clipper is now successfully on its multi-year journey to Europa, bristling
with equipment to study the Jovian moon's potential to support life - but just a
few months ago, the mission was almost doomed. In July, researchers at NASA found
out that a group of Europa Clipper's
transistors would fail under
Jupiter's extreme radiation levels. They spent months testing devices, updating
their flight trajectories, and ultimately adding a warning “canary box” to monitor
the effects of radiation as..."
 The October issue of Electronics World
magazine included many articles written by
printed circuit board (PCB) industry leaders regarding the state of the art.
Multi-layer PCB technology was still in its infancy at the time, with most prototype
and production boards being 1- or 2-sided. As with the switch from vacuum tubes
to transistors, there were hold-outs who resisted the change to PCBs - for good
reason in some cases. A list of advantages and disadvantages is presented both for
and against, respectively, use of printed circuit boards. One of the biggest advantages
to point-to-point wiring (i.e., in the PCB disadvantage list) was that circuit modifications
in production was more easily accommodated, unless the change was simply...
 Along with the advent of FM (frequency modulation)
radio came an entirely new variety of
antenna shapes and configurations, compared to primarily a simple long, straight
wire for AM (amplitude modulation) radio antennas. Amateur radio operators (Hams)
of course had been designing, tuning, and using such antennas (as FM) for decades,
but the average radio listener was facing a whole new world of options for getting
the most out of his receiver. It is not that AM radio cannot benefit by similar
antenna configurations, it is just that the relatively long wavelength of AM station
frequencies (540 to 1,700 kHz) compared to FM station frequencies (88 to 108 MHz)
represents a two-order-of-magnitude...
 "Researchers have developed a novel
graphene-germanium hot-emitter transistor using a new hot carrier generation
mechanism, achieving unprecedented performance. This advancement opens new possibilities
for low-power, high-performance multifunctional devices. Transistors, the fundamental
components of integrated circuits, encounter increasing difficulties as their size
continues to shrink. To boost circuit performance, it has become essential to develop
transistors that operate on innovative principles. Hot carrier transistors, which
harness the extra kinetic energy of charge carriers, offer the potential to enhance
transistor speed and functionality..."
 When this was originally published, it was
Labor Day in the USA, so most people were off work (which seems antithetical to
the "labor" part of the holiday name). For those unfortunate enough to be at work,
here is a bit of vintage electronic comic relief from a 1969 Electronics World
magazine for your office-bound condition. Actually, during my years of working for
someone else, I used to work the holidays (except Christmas) if I could get another
day off instead. With very few managers around, those of us at work would enjoy
what we termed "IPV," or "In-Plant-Vacation." Very little work got done on those
days, and lunches and break-times were pretty long. I was always surprised the scheme
never caught on more widely...
 Exodus Advanced Communications, is a multinational
RF communication equipment and engineering service company serving both commercial
and government entities and their affiliates worldwide. We are pleased to announce
the model
AMP2083P-2KW solid state pulse amplifier (SSPA) is designed for Pulse/HIRF,
EMC/EMI Mil-Std 461/464 and radar applications in the C-band, 4.0-8.0 GHz frequency
band. Providing superb pulse fidelity and up to 100 μsec pulse widths. Duty
cycles to 6% with a minimum 63 dB gain. Available monitoring parameters for
Forward/Reflected power in watts & dBm, VSWR, voltage, current, temperature
sensing for outstanding reliability and ruggedness in a compact...
 By the time most of us who even remember
cathode ray tubes (CRTs) were first introduced to them, the technology and manufacturing
processes had been pretty much perfected - especially for the standard 525-line
(or 625-line outside the U.S.) resolution type. The National Television System Committee
(NTSC) published a standard for black and white (B&W) television in 1941 and
then for color in 1953. This "Picture Tubes" article in a 1955 issue of Popular
Electronics provides a look inside a CRT manufacturing plant at General Electric.
For some reason the photos in the magazine were very poor quality (maybe for secrecy).
If you want one of the best explanations I have ever seen on how a TV picture scan
is implemented, check out this video entitled
What is 525-Line Analog Video? If you don't understand raster scanning after
watching it, you never will. You might be surprised to learn that there were not
actually 525 lines of picture information...
 The March 1962 "News Briefs" feature in
Radio-Electronics magazine was chock full of interesting developments.
Space flight was a big deal in the day, not that it isn't today, but the difference
is everything about it was new then. Fundamental technology was in the process of
being developed, and then continual improvements would be made during the ensuing
decades until we get to where we are today with a permanent presence of men in orbit,
interplanetary science probes, space-borne telescopes, Earth environment sensors,
and space weapons, and thousands of active
communications satellites. The sky is awash with manmade objects. In other news,
satellite TV was quickly gaining in capability (including live transmissions and,
gasp, "Living Color" per NBC)...
 The distinction between
direct conversion, heterodyne, and superheterodyne receivers represents a significant
evolution in radio technology. Each type of receiver plays a crucial role in the
development of modern communications, and their invention marks important milestones
in the history of radio engineering. To understand these differences, we will explore
the invention history, technical descriptions, and practical implementations of
each type, including their inventors, patents, and notable applications. A direct
conversion receiver (also known as a "zero-IF receiver") represents the simplest
type of radio architecture. It was first conceptualized in the early 20th century
as a way to simplify radio designs by eliminating the intermediate frequency (IF)
stage...
 Dealing with the problem of
lightning strikes was of concern long before electronic equipment needed to
be protected from its effects. Fires that were the result of lightning have always
been a problem in nature, but they were really catastrophic to civilization once
cities crowded with close-quartered wooden buildings became the norm. Benjamin Franklin
observed that when the many lightning-induced fires of Philadelphia were sparked
(pun intended), it was almost always the tallest structures in the area that were
hit. Those fire often spread to neighboring buildings and burned down entire city
blocks. It was a devastating and frequency...
 "By observing
spintronic magnetic tunnel junctions in real-time, researchers found these devices
fail at unexpectedly low temperatures, offering valuable insights for improving
future electronic designs. Next-Generation Electronics Degradation A new study led
by researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities is providing new insights
into how next-generation electronics, including memory components in computers,
breakdown or degrade over time. Understanding the reasons for degradation could
help improve efficiency of data storage solutions. The research is published in
ACS Nano, a peer-reviewed scientific journal and is featured on the cover..."
 Arthur C. Clarke's writings and contributions
to science are vast and influential, intertwining his imaginative narratives with
profound scientific concepts. Clarke is credited with proposing the idea of
geostationary
satellites in a paper he published in the October 1945 issue of Wireless World
magazine. Titled "Extra-Terrestrial Relays: Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio
Coverage?," he described the concept of using a network of geostationary satellites
to provide global radio coverage. Geostationary satellites are satellites that orbit
the Earth at the same rate as the Earth rotates, so they appear to stay in the same
place in the sky relative to a fixed point on the Earth's surface. This makes them
ideal for telecommunications and broadcasting, as they can provide constant coverage
of a particular area without the need for multiple satellites or complicated ground
infrastructure...
 Here we go with three new "What's
Your EQ?" challenges from the July 1961 issue of Radio-Electronics
magazine. Readers submit the problems, which typically involve creating a circuit
to perform a specified function, or determining how a given circuit works. The first
of these is more of a puzzle, since the author shows you how to go about arriving
at the answer. Since incandescent light bulbs are not overly familiar to a lot of
people these days, it might be to the advantage of pre-Millennials who grew up using
them and are acquainted with their properties. The second is an old-fashioned Black
Box challenge that some readers will solve without much...
 "Japanese operator SoftBank announced that
the Sunglaider, its large-scale solar-powered uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) designed
for
High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) stratospheric telecommunications, was
utilized in a field trial conducted by AeroVironment and the U.S. DoD in New Mexico,
the U.S. During the trial, carried out in early August, Sunglider succeeded in achieving
stratospheric flight, the Japanese operator said. With a wingspan of 78 meters and
the capability to carry payloads weighing up to 75kg, the Sunglider is larger than
other publicly announced HAPS UAS..."
 Monday (any day, for that matter) is a good
day for Carl and Jerry stories, Mac's Electronics Service Shop sagas, Hobnobbing
with Harbaugh, electronics-themed comics, electronics quizzes, and other forms of
nerd entertainment. Here is another of Robert P. Balin's great challenges titled,
"Diagram
Quiz," this one from a 1966 issue of Popular Electronics magazine.
Most RF Cafe visitors will easily identify eight or nine of the ten diagrams. Relatively
few will be familiar with the Rieke diagram (hint: power amplifier designers will
know about it). The Biasing diagram is a bit misnamed IMHO, and could cause confusion...
 Anatech Electronics offers the industry's
largest portfolio of high-performance standard and customized RF and microwave filters
and filter-related products for military, commercial, aerospace and defense, and
industrial applications up to 40 GHz. Three new ceramic bandpass filters have
been announced for October 2024 - a 2275 MHz center frequency filter with a
bandwidth of 250 MHz, a 2275 MHz center frequency filter with a bandwidth
of 250 MHz, and a 6245 MHz center frequency filter with a bandwidth of
360 MHz. Custom RF power filter and directional couplers designs can be designed
and produced with required connector types when a standard cannot be found, or the
requirements are such that a custom approach is necessary.
 When you read this 1963 Electronics
World magazine article's title, I doubt you immediately assumed it would be
about a vacuum tube circuit, or even one that uses discrete transistors to implement
the circuit. Rather you most likely though it would be about an integrated circuit
(IC).
Operational amplifiers (opamp) are building blocks characterized (ideally) by
their infinite input impedance, zero output impedance, infinite open-loop bandwidth
and gain, zero input offset voltage, amongst other defined parameters. The first
commercially produced integrated circuit (IC) opamp came to market in 1964 via Fairchild
Semiconductor (the µA702, brainchild of Bob Widlar)...
 Nickel-cadmium (NiCad) batteries have a
long and significant history in energy storage, with their invention attributed
to Swedish engineer Waldemar Jungner in 1899. Jungner's work laid the foundation
for an electrochemical power source based on nickel oxide hydroxide and cadmium,
leading to the development of the rechargeable NiCad battery. It was a pioneering
breakthrough because it represented one of the earliest forms of rechargeable energy
storage systems. This battery technology found widespread use in various industries
due to its robust performance and ability to be recharged multiple times. At its
core, the chemistry of NiCad batteries involves the reaction between cadmium (the
negative electrode) and nickel oxide hydroxide (the positive electrode), with potassium
hydroxide as the electrolyte. During...
 These two
tech-themed comics from the September 1969 issue of Electronics World
magazine are pretty good. I especially like the one where the guy's wife entered
his printed circuit board layout in an art contest. PCBs were just starting to gain
momentum in production electronics as they replaced the old point-to-point wiring
method. Also popular in that era was high fidelity stereo equipment. Owning a system
with speakers that operated from 1 Hz through 30 to 40 kHz was major evidence
of an audiophile's technical savvy, even though the human ear con only detect frequencies
in the 30 Hz to 20 kHz range. Dogs can hear frequencies up into the 45 kHz
range. Porpoises can hear up to 150 kHz. A ferret can hear from 16 Hz...
 TotalTemp Technologies offers advanced
and innovative methods for meeting and optimizing your thermal testing requirements.
We specialize in benchtop thermal testing because small batches are typically the
most cost-effective approach. We offer heat transfer by conduction with thermal
platforms, forced convection as in traditional temperature chambers, combined systems,
and thermal vacuum for Space Simulation.
Thermal testing of Traveling Wave Tube Amplifiers and other devices with dramatically
uneven power dissipation can easily be achieved with a dual zone thermal platform.
Managing the heat produced by the electron gun side allows for the RF outputs side
to be tested at various required temperatures. The Dual Zone Thermal Platforms allows
the user to maintain safe controlling...
• Ham
Radio Serving Southeast U.S. Recovery Efforts
• Radio
"A Godsend for So Many" in Helene's Aftermath
• Estate
Planning for Hams
• Intel's Woes Damaging
U.S. Chip Indpendence
• Is
Gen-Z Low Car Ownership a Threat to Radio? (they
can't afford cars due to massive inflation - not because they don't want a car)
 Amrad, American Radio & Research Corporation,
was based in Medford Hillside, Massachusetts and was founded in 1915 with funds
from J. Pierpont Morgan. The company's first manager, Harold James Power, was an
amateur radio enthusiast and built a research laboratory. In 1916, Amrad made its
first broadcast to J. Pierpont Morgan Jr., who was aboard the ocean liner "Philadelphia."
Amrad received orders for military radio equipment during World War I, but discontinued
these orders after the war ended. To keep the company afloat, Amrad produced items
such as electric egg beaters and cigar lighters. In 1919, Amrad was awarded a contract
to make 400 SE1420 receivers, and it began advertising components for amateur radio
enthusiasts...
 This "Which
Dry Battery for You" article is a follow-on from the previous month's "Dry Cell
Battery Types" in Radio-Electronics magazine. It was a time long before the dominance
of rechargeable lithium batteries. In 1963, battery-powered devices were nowhere
near as widespread and diverse as they are nowadays. Hand tools like drills, saws,
routers, planers, and screwdrivers got their power either from a wall outlet or
the user's arm and hand muscles. Lawn mowers, grass and hedge trimmers, chain saws,
and snow blowers were powered mostly by gasoline, although some models plugged into
the wall. Those devices which did use batteries most often had no built-in...
 "Researchers have developed a new architecture
for optical computing called
diffraction casting, offering power-efficient processing by using light waves.
This method promises better integration and flexibility for high-performance computing
tasks and could be used in fields like AI and machine learning. As artificial intelligence
and other complex applications demand ever more powerful and energy-intensive computers,
optical computing emerges as a promising solution to enhance speed and power efficiency.
However, its practical application has faced numerous challenges..."
 The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was established
in 1946 as a result of the Atomic Energy Act, signed into law by President Harry
S. Truman. This legislative decision marked the United States' formal entry into
managing and controlling atomic energy, a rapidly advancing field that had been
essential in concluding World War II through the development and use of nuclear
weapons. The AEC was conceived to handle not only military applications of atomic
energy but also to develop peaceful uses, such as energy production, medical research,
and industrial applications. The creation of the AEC emerged from the Manhattan
Project, the secret wartime effort to develop atomic bombs. The Manhattan Project
brought together prominent scientists like J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi,
and Niels Bohr. After the war, however, the question arose...
 Empower RF Systems, the technology leading
provider of high-performance RF amplifiers, is proud to announce the launch of the
Model 2221 X-Band Pulsed High Power Amplifier. The Empower RF 2221 amplifier
operates in the 9-10 GHz X-band, delivering an impressive 8000 W peak
output power with long and short pulse widths. Its applications encompass radar
systems, electronic warfare, HPM research, and electromagnetics effects testing.
With a rugged, modular design, the 2221 offers a reliable, high-performance solution
for applications demanding significant X-band power. Key Features and Specifications
The model 2221 amplifier operates in the 9-10 GHz X-band frequency range, delivering
an impressive 8 kW of peak pulsed output power...
 Although not in the title as it used to
be, this 1964 Electronics World magazine piece by John T. Frye is
a "Mac's
Service Shop" story. If Mac and Barney are the stars of the saga, then it can
be none other. The story is about how the misdeeds of a few dishonest operators
can taint the reputation of an entire industry - nothing new there. Barney is telling
Mac about a "sting" ploy pulled by a consumer protection group whereby TV sets with
a specific easy-to-troubleshoot problem introduced to see how repair technicians
from a suspect company would bill the service. I'll not spoil the ending for you;
however, a comment mentioned that $10 would have been a reasonable price for a house
call that included the fix. According to the BLS's inflation calculator, $10 in
1964 was the equivalent of about $102 in 2024...
 Ever the futurist, in 1962 Radio-Electronics
magazine editor Hugo Gernsback was making the case for occupying
millimeter- and submillimeter-wave bands. In fact, he first proposed the concept
back in 1959. He refers to it as "gap between the infrared (IR) and radio regions."
IR is generally understood to include wavelengths from around 750 nm (400 THz)
to 1 mm (300 GHz). Gernsback cites work done by Professor Gwyn O. Jones,
of Queen Mary College of the University of London, with the claim that among other
advantages of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) is an ability to penetrate certain wavelength
"windows" in the atmosphere where lower frequencies do not propagate efficiently,
more "channels" of communications can be accommodated, smaller antennas could be
used, and narrower focused transmission beams possible...
 Werbel Microwave's WMRD10-7.2-S is a
10-way resistive splitter that covers up to 7.2 GHz with ultra-wide bandwidth.
This unique design accomplishes extremely flat frequency response in a small radial
package. Our unique design approach provides higher than expected isolation between
outputs at far ports than would be achieved in a typical star topology. It has applications
in markets such as CATV, test and measurement, and military radio. Its small size
makes it easy to integrate into compact systems. Designed, assembled, and tested
in the USA.
 Hugo Gernsback, often heralded as the "Father
of Science Fiction," was an extraordinary figure whose influence extended beyond
the realm of speculative literature into the world of electronics, radio communication,
and futurism. His life, inventions, and publications shaped not only popular science
but also the practical development of radio and electronics, making him a pivotal
figure in early 20th-century technological advancements. Gernsback was born Hugo
Gernsbacher on August 16, 1884, in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, to a wealthy family.
His father, Moritz Gernsbacher, was a winemaker and merchant, while his mother,
Bertha, came from a prominent local family. Hugo had several siblings, though details
of his early family life remain somewhat obscure. From a young age, Hugo showed
a strong interest in science and technology, particularly in electricity and wireless
communication. He attended local schools in Luxembourg and later pursued formal
education at the Technikum in Bingen, Germany...
 These government programs take forever to
implement, then a major portion of the money gets wasted in bureaucracies, payoffs,
and misappropriations (e.g.,
8 EV charging stations after spending $7.5B). "If you know CostQuest at all
you probably think of it as the company that the FCC hired to clean up and refine
its national broadband map. But the company is also working with state broadband
offices on their
Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) programs. To give a little background,
CostQuest works with the FCC on its national broadband map. But it was also hired,
separately, by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)
to work with states..."
|
 Here are a couple more
electronics-themed comics from the March 1967 issue of Popular Electronics
magazine for your TGIF enjoyment. The comic on page 100 especially appeals to me since
I am finishing the installation of a Channel Master CM-5020 antenna. It has been a long
time since I installed a traditional style TV antenna - about 40 years ago when I put
a Radio Shack antenna on the roof of my mother's house. The entire 109" long by 100"
wide antenna, including mounting hardware, weighs only 11.5 pounds and presents
a wind resistance of 30 pounds. This is Channel Master's best antenna...
 This
Radio
Theme crossword puzzle for August 29th, 2021, contains only words and clues
related to engineering, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and other technical words.
As always, this crossword contains no names of politicians, mountain ranges, exotic
foods or plants, movie stars, or anything of the sort unless it/he/she is related
to this puzzle's technology theme (e.g., Hedy Lamarr or the Bikini Atoll). The technically
inclined cruciverbalists amongst us will appreciate the effort. Enjoy!
 As with my hundreds of previous
science and engineering-themed crossword puzzles, this one for February 23,
2020, contains only clues and terms associated with engineering, science, physical,
astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, etc., which I have built up over nearly two decades.
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.
 For the past few months, this full-page BridgeCom
advertisement has been running in the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) magazine
QST. When I first saw it I though it might be one of those research laboratory
hydraulic apparatuses for generating the kind of pressure found at the center of
the Earth. Scientists use such devices to synthesize diamonds by compacting coal.
In actuality, the four cylinders are part of the
BridgeCom BCD-144250 Rack Mount VHF Duplexer. Per their website:
BridgeCom Systems' BCD-144250 Duplexer for amateur and commercial applications.
The BCD-144250 utilizes four high-quality cavities that results in uncompromising
duplex isolation. It will handle up to 250W continuously for the most demanding
applications...
 The newest release of RF Cafe's spreadsheet
(Excel) based engineering and science calculator is now available -
Espresso Engineering Workbook™. Among other additions, it now has a Butterworth
Bandpass Calculator, and a Highpass Filter Calculator that does not just gain, but
also phase and group delay! Since 2002,
the original Calculator Workbook has been available as a free download.
Continuing the tradition, RF Cafe Espresso Engineering Workbook™ is
also provided at no cost,
compliments of my generous sponsors. The original calculators are included, but
with a vastly expanded and improved user interface. Error-trapped user input cells
help prevent entry of invalid values. An extensive use of Visual Basic for Applications
(VBA) functions now do most of the heavy lifting with calculations, and facilitates
a wide user-selectable choice of units for voltage, frequency, speed, temperature,
power, wavelength, weight, etc. In fact, a full page of units conversion calculators
is included. A particularly handy feature is the ability to specify the the number
of significant digits to display. Drop-down menus are provided for convenience...
 This is yet another example of humorous -
and clever - poetry written by Hams from back in the 1940s... November 1942, to
be exact. It appeared in the ARRL magazine QST. As alluded to in the title,
"Ravin," it is a play
on Edgar Allen Poe's famous "The Raven" poem. A few other electronic-themed poems
are listed on the page as well, discovered in QST and in Popular Electronics.
Enjoy...
 It has been three or four decades since I
have seen anything about a
Lecher Line, the last time in memory being in a college lab. It might have been
a physics lab, but most probably an EE lab. We used one to measure wavelengths of
signals from an RF generator. The apparatus looked sort of like the one in the Wikipedia
link, only just a little more modern (but not much more, being typical school equipment).
This new patents report from a 1947 issue of Radio-Craft magazine has a
waveguide version of a Lecher Line that supposedly was able to do more precise measurements
of very short wavelengths by providing for detecting the internal wave over multiple
wavelengths instead of just a single half wavelength. It was developed at Bell Telephone
Laboratories...
 This assortment of custom-designed themes
by RF Cafe includes T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks, Tote Bags, Coffee Mugs and Steins,
Purses, Sweatshirts, Baseball Caps, and more, all sporting my amazingly clever "RF Engineers - We Are the World's Matchmakers"
Smith chart design. These would make excellent gifts for husbands, wives, kids,
significant others, and for handing out at company events or as rewards for excellent
service. My graphic has been ripped off by other people and used on their products,
so please be sure to purchase only official RF Cafe gear. I only make a couple bucks
on each sale - the rest goes to Cafe Press. It's a great way to help support RF
Cafe. Thanks...
 Banner Ads are rotated in all locations
on the page! RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000 visits each
weekday. RF Cafe
is a favorite of engineers, technicians, hobbyists, and students all over the world.
With more than 17,000 pages in the Google search index, RF Cafe returns in
favorable positions on many types of key searches, both for text and images.
Your Banner Ads are displayed on average 225,000 times per year! New content
is added on a daily basis, which keeps the major search engines interested enough
to spider it multiple times each day. Items added on the homepage often can be found
in a Google search within a few hours of being posted. If you need your company
news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be...
 When it comes to low loss transmission media,
it's hard to beat waveguide and open wire. Open wire can exhibit less a couple tenths
of a decibel per hundred feet at low frequencies, but it is very susceptible to
perturbations from nearby objects, wind and moisture. Waveguide exhibits a few tenths
of a decibel per 100 feet at very high frequencies, but it is expensive and difficult
to work with. In the middle is coaxial cable, which for a good quality product of
appropriate size, you can get very low attenuation. As with most things, you get
what you pay for in coax cable. I once used really expensive Andrew (now Commscope)
Heliax coax cable on an S-band radar (2.8 GHz) system that had only a little
more than 1 dB/100 ft, which was necessary from a receiver noise figure
requirement rather than for transmitter power efficiency. This article from
QST covers some of the basics of low loss cable...
 Some topics are timeless. This is one of
them. The term "Value
Engineering" is not so familiar these days, since ostensibly it was developed
by General Electric back in the World War II era. Per Wikipedia, "Value engineering
(VE) is a systematic method to improve the "value" of goods or products and services
by using an examination of function. Value, as defined, is the ratio of function
to cost. Value can therefore be increased by either improving the function or reducing
the cost. It is a primary tenet of value engineering that basic functions be preserved
and not be reduced as a consequence of pursuing value improvements ." This article
from the August 1967 Electronics World was a good read then, and it is
a good read in 2019...
 The
International Geophysical Year (IGY) began on July 1 of 1957 and ran through
December 31 of 1958. It was the dawn of space / high altitude flight and there was
a great need to learn as much as possible about the physics of the upper atmosphere
and the void of space. The USSR successfully flew their first three Sputnik satellites
and the U.S. was scrambling to get Echo into orbit (finally on August 12, 1960,
after the end of IGY). The Cold War was at its peak (Bay of Pigs incident was just
a few years away), and the science world was looking for a way to provide a unifying
tie between the planet's countries. "During this time, more than 5,000 scientists
and engineers of more than 60 nations ...
 "PCBs? We ain't got no PCBs in our TV sets†...
We don't have to give you no stinking PCBs." That is effectively what the Zenith
television advertisement from a 1958 edition of Radio-Electronics told its potential
customers. According to the Zenith communications department, even though their
head R&D guy, Dr. Alexander Ellett, was "the
daddy of printed circuit boards," they stuck with the traditional point-to-point
wiring in all their TV chassis. I have to agree with them from a troubleshooting
and component replacement perspective. There's nothing easier than heating a solder
lug or terminal post to unwrap a leaded R, L, or C either to measure its value,
isolate it from the rest of the circuit for making tests, or to replace it. There
is no worry about solder splatter or bridges, overheating the PCB material to cause
delamination, or lifting metal traces from the surface. There is also no issue with
getting a component lead out of a plated-through hole. Yes, of course modern circuits
need multilayer, high density circuit boards...
 According to Electronics
magazine editor Lewis Young in mid-1964, the industry was entering into a slump
in business opportunities. The boom times provided during the war years of WWII
and Korea had resulted in, according to Mr. Young, a lax attitude toward operational
strategy that led to wasteful spending and poor accountability for project results.
It wasn't just the defense contractors' fault because government bureaucrats - from
relatively low ranking military personnel to elected lawmakers - had (have) a habit
of making sudden changes to contract requirements. Maintaining the resources needed
to keep up with ever-evolving demands necessitated a lot of the excess. Fortunately,
the military-industrial complex, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower dubbed it,
was on the verge of being thrown another huge monetary bone - the Vietnam War. President
Kennedy was already pumping lots of equipment and manpower into it, and LBJ would
follow suit with vigor ...
 Do you know how engineering whipping boy
Dilbert came to be called
by that name? Per Scott Adams, while working at Pacific Bell he ran an informal
name-the-comic-strip-engineer contest from his cubicle. A guy named Mike Goodwin
suggested Dilbert. "I ended the contest immediately and declared Mike the winner,"
says Adams. It sounded perfect. Years after the comic strip had become syndicated,
Mike commented that he believes the name idea might have come from seeing his father's
old WWII aviator comics with "Dilbert the Pilot." DtP was a screw-up, invented by
Navy artist Robert Osborn, whose purpose in life was to illustrate the wrong way
of doing things so that real pilots wouldn't make the same mistakes. The name was
funny then, as it is funny now. BTW, Dilbert is a variant of Delbert meaning nobly
famous. During the War, "dilbert" became a synonym for "blunder" for Navy pilots.
The Navy even produced an aviator safety film titled, "Don't Kill Your Friends,"
featuring Dilbert the Pilot...
 If 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)...
 When
color televisions hit the stores in 1954, most households could not afford one.
For that matter, most households could not afford a black and white TV, either.
By 1959 when this article appeared in Popular Electronics magazine, TV
in general was still a novelty to most people. It is amusing to read about how much
more lifelike everything would appear when broadcast in "living color." Well, duh.
It's as if it never occurred to anyone that the images previously did not contain
color like the real world did. I was born in 1958, and remember that my family's
was last of all the households I knew of to own a color television set. We never
even had a console floor model, just small tabletop pieces of junk. It was a big
deal the day I, at about age 16, bought and installed a remote rotor for the rooftop
antenna so we could receive more than three stations. There was no cable TV service
in our neighborhood...
 By 1970, the airwaves were really getting
crowded. Lots of high power commercial and military gear was online, and the radio
listening public was setting new record highs every year. As such, many new sources
for
radio interference (RFI) were being discovered, and sometimes the problems caused
went well beyond just a little noise being superimposed on top of Neil Diamond's
newly released Cracklin' Rosie or the lads from Liverpool's The Long and Winding
Road. Often, the interference was overwhelmingly annoying. The FCC was being flooded
with complaints. Digital computers were creating a whole new type of electronic
havoc, and leaky cable television cables and amplifiers caused all kinds of headaches
to over-the-air sets. Rusty bolts and chain link fences in the vicinity of high
power radio and TV towers - and even radar installations - manifested themselves
as detectors by virtue of their nonlinear nature. I remember when people at Robins
AFB, in Georgia, would sometimes complain to our radar shop because their radios
would blip once every four seconds as the search radar antenna swept past their
radios...
 This might be the first (and only) appearance
of Carl's father, at least in a drawing. In this episode, John T. Frye's high-tech
teen duo Carl and Jerry design and build a "polecat detector." In the process, a
little drama is thrown in when a stander-by mistakenly believes he is being insulted.
Even if, in spite of the detailed description by Jerry, you don't learn how a photocell-based
threshold crossing circuit works, you might just learn the meaning of 'lugubriously.'
Mr. Frye always worked valuable technical information into his stories about
"Carl & Jerry," "Mac's Service Shop," and other regular features which appeared
in electronics magazines for decades.
 This entire page has been reworked to make
the denormalization
of prototype lowpass filter component values much easier to understand. I have received
numerous questions about the process over the years, particularly regarding the
swapping of capacitor and inductor values for highpass transformations. Bandpass
and bandstop transformations can be equally confusing. The original page pretty
much regurgitated the kind of presentation made by many textbooks, but this new
format should make amply clear the transformation from normalized lowpass component
values ...
 The following article / app note titled, "Bias
T, Band Splitter and Other RF Diplexers," was submitted to RF Cafe by
Bree Engineering. It is a brief
introduction to and explanation of the theory and application of the named frequency
selective devices. A Bias-T is frequency dependent just as much so as a band splitter
or diplexer; it differentiates between DC (0 Hz) and the RF frequency. Bree Engineering
Corporation was founded in 1999 and is a manufacturer of custom electronic filters, multiplexers,
filter banks and other related types of components in the frequency range of 0.1 MHz
to 40 GHz. Designs include Chebyshev, Bessel, Butterworth, Gaussian, transitional,
elliptic-function and pseudo-elliptic-function filters in lumped element, cavity, combline,
interdigital...
 Radio-Craft magazine ran a monthly series
of short articles paying tribute to some of the shakers and movers in the field
of science - this time it was
Sir Oliver Lodge. "While Hertz was discovering radio waves in
air, Lodge was determining the laws of the corresponding activity which takes place
in electrical conductors. It was Lodge who demonstrated the possibility of radio
communication, experimentally, as Marconi did its commercial value - just as Henry
created the telegraph and Morse made it of practical utility." See other "Men Who
Made Radio" features on ...
 Until solid state electronics had supplanted the
majority of vacuum tube type televisions and radios,
portable tube testers were essential equipment to successful, efficient troubleshooting
and repair in businesses and people's homes. Yep, believe it or not the stories told
about doctors and electronics repairmen visiting homes are not just fables. I remember
as recently as the 1960s having our family doctor make house calls when I or one of my
fours sisters got sick. Both doctors and TV servicemen ceased the practice at about the
same time - probably the result of a Brotherhood of Electronics Technicians and General
Practitioners collective bargaining agreement ;-) Many column inches of editorials, articles,
comics, and letters to the editor were devoted to the trials and tribulations of in-home
servicemen and the experiences...
RF Cascade Workbook is the next phase in the evolution of RF Cafe's long-running
series, RF Cascade Workbook. Chances are you have never used a spreadsheet
quite like this (click
here for screen capture). It is a full-featured RF system cascade parameter
and frequency planner that includes filters and mixers for a mere $45. Built in
MS Excel, using RF Cascade Workbook is a cinch and the format
is entirely customizable. It is significantly easier and faster than using a multi-thousand
dollar simulator when a high level system analysis is all that is needed...
 Even though most electrical meters have gone
to a digital format, there are still many millions of
analog meter movements doing service in equipment around the world. Analog meters
are especially good for when the value being reported is changing rapidly and trying
to read a numerical value would be tiring or impossible. A perfect example of comparing
analog to digital is the Internet speed test display used by most companies. Run
this speed test from Spectrum and watch the two indicator types simultaneously.
Of course many pre-electronic meters are driven by sources other than electricity;
e.g., fluid flow rate pressure meters, your bathroom scale, automobile speedometers,
etc. A lot of modern "analog" meter indicator needles ...
 Take a
break from the drudgery with some of these
tech-centric jokes, song parodies,
anecdotes and assorted humor that has been collected from friends & from websites
across the Internet. This humor is light-hearted and sometimes slightly offensive
to the easily-offended, so you are forewarned. I have taken care to censor out "humor"
with reproductive function innuendo and hateful tirades, so it is all workplace-safe.
I have also tried to warn of any links that will result in audio clips so you can
take appropriate precautions. As usual, there is no easy way to determine the true
origin of any of these jokes. Unless otherwise noted, that prolific author "Anon"
is the progenitor...
 Little known to most people (including moi
until recently), DeForest Training School was started by DeVry University's founder
Herman A. DeVry. DeVry and DeForest were DeGood DeFriends, leading DeVry to name
his electronics school after DeForest. It was re-named DeVry Technical Institute
in 1953. Research at DeForest Training School produced one of the first
RF / microwave food baking "ovens." The prototype reported in this 1951
Radio & Television News magazine article was not at all like modern microwave
ovens. There was no enclosure into which baking bowls, pans, and dishes can be inserted.
Rather, electrodes were arranged at the perimeters of the special pan that in this
demonstration contained cake batter. It was adapted from a process originally developed
for RF induction heating of industrial materials...
 If you had a father, brother, uncle, grandfather,
husband, or neighbor who was an electronics service technician in the days of yore,
he might have been mentioned in this 1958 issue of Radio & TV News magazine
highlighting General Electric's
Service Technicians' All-American Award Winners. Rather than rewarding the independent
businessmen for their technical prowess, the company assigned awards based on community
services performed, thereby reflecting positively on both GE and the electronics
service business as a whole. Each winner received a $500 check, which in 2020 money
is the equivalent to about $4,500 in today's economy. The closest thing we have
to the radio and television serviceman today is maybe the guys who install broadband
cable and satellite dishes. Their level technical knowledge is not required to be
anywhere near as deep...
 This
Electronic Menu Quiz appeared in the August 1963 edition of Popular Electronics
magazine. Robert Balin created many such quizzes for Popular Electronics
over the years. It challenges you to match the common food-related term for a device
with its picture. If you've been around electronics labs and/or read electronics
hobbyist magazines for a while, chances are you have run across most of the terms.
I suggest you click on the image to get a full-size view of the drawings to be able
to see all the detail. A couple of the names I have to admit not being familiar,
so they seem rather 'corny'... get it?
 When doing some research for creating a new
quiz on inventors
and their inventions, I decided to look for people according to their countries.
I almost always do image searches since doing so does a good job of filtering out
pages that merely mention the topic of interest. My first Google search was "american
inventors." I expected to see the familiar faces of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, George
Westinghouse, Marie Curie, Alexander Graham Bell, George Washington Carver, Edwin
Armstrong, Hedy Lamarr, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Goddard, Albert Einstein, the
Wright Brothers, Samuel Morse, William Shockley, etc. Those are the names that first
come to my mind, and admittedly the list is dominated by White men. Imagine my surprise
when the Google search results belied my perception. Take a look at the first few
pages of results to see what I mean. Next, I moved on to an image search for "canadian
inventors..."
RF Cascade Workbook is the next phase in the evolution of RF Cafe's long-running
series, RF Cascade Workbook. Chances are you have never used a spreadsheet
quite like this (click
here for screen capture). It is a full-featured RF system cascade parameter
and frequency planner that includes filters and mixers for a mere $45. Built in
MS Excel, using RF Cascade Workbook is a cinch and the format
is entirely customizable. It is significantly easier and faster than using a multi-thousand
dollar simulator when a high level system analysis is all that is needed...
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