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Burgess Battery Company

Burgess Battery Company Advertisement, January 1941 QST - RF CafeBefore there were electric generators onboard airplanes to power communications equipment, aviators relied on storage batteries to operate their radios. Before that, there were no radios at all aboard airplanes. Although Wilbur and Orville Wright first piloted their Wright Flyer in 1903, by the end of the decade airplanes were becoming a common sight across the country and across the civilized world. By the middle of the second decade experiments were being done with airborne radio. They were heavy vacuum tube units with heavy lead-acid batteries. Antennas sometimes hundreds of feet long needed to be reeled out and in once at altitude. The earliest transmitter (for 2-way communications) were spark gap types, meaning of course Morse code was the medium...

Werbel High Power Coupler for 80-520 MHz

Werbel Microwave WMHPC-80-520M-6dB-N Directional Coupler for 80-520 MHz - RF CafeWerbel Microwave began as a consulting firm, specializing in RF components design, with the ability to rapidly spin low volume prototypes, and has quickly grown into a major designer and manufacturer with volume production capacities. The WMHPC-80-520M-6dB-N is a high-power coupler that operates over the 80 to 520 MHz band, covering FM radio, upper VHF and lower UHF applications. Conservatively rated for 100 watts CW. Useful for amplification and signal distribution applications including radio and television broadcasting, public safety and emergency broadcasting and distributed antenna systems. Mainline loss 1.2 dB typical, directivity 24.5 dB. Assembled and tested in USA. "No Worries with Werbel!"

I = E over R

I Equals E over R, August 1932 Radio-Craft - RF CafeWhoa, it's a good thing I read these articles prior to publishing them, lest some uninitiated soul be lead to the wrong conclusion! Keep in mind that this article was written in 1932, prior to the development of the quantum mechanical model of the atom, but on the other hand, Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr developed their model in 1913, so the information was available. The Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom suggested a nucleus comprised of positive masses called protons, each of which carries a charge of +1 unit, and neutrons with no net charge. Surrounding the nucleus were orbiting masses called electrons, each of which carries a charge of -1 units. Accordingly, the net charge of an atom was the sum of protons and electrons, with unionized atoms having a net...

Resistivity: Some Definitions

Resistivity: Some Definitions, November 1969 Electronics World - RF CafeI have always found it annoying when an author uses a symbol or subscript in an article without explaining or somehow making obvious what it is. In this "Resistivity: Some Definitions" piece from a 1969 issue of Electronics World magazine, the author's stated purpose is to define terms related to resistivity, which he does well, but there are a couple instances where subscripts for resistivity, rho (ρ), are left for the reader to figure out. ρsp, ρs, and ρv have been replaced with ρspecific, ρsheet, and ρvolume , respectively, where needed. Sure, a careful reading of the surrounding content clarified the intent, but you are not supposed to work that hard. Otherwise...

Carl & Jerry: Abetting or Not?

Carl & Jerry: Abetting or Not?, October 1956 Popular Electronics - RF CafeCarl and Jerry found the appearance and construction of 2400 megacycle transmitters and receivers to be quite odd compared to the equipment they were used to dealing with. It's sometimes hard to believe such an attitude of wonder when our world today is utterly filled with wireless devices operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. Author John T. Frye could never have imagined that such a reality would would exist half a century after his story of the pair of teenage electronics sleuths. Unlike our postage stamp size integrated assemblies that cost a few dollars, they speak of "special ultra-high-frequency "light-house" tubes with...

China Files to Launch 193,448 Satellites

China Files to Launch 193,448 Satellites - RF CafeSay goodbye to Earth-based astronomy if this trend continues! Elon Musk's Starlink 10,000-satellite constellation pales in comparison to this ambitious, dominating system. Isn't it amazing how Green warrior funders are willing to ignore things like and nuclear power plants when it serves their financial and influence purposes? "China files to launch 193,448 satellites. The CTC-1 filing is for a single notional Non-Geostationary Orbit (NGSO) system. The CTC-2 filing is still at the Advanced Publication Information stage. CTC-1 and CTC-2 are early-stage ITU regulatory filings but don't authorize launches. [They] form part of a single strategic effort to secure spectrum and orbital priority for a future next-generation Chinese megaconstellation..."

Prize Winners for Best "YL" Photos

Prize Winners for Best "YL" Photos, August 1935 Short Wave Craft - RF CafeIn an effort to promote entry of women and girls into the amateur radio hobby, Short Wave Craft magazine ran a few contests for Best "YL" Photos. Amazingly - and maybe there are still instances of it today - many (if not most) of the YLs featured had built their own equipment. In 1935, most people built their own equipment, so that is not too surprising. The winner for this month was a 16-year-old young lady i.e., "YL") who in fact built her rig. Another winner was an 83-year-old grandma who was born before Marconi, Maxwell, and Hertz did their best work! The third winner was a girl who earned her Ham license at age 6, which back in the day required sending and receiving 5 words per minute (WPM) in Morse code...

Federal Telephone and Radio Company Advertisement

Federal Telephone and Radio Company Advertisement, January 1954 Radio & Television News - RF CafeCoaxial cable is the most familiar form of RF transmission line for most people these days. Up until 2009 when the U.S. switched to digital television (DTV), there were still a fairly large number of people who had the old 300 Ω twin lead cable running from roof-top antennas to TV sets. Over-the-air reception has petered off precipitously since then. Coaxial cable is undoubtedly more convenient and forgiving regarding routing since proximity to structures - particularly metallic components - than twin lead. Good quality 300 Ω twin lead cable (~30¢/foot today)...

Carl and Jerry Adventure: ROTC Riot

Carl and Jerry Adventure: ROTC Riot, April 1962 Popular Electronics - RF CafeCertainly my high school, Southern Senior High (class of '76), in Harwood, Maryland, had a JROTC program in the 1970s, but I have no recollection of it. Maybe because of the Vietnam War, not as many ROTC groups were being formed. In fact, I don't think there was anything about ROTC in my yearbook. This 1962 Carl and Jerry adventure titled "ROTC Riot" took place at the semi-fictional Parvoo University, where the electronics and technology pair was attending for electrical engineering. ROTC upperclassmen were famously difficult to tolerate due to their attitude of superiority -- and desire to do unto others as was done unto them...

I Married a Hobby

I Married a Hobby, August 1948 QST - RF CafeMrs. Helen McKee knew exactly what she was signing up for when she agreed to marry Mr. McKee. After all, she met and got familiar with the guy over the air during some rag chewing sessions. This story is a humorous (and true) account of what life can be like for the spouses of enthusiastic Ham radio operators. We all hope for such an understanding "significant other." Melanie has certainly endured and supported a lot of my pastime endeavors over the past 32 years. It's a short read, so take a break and put a smile on your face...

Thermal Satellite Image Reveals Data Centre

Thermal Satellite Image Reveals Data Centre Activity - RF Cafe"SatVu has released a 3.5m high-resolution thermal image revealing near-real-time activity inside one of the USA's largest data centres. The image provides a heat-based look at cooling systems, substations and high-load infrastructure of the data centre of a bitcoin mining company in Rockdale, Texas. Demand for AI, cloud computing and crypto mining has made data centres some of the world's most energy-intensive facilities. They are expanding fast, often outpacing the ability of regulators, grid operators, analysts and communities..."

Radio Amateur Course Resistance, Inductance, and Capacity

Radio Amateur Course, November 1935 Short Wave Craft - RF CafeAs mentioned many times in the past, some things never change regarding the basics of electricity and electronics. Resistance, inductance, and capacitance are examples. When first starting out in this science, an effective introduction to the fundamentals can often determine whether a person sticks with it or finds another area of interest to pursue as a hobby and/or vocation. Analogous examples of voltage and water pressure, resistance and the diameter of a water hose, inertia in a spinning mass opposing a change in rate and an inductor opposing a change in current, etc., are presented along with some good sketches of...

The Vanishing Circuit Designer

The Vanishing Circuit Designer - RF CafeHow is this for a prescient prediction from the early 1960s? "As a result of modular and integrated circuitry techniques, all future circuit design work, regardless of degree, will become the responsibility of the component manufacturer instead of the equipment producer." Texas Instruments' (TI) Jack Kilby is credited with designing the first integrated circuit in 1958. The first commercial IC, Ti's Type 502 flip-flop, had just hit the market in early 1960, and already pundits were prognosticating and ruing the disappearance of circuit designers. Maybe it was concerns over job security that they seem to favor forever building every circuit...

Please Thank Werbel Microwave for Continued Support!

Werbel Microwave Passive RF Components - RF CafeWerbel Microwave is a manufacturer of RF directional and bidirectional couplers (6 dB to 50 dB) and RF power dividers / combiners (2- to 16-way) with select models operating up to 26.5 GHz and 100 W of CW power (3 kW peak). All are RoHS and REACH compliant and are designed and manufactured in our Whippany, NJ, location. Custom products and private label service available. Please take a couple minutes to visit their website and see how Werbel Microwave can help you today.

Advances in Magnetic Materials

Advances in Magnetic Materials, December 1967 Electronics World - RF CafeJohn R. Collins' 1967 Electronics World magazine "Advances in Magnetic Materials" article captures the essence of magnetic materials leaping from incremental tweaks to revolutionary shifts, like grain-oriented steels that aligned crystals to slash transformer losses and shrink massive power gear for aviation and grids. Alnico alloys ditched bulky speakers for sleek permanent magnets, while ferrites -- ceramic wonders -- tamed high frequencies with non-conductive ease, spawning compact motors, tools, and early computer memories. Superconductors, then lab novelties generating intense fields with zero resistance, hinted at sci-fi applications from particle physics to space. Fast-forward to today, and they've exploded, proving Collins' "quantum jumps" birthed today's...

Decimeter Waves: The Future of Radio

Decimeter Waves - The Future of Radio, November 1935 Short Wave Craft - RF CafeCrowded frequency bands have been a problem since the beginning of radio because technology is constantly not only filling available bandwidth, but also pushing the frontiers higher. The advantage of going higher in frequency is that required bandwidths for existing modulation schemes represent a smaller percentage of the center frequency. For example, an 802.11b WiFi signal's 22 MHz bandwidth represents roughly 1% of its 2.4 MHz center frequency. 802.11a does 20 MHz at 5 GHz for 0.4%. Extend that center frequency up to 50 GHz and the channel occupancy is a mere 0.04%. That means for the same total band occupancy of 1% as with 802.11b, you can fit in 25 equivalent slots. The problem with going higher in frequency is that components...

Nanowire Invulnerable to Signal Interference

Nanowire Tech Invulnerable to Signal Interference - RF Cafe"Researchers have used a new nanowire fabrication technique to produce flexible electronics virtually impervious to electromagnetic interference. Developed at Glasgow University [that's "UoG" in the image], the method involves imprinting ultra-thin nanowires onto bendable and transparent polymer substrates. A process called interfacial-dielectrophoresis (i-DEP) uses electrical fields to arrange the nanoscale materials with high accuracy, enabling the creation of precise patterns. The Glasgow team used i-DEP to create gaps in the nanowire network that act as capacitors..."

Engineering Crossword Puzzle

Engineering Crossword Puzzle, June 21, 2015 - RF CafeFor the sake of avid cruciverbalists amongst us, each week I create a new crossword puzzle that has a theme related to engineering, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and other technical words. You will never be asked the name of a movie star unless he/she was involved in a technical endeavor(e.g., Hedy Lamar). Enjoy...

PCBA Press Fit Connector Reliability

San Francisco Circuits PCB Solutions: PCBA Press Fit Connector Reliability: Strain Thresholds and Best Practices - RF CafeSan Francisco Circuits (SFC) has been a trusted U.S. provider of advanced PCB manufacturing and assembly solutions for R&D innovators, prime contractors, and integration experts. SFC has published a white paper entitled, "PCBA Press Fit Connector Reliability: Strain Thresholds and Best Practices," to help inform you on issues that can mean the difference between success and failure. "Press fit connectors are common in high-density PCB designs - powering 5G infrastructure, electric vehicles, aerospace systems, and advanced medical devices. Their ability to deliver high I/O counts without the heat risks of soldering makes them indispensable for modern electronics. But here's a hidden risk: If strain during insertion isn't properly managed, it can lead to latent solder joint..."

Radio Waves Heard from Jupiter and Venus

Radio Waves Heard from Jupiter and Venus, September 1956 Popular Electronics - RF CafeAs a case in point about my claim with today's earlier post featuring Bob Berman's factoids on astronomy, this article from a 1956 edition of Popular Electronics illustrates how vital electronics are in the various fields of science. It has only been fairly recently that astronomers have been 'looking' at stars and planets outside of the visible wavelengths. Renditions of the sky in both shorter and longer wavelengths show in some regions a vastly different universe. Earlier this year, a comprehensive mapping of the entire known universe in the microwave realm revealed the largest contiguous feature ever detected - dubbed "The Cold Spot"...

Electronics and the Handicapped

Mac's Service Shop: Electronics and the Handicapped, February 1967 Electronics World - RF CafeOf the scores of Mac's Service Shop stories I have read and posted here on RF Cafe, this is the first that deals with a subject near and dear to author John Frye - the plight of handicapped people. If you don't know, Mr. Frye had been confined to a wheelchair for most of his life. "Electronics and the Handicapped" is essentially the story of his life, though he does not say so. Mac: "When I was a kid growing up in a little Arkansas town, I knew a crippled boy whose dad ran the local garage." Guess where John grew up? His father owned a machine shop, and made gadgets to help his crippled son. "I had never heard the term 'respo' until you told me about a month ago it was the nickname for a victim of respiratory polio." He had polio at 18 months old...

High School Electrical Vocational School Letter

Annapolis Vocational Technical  Center Electrical School Letter - RF cafeVery few items from my early days here on Earth have escaped destruction or disposal. A couple dozen household moves in the last half century have been responsible for some of it. Oddly, one thing that survived is a box full of old letters and greeting cards - dating back to the late 1960s. Melanie has been scanning her and my items for a more permanent record, and ran across this letter of praise written from the administrator of the Annapolis Vocational Technical Center, where I studied for the electrical trade in high school. The linked page has information on the AVTC and my time there...

Glaring Satellite Communications Vulnerabilities

Glaring vulnerabilities discovered in satellite communications - RF Cafe"With $800 of off-the-shelf equipment and months' worth of patience, a team of U.S. computer scientists set out to find out how well geostationary satellite communications are encrypted. And what they found was shocking. Close to half of the communications beamed from satellites to the ground that the researchers were able to listen in on were not encrypted. This included sensitive data including cellular text messages, voice calls, as well as sensitive military information, data from internal corporate and bank networks, and the in-flight online activity of airline passengers. The research team, led by Aaron Schulman and Nadia Heninger, then set out to find out which companies and government agencies were failing to encrypt data in order to contact them and disclose the vulnerabilities..."

Practical Adjustment of the Gamma Match

Practical Adjustment of the Gamma Match, February 1953 QST - RF CafeThis is one of the earliest examples I have seen (and I've seen many) of an electronics article that was written in a conversational tone rather than in the heretothen[sic] stoic, all-business type prose. In fact, you would be hard pressed to discern it from a contemporary article in QST magazine. Author Davis describes his process of interfacing 52 Ω coaxial cable to his multi-element beam antenna. The gamma match has the advantage in such an application of being usable when the center of a driven element is directly grounded to the antenna boom. Most other types of feed systems...

Technical Headlines - RF Cafe

• FCC to Delete Obsolete Part 97 Rules in February

• 2026 6G predictions from Keysight

• DRAM Cannot Keep up with AI Demand

• 2025 Began Changing Rare Earth Supply Chains

• AT&T Drops DEI for $1B Spectrum Deal

Today in Science History - RF Cafe
Homepage Archives - RF Cafe

The RF Cafe Homepage Archive is a comprehensive collection of every item appearing daily on this website since 2008 - and many from earlier years. Many thousands of pages of unique content have been added since then.

Power Supply Filters

Power Supply Filters, December 1952 QST - RF CafeHere's a topic - power supply filter design - that never goes out of style. It was originally published in a 1952 issue of QST magazine. Without bothering to worry about source and load impedances, this brief tutorial on the fundamentals of power supply filter design using series inductors and parallel capacitor combinations. Author Gabriel Rumble offers a rule-of-thumb type formula for guessing at a good inductor value based on peak-to-average expected current. This is by no means a comprehensive primer on power supply filter design and is directed more toward someone new to the concept of removing or reducing noise and AC ripple from the output of a DC power supply...

Basic Electronic Counting

Basic Electronic Counting, March 1958 Radio News - RF CafeForgive me if I sound like a broken record (a scratched record, actually), but when selecting articles for posting here on RF Cafe, I like to include ones that are directed toward newcomers to the field of electronics as well as for seasoned veterans. This piece from a 1958 issue of Radio & TV News magazine entitled "Basic Electronic Counting," is a prime example in that it introduces the concept of binary numbers. We've all been there at some point in our careers. A big difference between now and when this article appeared is that in 1958, almost nobody was familiar to binary numbers, and fuggetabout [sic] octal and hexadecimal. Only those relatively few people designing and working with multimillion dollar, vacuum tube-based digital computers installed in universities, megacorporations, and government research facilities...

RF Cafe Engineering & Science Crossword Puzzle December 22, 2019

RF Cafe Engineering & Science Crossword Puzzle December 22, 2019Each 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. This week's puzzle contains a special holiday message (clues with asterisks) to all RF Cafe visitors. 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 Lamarr or the Bikini Atoll, respectively. Enjoy!...

Now - A Radio Pen

Now - A Radio Pen, April 1946, Radio-Craft - RF CafeWell-known radio communications futurist, visionary, and inventor Mohammed Ulysses Fips, I.I.R.R.E.E., published an article in the April 1946 issue of Radio-Craft magazine. He described a portable, compact, fully functional two-way radio disguised to look like an ink pen - the "Radio Pen." It measured approximately 3/4" in diameter and about 6" in length. Like early cellphones, the antenna was not a conformal internal job, but need to be extended externally for use. When I first saw the Radio Pen, it reminded me of the ones used by playboy spy Napoleon Solo and nuclear physicist spy Illya Kuryakin in the old television series "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." Whilst on assignment tracking down a THRUSH bad guy or girl, the master spies would covertly remove the cover of their pen communicators, attach it to the bottom of the pen, and initiate contact back at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters using the "Open Channel D" code phrase...

Promote Your Company on RF Cafe

Sponsor RF Cafe for as Little as $40 per Month - RF CafeBanner 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...

Crosley Fiver Chassis "Chairside" Model 567 Radio

Crosley Fiver Chassis "Chairside" Model 567 Radio Service Data Sheet, January 1938 Radio-Craft - RF CafeThe Crosley Model 567 "Chairside" chassis was an out-of-the-box concept in the day when nearly all radios were of the familiar tabletop or floor console variety. At least for now, I am going to only scan and post Radio Service Data Sheets like this one featuring the Crosley Fiver Chassis "Chairside" Model 567 radio in graphical format, rather than run OCR on them to separate the textual content. There are still many people who restore and service these vintage radios, and often it can be difficult or impossible to find schematics and/or tuning information. I will keep a running list of all data sheets to facilitate a search...

Tone Modulator for R-C from April 1958 Radio-Electronics

Tone Modulator for R-C from April 1958 Radio-Electronics Magazine - RF CafeDeclaring any kind of straight LC tank circuit to be high stability is a bit of a stretch when compared the Q available simply by adding a crystal, even in 1958. Tone modulation was an early method for achieving remote control of model airplanes, boats, and cars. The number of channels with these tone modulation systems is two times the number of modern proportional systems in that moving the rudder left took one channel and moving it right took another. Up and down elevator likewise took two channels. Therefore, this four channel system is only two channels by today's terminology. Technology evolved into fully proportional ...

Kool-Keeping Kwiz

Kool-Keeping Kwiz, June 1970 Popular Electronics - RF CafeHere is a humorous "Kool-Keeping Kwiz" that appeared in the June 1970 issue of Popular Electronics magazine. Your answers to questions will determine whether you are a truly cool technophile, or you are just a maniacal misanthrope who happens to know something about radios and regulations. This would probably have been more aptly printed two issues earlier as an April Fools' joke...

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)...

New Selenium Rectifiers for Home Receivers

New Selenium Rectifiers for Home Receivers, November 1946 Radio News - RF CafeSelenium rectifiers were the first widely used replacements for vacuum tubes in commercial electronic equipment. Since amplification was not possible - that came in late 1948 with the invention of the transistor, compliments of Shockley, Brattain and Bardeen - diode action in AC-DC power supplies was its primary application. Typical reverse breakdown voltage is in the neighborhood of 20 volts and current handling capability depends on the interface surface area. Cost kept the selenium rectifiers from being widely adapted early in their history (1933), but by 1946 when this article was published in Radio-News magazine it had dropped enough to make their use economical. Eliminating one or two vacuum tubes in a radio or television power supply made the sets more efficient and increased reliability since the selenium rectifiers rarely suffered failures if designed into the circuit correctly...

Channel Master Antenna Advertisement

Channel Master Antenna Advertisement, October 1959 Electronics World - RF CafeA while back ago I posted a write-up on the vintage Alliance Model U-100 Tenna-Rotor that I installed in the garage attic with a Channel Master CM5020 VHF / UHF / FM antenna atop it. There are not many television antenna manufacturers around anymore; their numbers have been decreasing continually due first to the advent of cable-delivered TV and now with Internet-delivered TV. The "cord-cutter" movement is helping to give over-the-air television broadcasting a rebirth due to the outrageous cost of subscription programming. Anyone contemplating installing a television antenna today has the same concerns as those back in 1959 when this Channel Master advertisement appeared in Electronics World magazine - gain, directivity, bandwidth, ruggedness...

Radio Dumping

Radio Dumping, February 1939 Radio-Craft - RF Cafe"The situation is one that is difficult, if not wholly impossible to eradicate, because of all modern, 20th Century machine age products, the radio receiver of today undergoes more violent and more radical changes than almost any other single item we can think of." That was the lament of electronics inventor, publisher, and industry visionary Hugo Gernsback in 1939! He wrote in the February issue of Radio-Craft magazine of the practice of electronics component manufacturers vastly overproducing products and then, when they are quickly obsoleted due to newer better ones entering the market space, selling at below cost in hopes of recovering at least some of their investment. For a man who otherwise encouraged, welcomed, and participated in the pushing forward of technological frontiers, the attitude seem strangely at odds with his raison d'être. "This 'dog eat dog' process has gone on ever since and will probably go on for a long time to come." He had no idea ... or maybe he did...

How to Target RFCafe.com for Your Google Ads

Google AdSense - it makes good sense - <em>RF Cafe</em>One aspect of advertising on the RF Cafe website I have not covered is using Google AdSense. The reason is that I never took the time to explore how - or even whether it is possible - to target a specific website for displaying your banner ads. A couple display opportunities have always been provided for Google Ads to display, but the vast majority of advertising on RF Cafe is done via private advertisers. That is, companies deal with me directly and I handle inserting their banner ads into the html page code that randomly selects and displays them. My advertising scheme is what the industry refers to as a "Tenancy Campaign," whereby a flat price per month is paid regardless of number of impressions or clicks. It is the simplest format and has seemed to work well for many companies. With nearly 4 million pageviews per year for RFCafe.com, the average impression rate per banner ad is about 225,000k per year (in eight locations on each page, with >17k pages)...

Mac's Service Shop: Electrostatics at Work

Mac's Service Shop: Electrostatics at Work, February 1973 Popular Electronics - RF CafeElectronics wizard, repairman, and experimenter extraordinaire Mac McGregor, as sort of alter ego of author John T. Frye, provides a brief lesson on electrostatics for his repair shop apprentice wing man Barney (I don't think his last name was ever mentioned). In this 1973 Popular Electronics magazine article, Mac had built two types of electroscopes - one using a pair of pith balls suspended from silk strings and another that was a cobbled-together version of a gold leaf electroscope. His motive was two-fold. First and foremost was to accommodate his own interest in electrostatics, and second to hopefully engender enough curiosity in Barney to cause him to do a dive into science books to learn more. Given the potentially lethal levels of electrostatic charge that builds on TV picture tubes they worked around, gaining a healthy respect for an electrostatic charge...

Western Electric, 1945 Saturday Evening Post

Western Electric Ad from the August 25, 1945, Saturday Evening Post - RF CafeHere is an advertisement by Western Electric from the August 25, 1945, edition of the Saturday Evening Post magazine. As with many of the advertisements of the era, this ad refers to the company's contribution to the war effort during WWII. "How communications help tighten the ring," accompanies a map of the Japanese islands. All forms of battlefield and shipboard communications benefitted from the innovations of Western Electric scientists, engineers, and assembly line workers. These days Western Electric manufactures special purpose audio frequency vacuum tubes and amplifiers to use them. They're not cheap. Back in 1945, Western Electric was a major manufacturer of telephone and telegraph equipment for Bell Telephone, Western Union, and America Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T). Dr. Lee de Forest, inventor of the Audion amplifier tube, worked for Western Union...

The Wavelength Factor - Part II

The Wavelength Factor - II, May 1952 QST - RF CafePart 1 of this 3-part article, titled "Influence of the Antenna of the Choice of Wavelength for Best Communications," appeared in the February 1952 issue of QST magazine. Unfortunately, I do not yet own that edition. However, I do have Part 3, which subsequently appeared in the August 1952 edition. It will eventually get posted here. QST does not have a publicly available archive, but if you happen to be an ARRL member, you can access Part 1 after signing in. In this series, author Yardley Beers discusses propagation effects, modulation systems, and receiver techniques. A particularly interesting topic included in this installment is that of using a form of pulse modulation in FM broadcasting in order to exploit the 'capture effect' whereby a signal in the presence of noise will tend to suppress the noise. I don't think modern stations use that method, possibly because of incompatibility with stereo channels and data added for digital readouts...

Mathematical Puzzles, 1976 Old Farmer's Almanac

Mathematical Puzzles, 1976 Old Farmer's Almanac - RF Cafe1976 is the year I was emancipated (aka graduated) from high school, and this issue of The Old Farmer's Almanac (OFA) happens to be from that year. For as long as I can remember, the OFA has included a set of Mathematical Puzzles in its annual publication. They range in difficulty from 1 (very easy) to 5 (sometimes quite difficult). Having been a faithful buyer and reader of the OFA for as long as I can remember, I have spent many hours toiling with some of the more challenging examples. In fact, there were a lot which I never did figure out and needed to look up the answers in the back (come to think of it, I experienced the same dilemma with my college engineering textbooks). Because quite a few of the Mathematical Puzzles are worthy of an engineer's cerebration, contemplation, and deliberation, all I have will be eventually posted here on RF Cafe. Enjoy!

Insider $$$tock Trading at Your Company

In 2010, I posted a short piece about where to look on the Web to learn what upper management, board members, and large investors were doing with insider company stock trades. At the time, the MSN Money website had a tool where you could enter a company's stock symbol and get a readout of who was buying and - more often than not - selling stock. That web page is gone, but I found the same information on InsiderCow.com. The dollar amounts are truly staggering to people like you (likely) and me (definitely). Numbers reported are sale values, not profit to the stock holder. Many of the stocks were issued as either grants or options, but even outright purchased stocks are included as well. Regardless, prepare to have your jaw drop if you have never seen this type of data before. Some of the more familiar technology companies have been selected for examples...

Windfreak Technologies SynthHD PRO - RF Cafe