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 In a groundbreaking announcement that will
forever transform global communications, QentComm®©™ (Quantum Entanglement Communications)
has unveiled the world's first
commercially viable quantum entanglement communication system. Dubbed QeG®©™
(Quantum entanglement Generation, pronounced kwee-gee), supplementing the traditional
4G, 5G, and 6G nomenclature, this revolutionary technology eliminates the limitations
of traditional radio-based systems, delivering instantaneous, unlimited connectivity
across any distance without reliance on satellites, cell towers, or fiber optics.
Under the leadership of Kirt Blattenberger, QentComm (pronounced kwent-kōm) has
created a system that defies conventional physics by utilizing quantum entanglement
for real-time, secure communication between devices anywhere in the universe - including
here on Earth...
 In this "Carl & Jerry" technodrama from
a 1957 issue of Popular Electronics magazine, the two boys start out enjoy a
casual day of kite flying, using a homebrew radio-controlled camera attached to
the kite to capture an aerial view of Round Island in a lake. After successfully
taking a picture, they develop the film and discover two men and an odd setup on
the island. Curious, they return the next day, find a hidden tunnel, and stumble
upon an illegal liquor still. As you might expect, the teens run into a heap of
trouble when the moonshiners nab them. Using their combined ingenuity and
knowledge of communications methods common to Ham radio operators of the era,
contact was made and help was on the way. Read about Carl and Jerry's exploit
and exactly what it was that saved the day - and their hides!
 "In late January 2025, 17 students and staff
members from Las Animas High School (LAHS) in Colorado visited the
Deep Space Exploration Society Radio Telescope (DSES) located at the Plishner
Radio Astronomy and Space Sciences Center near Haswell, Colorado. They also got
an introduction to amateur radio. 'This first field trip visit of high school students
reflected the dreams of Michael Lowe, former DSES board president, who sought to
create a center for radio astronomy and space science education in southeast Colorado,'
said DSES President Myron Babcock, KL7YY..."
 Making format changes to magazines after many
years of an established standard always ruffles the figurative feathers of a significant
portion of regular readers. Two magazines I read monthly, Model Aviation
and QST, recently underwent a format change - both of which I considered
very nice. However, reader comments in the aftermath showed a few who were not impressed.
Popular Electronics magazine in 1966 made announcements regarding plans
to adopt some of the
newer base units for physical measurements, including this
one for beginning to use "Hertz" (Hz), along various numerical prefix forms,
instead of "cycles per second" (cps). The editors give sound reason...
 The
Beverage Antenna, very familiar to amateur radio operators, is
a simple but efficient, highly directional, non-resonant antenna that consists of
a single straight wire of one or more wavelengths that is suspended above the ground.
It is orientated parallel to the direction of intended reception. One end is terminated
to ground through a resistor, and the other is connected to the receiver. The following
quote comes from the patent (US1,81,089) text: "In accordance with theoretical considerations,
if an antenna were to be freely suspended and if the surface of the earth constituted
a perfectly conducting parallel plane, current waves would travel through...
 This letter was sent to Hugo Gernsback,
publisher of Radio-Electronics magazine, in response to the "30-Day
Record Response" article penned by noted scientist and inventor Mohammed Ulysses
Fips. In it, Stephen A. Kallis, Jr. heaped laud upon the "Most Revered and Esteemed
Fips" for his long-term recording device (remember, 1961 was many decades before
microminiature terabyte memory and microprocessors) were available, and chastises
Mr. Gernsback for evidently calling into question the authenticity of the recorder.
Kallis, a self-proclaimed stereo enthusiast, bolsters Fips' case by citing "A Proposed
Listening Area," by the Institute of Synergistic Statics Proceedings...
 Raise your hand if you're old enough to
remember doing printed circuit board layout using
Rubylith tape. My hand is up. Back in the early 1980s, I did prototype
PCB designs in an engineering development lab at Westinghouse Electric's Oceanic
Division. Most of it was for analog and RF substrates that would be photographically
reduced in size for use with bare integrated circuit die and surface mount passive
components (Rs, Ls, and Cs), upon which I would later epoxy-mount those components
and wire-bond everything using 1-mil gold wire. However, there were projects where
full-size leaded components were used on a through-hole PCB that used not only the
Rubylith tapes but also sheets with special electronics shapes for solder pads around
the holes for components leads, ground and power planes, board-edge connectors...
 "Quantum systems don't just transition between
phases - they do so in ways that defy classical intuition. A new experiment has
directly observed these
dissipative phase transitions (DPTs), revealing how quantum states shift under
carefully controlled conditions. This breakthrough could unlock powerful new techniques
for stabilizing quantum computers and sensors, making them more resilient and precise
than ever before. A new frontier phase transitions, like water freezing into ice,
are a familiar part of everyday life. In quantum systems, however, these transitions
can be far more extreme, governed by principles like Heisenberg's uncertainty..."
 In
this November 1940 issue of the Boy Scouts Boys' Life magazine, amateur
radio operators, or "hams," are described as having the ability to communicate across
vast distances, connecting far-flung locations such as Goulds, Florida, Cali, Colombia,
Cairo, Kenilworth, England, Bombay, and Brisbane. These operators, licensed by the
Federal Communications Commission, engage in various activities such as talking
to distant stations, participating in contests, and providing emergency communication
during natural disasters. With call letters assigned by international treaty, these
stations use a combination of code and phone to make contact, exchanging reports
and QSL cards. The
Radio merit badge was first offered in 1918 and has been...
 ConductRF is continually innovating and
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and phased matched VNA applications 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. A partnership with Newark assures fast, reliable access. Please visit
ConductRF today to see
how they can help your project!
 The date approacheth when, according to
Western customs, every body needs to stand a vigil against the attempt of another
body to make him or her a fool. That date is of course April 1st, aka, April
Fools' Day. Many of the technical magazine we grew up with - and some still today
- engage in the ruse. Innovator and publisher Hugo Gernsback, who's long list of
accomplishments includes this Radio-Electronics magazine, often contributed
his own wit to the April editions. The usual scheme is to make the article just
authentic enough to be possibly real, while including features outrageous enough
to clue the read that he is being "had." Experienced subscribers knew that the Mohammed
Ulysses Fips byline was sure to deliver an April Fools delight. Here, Mr. Fips
expounds on the newfangled "Electronics
Razor..."
 "Quantum computing has long struggled with
creating
entangled photons efficiently, but a team of researchers has discovered a game-changing
method using metasurfaces - flat, engineered structures that control light. By leveraging
these metasurfaces, they can generate and manipulate entangled photons more easily
and compactly than ever before. This breakthrough could open the door to smaller,
more powerful quantum computers and even pave the way for quantum networks that
deliver entangled photons to multiple users..."
 Here is a chart you don't see every day
- "Temperature Rise in Rigid Waveguide." The company, Engineering
Antenna Systems, of Manchester, New Hampshire, that published the chart in a 1965
edition of Engineering magazine, does not exist anymore. They were probably
bought by someone else, but I could not even find an honorable mention of them in
a Google search. Given the very low attenuation of properly sized and installed
waveguide, it is hard to imagine a temperature rise of 500°F; however, when megawatts
are pumped into it even a couple tenths of a decibel of attenuation per 100 feet
results in a lot of power loss. Noted is how attenuation - and therefore temperature
rise - is greater for frequencies at the lower end of the waveguide's operational
range. Temperature rise numbers are for natural convection in free air...
 Here is an inspiring interview of
Werbel Microwave's Ernest Werbel - a case of pulling oneself up by one's own
bootstraps --- everything RF recently interviewed Ernest Werbel, the Chief Design
Engineer of Werbel Microwave. He is from Livingston, NJ, and got his associates
in EE Technology, at County College of Morris. Ernest completed his Bachelors in
Electronics and Computer Engineering Technology from NJ Institute of Technology.
He founded Werbel Microwave in 2014. Q. Can you tell us about Werbel Microwave?
When did you start the company and how has it evolved over the years? Ernest Werbel:
Firstly, thank you for the opportunity to participate in the everything RF community.
I appreciate everything that Raghav and his team have done for us since the beginning,
getting our products listed on everything RF and featuring our products in the email
blasts... As a child and teen in the 90s, I was always interested in electronics.
When I was very young, a radio was a magical box with a voice. Later, when my grandparents
passed in '97, my parents and I were cleaning out their home in Brooklyn. Among
other things were many old and broken consumer electronic items...
 Today we have
missing persons notices printed on milk cartons and computer-aged
pictures of missing kids on bulletin boards at Walmart, and of course the Internet
with all its various forms of publicity. In 1935, evidently, an electronics magazine
was a proper venue for placing a missing person ad. At the time there was no convenient
and accessible way for family members to reach out to a nationwide audience other
than to place ads in magazines and/or newspapers in remote locations. I thought
it odd to see such a placement in this edition of Short Wave Craft magazine,
but considering the aforementioned, doing so is entirely reasonable for a worried
family. I wonder how much it cost to place the notice? It's heartbreaking, really...
• 2025 Tech Jobs Expected
to Take Off
• Semiconductor
Industry Faces a Seismic Shift
• 76% of
News Consumers Still Use AM/FM
• FCC
Spectrum Rules to Support Advanced Flight Technologies
• Radio
Attracts High Purchasing Power Consumers
 I'm always aware of the old saying that
it is better to remain silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove
all doubt, but I'll take the risk here. The ARRL's QST magazine has for
decades in the April issue published at least one unannounced "April Fool" item.
I think I found at least two for 2025. While enthusiastically reading "Turn Your
Vertical Antenna into a Rotatable Beam," (p60), it didn't occur to me that this
was the April issue, and I was in awe of Jay Kolinsky's (NE2Q) intuition and creativity
in devising a scheme to get directivity from his standard vertical whip antenna.
By sliding a carbon fiber tube with a narrow slit along the length over top of the
antenna, a 14 dB increase was realized in the direction of the slit. NE2Q has
named his invention the Loof Lirpa Slot (LLS). What's in a name -
Juliet?.
Is a patent in the works?
 The other suspect is the CW Corp. of America's
"Snappy
Training Key," reported on page 95 by Ellwood Brem (K3YV). You need to log in
to read the articles, or borrow a hard copy from a Ham friend.
 "A major scientific leap has been made with
the creation of the longest
ultra-secure quantum satellite link between China and South Africa, spanning
nearly 13,000 km. This unprecedented achievement, marking the first quantum satellite
link in the Southern Hemisphere, relied on real-time quantum key distribution to
transmit encrypted images between continents. World’s Longest Quantum Satellite
Link Established Scientists from South Africa and China have successfully created
the world’s longest intercontinental quantum satellite link, spanning 12,900 kilometers
(~8,000 miles). This ultra-secure connection was made possible using China's Jinan-1..."
 According to the science and mechanics magazine
I read during the 1960s through 1980s, we should all have personal nuclear power
generators powering our houses, watches, cars, and just about anything that runs
on electricity. Like with flying cars and robotic domestic servants, were not even
close to that a quarter of the way through the next century (2025). This news item
appears to be a good start on the promise. "Imagine never charging your phone again
or having a pacemaker that lasts a lifetime. Scientists are developing tiny
nuclear batteries powered by radiocarbon, a safe and abundant by-product of
nuclear plants. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, which degrade over time and harm the
environment, these new designs use beta radiation to trigger an electron avalanche
and generate electricity. The technology could one day make nuclear power as accessible
as your pocket device..."
 FM (frequency modulation) radio certainly
was a hot topic beginning in the middle to late 1940s. With the war out of the way,
energies and resources were being redirected back to peacetime production. Major
Edwin Armstrong announced his FM scheme in 1935, and as with many new inventions,
it was met with skepticism by many who doubted his claim of static interference
immunity. For many, it was a lack of understanding that caused the negative reaction,
caused primarily by the increased level of sophistication of the transmitter and
receiver circuitry. Amplitude modulation (AM) was so easy even a caveman could understand
it, but adding phase relationships into the equation (literally) left many in the
dust. This
FM Radio Quiz from a 1950 issue of Radio & Television
News magazine tests your grasp of frequency modulation principles...
 Stan Goldberg is a familiar name to comic
book aficionados for his artistry in Spider Man, the Incredible Hulk, and the Archie
series. QST magazine had him listed in the "Silent Keys" column in the
November 2014 issue because he passed away in August. A Silent Key, in Hamdom, is
usually a title reserved for a deceased licensed operator (the 'key' reference being
a Morse code key), but a search of the Internet and the FCC license database web
page did not turn up a call sign for him. Unless his record has been dropped from
the database, Mr. Goldberg might never have actually been a Ham, but earned the
Silent Key acknowledgement because of his involvement in a 1986 special edition
comic book titled "Archie's
Ham Radio Adventure." It was quite an extensive story...
 In a 1966 issue of Radio-Electronics
magazine, a revolutionary sodium-sulfur storage battery was demonstrated at a Detroit
press conference, suggesting that Ford could enter the electric car market within
the next ten years, and in the process "bring
back electric autos." That suggests there were EVs before, and in fact, there
were, at the turn of the 20th Century. The new battery, operating at 800° Fahrenheit,
was completely sealed and produced 15 times more power than a lead-acid battery
of the same weight, without the need to vent charging gases. The battery's design
featured sodium and sulfur separated by a ceramic partition, with sodium ions moving
through the ceramic to form sodium sulfide during discharge and reversing the process
during charging, producing no gases or byproducts...
 This
Electronics Current Quiz from the October 1963 edition of Popular Electronics
magazine is recent enough (if you consider more than half a century ago to be recent)
that it uses both transistors as well as vacuum tubes in the example circuits. I
have to admit to only scoring 60% on the quiz, which is pretty lame. You will probably
do better, especially if you are my age or older. I thought the names of the current
type would make the challenge a breeze, but not so in my case. Just as back in school
days when looking up the solution to problems in the back of the textbook and the
answers seem obvious (well, not always), so, too, do these...
 "Researchers at the University of Twente,
in collaboration with the City University of Hong Kong, have designed a cutting-edge
programmable
photonic chip in a thin-film lithium niobate platform, an important material
in photonics. Published in Nature Communications, this work paves the way for next-generation
high-performance radar and communication applications. An important material is
changing the way optical chips work, making them smaller, faster, and more efficient:
thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN). It offers exceptional properties for how light
and electrical signals can interact..."
 Alexander Graham Bell was born on March
3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland, to Alexander Melville Bell and Eliza Grace Symonds.
His father was a professor of elocution and the inventor of Visible Speech, a system
designed to help deaf people communicate. His mother, Eliza, was an accomplished
pianist who lost her hearing later in life. Bell was the second of three children;
his brothers, Melville James and Edward Charles, both died of tuberculosis. Bell's
early education was influenced by his father's work in speech and elocution. He
attended the Royal High School in Edinburgh and later studied at the University
of Edinburgh, though he did not complete a degree. His family moved to London in
1865, where Bell continued his studies at University College London, focusing...
 Here is a handy-dandy baker's dozen of "kinks,"
otherwise known as
tricks of the trade, shortcuts, or clever ideas, that could prove
useful while working in the lab at work or in your shop at home. They appeared in
a 1935 issue of Hugo Gernsback's Short Wave Craft magazine. One suggestion
is to place a sheet of tracing paper over your schematic while wiring a circuit
and draw each connection as it is completed, rather than mark up the original drawing.
That was definitely good for a time when making a spare copy of a magazine page
or assembly instruction from a kit was not as simple a matter as it is today. Whether
it be a schematic or a set of plans for a model airplane, I always make a copy to
work and draw notes on rather than defacing the original...
 This quiz from a 1963 issue of Radio-Electronics
magazine tests readers'
familiarity with key electrical laws beyond the well-known Ohm's Law, including
Kirchhoff's voltage and current laws for circuit analysis, Joule's law for heat
in resistors, Poynting's theorem for energy flow, Lenz's law for induced forces,
Neumann's formula for transformers, Wien's displacement law impacting infrared electronics,
Helmholtz's theorem for vector fields, the Wiedemann-Franz-Lorentz law connecting
conductivity types, and Faraday's law of induction, challenging engineers to recall
these foundational principles and their discoverers. Well, it is not exactly a quiz
as much...
|
 As with your school and college days where once
there was no longer any reason to memorize physical constants, conversion formulas, and
names of people, places, and things, much of the noggin's gray matter was repurposed
to remember topics of more immediate need. You can always look up what you have forgotten.
While studying for your Ham radio or FCC license, being able to be able to quickly convert
between wavelength and frequency is essential. Recalling on demand
frequency-wavelength pairs is a real time saver on a timed exam. Even being able
to perform the conversion on a calculator during the test takes up valuable time that
could be better used on other tasks. This handy-dandy chart for converting...
 Note the byline in this 1953 Radio-Electronics
magazine article - Juliette Drut (she's on the cover). Not often were articles in electronics
trade magazines penned by a dame or damsel back in the day. For that matter, it's still
pretty rare today... hmmm... but I digress. If you thumb through any electronics magazines
from the middle of the last century, you find that the pages are filled with advertisements
offering courses to train prospects in the field of
television and radio repair, with promises of a potential to make big money.
Both institutional and home-study courses abounded. The costs never appeared,
but hey, with the money a fellow would be making soon, surely the price would be
inconsequential. Interestingly, in those same issues would be articles such as
this one addressing the reality of electronics servicing...
 Part 1 of this "All About IC's" trilogy titled,
"What Makes Them Tick," author Bob Hibberd introduced the concept of semiconductor physics
and doped PN junctions. In Part 2, he discusses methods used to
fabricate monolithic, integrated circuits (IC's) on silicon chips.
Transistors, diodes, resistor, capacitors, and to some extent, inductors, can be
built using a combination of variously doped junction regions, metallization,
and oxidation (insulators). Technology has come a long way since 1969, including
mask techniques, 3-D structures, doping gradients, feature size, dielectric
breakdown strength, current leakage, circuit density, mixed analog, RF, and
digital circuitry, and other things. Part 3, covered in the August issue, goes
into more detail about how passive components are realized in silicon...
 Most
professional engineers and technicians will never have the need to calculate the
capacitance, inductance, or impedance of a
coaxial cable since they are
usually designing systems using well-defined components that are manufactured to
exacting specifications. Students, hobbyists (Ham radio operators), and research
types are probably the ones most likely to actually plug numbers into a calculator.
For those people, I present these equations. Be very careful to realize that at
frequencies far from DC, factors like skin depth and effective inner and outer conductor
diameters may be significantly different than the physical measured values, and
that can significantly affect real world results. Therefore, be sure to consult
manufacturers' published data before making a final decision. I leave it to other
sources to provide the complex equations needed to precisely model coaxial cables...
 When I first read the title for this article,
"A Look at the PC Market," I was thinking personal computers, not
printed circuits. It being from a 1972 issue of Popular Electronics, my assumption
was that the photos of circuit boards were from early kit format computers, but
then it finally dawned on me that there were no personal computers in 1972 - not
even in kit form. Actually, that is not entirely true since there were advertisements
for hokey contraptions called "computers" that combined some switches, logic gates,
and LEDs for implementing simple multiple choice true/false testing boxes or rudimentary
(with emphasis on "rud[e]") calculators. Getting to the real story, though, the
1970s was the decade where printed circuit boards (PCBs) were replacing point-to-point
wiring wherever possible. If you opened a radio or television...
 The
electromagnetic world sure is a noisy place and it is getting worse all the time
- in every region of the spectrum. Intentional radiation is not so much of a problem
because it usually falls within well-defined limits and is predictable, but sloppy
engineering and, honestly, ignorance, has made life harder for just about everyone.
Listeners to broadcast radio in both the
AM and FM bands
have really taken a hit. AM has always been prone to interference by its very nature,
so anyone listening expects the occasional pop or hiss from atmospheric phenomena
or a light switch being flipped on or off. Have someone in the house run a blender
or drill and you can forget hearing anything until the task is completed. It comes
with the territory, so to speak. FM was and is largely immune to most forms of interference,
but lately I have been noticing it coming from some of the most unusual places.
For as long as I can remember, I have preferred to have a radio on in the background
whilst whiling away at work and at play...
 Thanks to Chuck U. for providing new
Watkins-Johnson (WJ) Tech Notes v10-3 and v15-2, and an
improved copy of v5-2. A lot (but not all) of the TNs that I had or other people
sent to me are made from B&W copies from old scanners, so the quality is not
super good. Chuck's versions appear to be scanned from the originals in color,
so they're very good...
 Here is a quick, 10-question
electronics-themed quiz about coils (inductors). It appeared in
the June 1962 edition of Popular Electronics magazine. Don't be scared
off by the vacuum tubes that appear in three drawings. Just pretend they are
transistors - it won't affect your answers. One of the coil applications is
almost obsolete for most people as the nature of computer monitors and TV
screens has changed significantly in the last decade...
 If my counting is correct, by 1952 only 33
of America's 48 states (Hawaii and Alaska weren't admitted until 1959), and Washington,
D.C., had
television broadcasting stations. That most of the early television
experimentation occurred on the east coast is apparent by looking at the number
of stations there compared to the west coast. You might think California would
have the largest amount of TV stations, but it only had 11 located in 3 cities.
New York, on the other hand, had 13 in 7 cities. Ohio had 12 stations in 5
cities, and Pennsylvania had 7 stations in 5 cities, one of which was my town of
Erie. Vermont, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Wyoming, both Dakota, and Oregon were
among those with no television stations by 1952. That seems unbelievable since
that was only 67 years ago, but evidently was so. The network "lines" included
microwave repeaters to reach from coast to coast. On September 4, 1951, AT&T
opened the network by televising a presidential address...
 Did you know that Sperry was assigned a trademark
on the term "klystron?"
The klystron vacuum tube type was actually invented by invented in 1937 by American
electrical engineers Russell and Sigurd Varian (I'm old enough to have had Varian
Associates catalogs). According to this full-page advertisement in a 1944 issue
of Radio News magazine, not only did Sperry develop the klystron vacuum
tube, but they also coined a term to describe any study or application of it: "klystronics."
Here is a very interesting excerpt from the Wikipedia page, "The work of physicist
W.W. Hansen was instrumental in the development of the klystron and was cited by
the Varian brothers in their 1939 paper...
 Admittedly, with all the reading I have done
of vintage electronics magazines, news of this
Crystron (crystal-electron) vacuum tube device invented by Mr. Mohammed
Ulysses Fips, as reported in the April 1947 issue of Radio Craft magazine,
evaded my attention. The article came only a couple months after publication of
the 40th anniversary edition that celebrated Dr. Lee de Forest's invention
of the Audion tube. According to Mr. Fips, his Crystron one-upped the Audion
by virtue of its containing a small amount of radio isotope which obviated the need
for the traditional "B-battery" concept also developed by de Forest to supply
a high voltage for driving the output stage circuit. While not capable of powering
a concert hall audio speaker system, it did make possible use of a small speaker
as a nearby personal listening device rather than requiring headphones or earbuds.
Without divulging the most critical and closely-held details of the Crystron as
the U.S. Patent Office...
 University of Southampton, England, professor
James Holbrook suggests in this 1968 Radio-Electronics magazine article an "easy-to-follow
substitute for the left- and right-hand rules," but I'm not so sure that the good professor's
"Electron
Orbit Method" is any better or easier to remember. Admittedly, it is hard to remember
whether the use a left-hand rule or a right-hand rule for the various physical laws -
motor rotation direction, current induction, torque, vector cross products, etc. Those
involving current flow are made even more confounding because you need to know whether
the creator of the rule refers to conventional current flow (positive-to-negative) of
electron current flow (negative-to-positive). Note in Figure 110 from the Electricity
volume of Basic Navy Training Courses how the generator rule is described as a
left-hand rule with conventional current flow...
 Those of us who have been around for six
or more decades have lived through two evolutions of video display types - raster
scanned
cathode ray tubes (CRTs) and digitally pixelated light-emitting diode (LED)
and liquid crystal (LCD) displays. Unlike with the latter display types that improved
in color depth, picture resolution and display size, the former had effectively
a fixed resolution of horizontal lines (525 vertical steps - only 484 visible, actually,
due to blanking). That meant for CRTs, designers needed to find ways to make images
appear in-focus while also looking continuous on larger screens. Doing so involved
cleverly adjusting the size and spacing of fluorescent color dots on the picture
tube face while also using special metal masks between the electron gun and the
tube. A lot of research that included panels of people rendering opinions...
 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...
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...
 I always learn something new with each episode
of "Mac's
Radio Service Shop," but not necessarily related to electronics. Such is the
case in this 1950 issue of Radio & Television News magazine where after Mac
gives Barney a quick lesson in how to determine a transformer's winding turns ratio
when needing to create an impedance match circuit. He then, while discussing whether
'free' repair estimates are truly free or of any real value at all, he uses the
phrase 'a horse on you.' Maybe it is because I don't frequent bars that I had never
heard that, but after a little research I now know it refers to a bar dice game
called 'Horse.' 'A horse on you' is when you lose the final round of a 2-out-of-3
challenge. 'A horse apiece' is when you and your opponent...
 For many years, Radio-Electronics
magazine editor Hugo Gernsback and Audion tube inventor
Dr. Lee de Forest had sort of a mutual admiration society thing going
on. that's understandable because they we both men of great accomplishment and are
deserving of everyone's admiration. In this 1952 issue, Dr. de Forest
was invited to procrastinate on future of the transistor - the semiconductor equivalent
of his amplifying vacuum tube. He humbly states, "If in the year 1912 some editor
had requested of me an article on the 'Future of the Electronic Tube,' I probably
would have felt quite as incompetent and short-sighted a prophet of the developments
of that [...], as I feel today as Mr. Gernsback requests from me an outlook over
the future of the transistor, [the] possible successor of the grid tube." Less than
four yeas had passed since the Bell Labs trio announced their transistor invention,
but the technology advanced quickly once made known. History shows Dr. de Forest
was correct in predicting the vacuum tube and transistor (in all their various forms)
would coexist for a long time. It was not until the 1980s that solid state devices
had replaced nearly all tubes (except the CRT display)...For many years, Radio-Electronics
magazine editor Hugo Gernsback and Audion tube inventor Dr. Lee de Forest
had sort of a mutual admiration society thing going on. that's understandable because
they we both men of great accomplishment and are deserving of everyone's admiration...
 Since 2008, IEEE's International Symposium
on the Physical and Failure Analysis of Integrated Circuits (IFPA) has on occasion
held an "Art of Failure
Analysis" photo contest. Familiar shapes and patterns occur regularly in nature
at the macro level that can be seen and recognized by almost anyone; e.g., the Nautilus
spiral, the Fibonacci series in plant life, and fractal structures. It takes a high
power optical microscope or even a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to see those
sights in the realm of the very small. Sometimes, though, the images are downright
bazaar and look eerily familiar...
Hugo Gernsback, as I have often pointed out, had a penchant for predicting technology
development and user trends. Decades of researching and publishing articles and
books, inventing electrical and mechanical devices, and creating educational material
enabled a synergistic combination of real-world experience and visionary thinking.
In this 1945 Radio-Craft magazine editorial entitled, "The Radio Alarm," Mr. Gernsback envisioned a form of public
emergency broadcast system that would notify the public of impending and/or in-process
dangers like natural and man-caused disasters, invading armed forces, police alerts,
etc. His idea involved incorporating a special always-on circuit into radios that
would listen for a broadcast tone and then switch the radio on automatically. Of
course in 1945 there would need to be a minute of two allotted for the tubes to
warm up before sending out the actual message. In 1951 the CONELRAD system was put
into operation to alert citizens in the even of a Cold War era invasion or attack,
doing exactly what Gernsback had envisioned, albeit without a the special turn-on
circuit. Then, in 1963 the more familiar Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) took over...
 It was a lot of work, but I finally finished
a version of the "RF &
Electronics Schematic & Block Diagram Symbols"" that works well with Microsoft
Office™ programs Word™, Excel™, and Power Point™. This is an equivalent of the extensive
set of amplifier, mixer, filter, switch, connector, waveguide, digital, analog,
antenna, and other commonly used symbols for system block diagrams and schematics
created for Visio™. Each of the 1,000+ symbols was exported individually from Visio
in the EMF file format, then imported into Word on a Drawing Canvas. The EMF format
allows an image to be scaled up or down without becoming pixelated, so all the shapes
can be resized in a document and still look good. The imported symbols can also
be UnGrouped into their original constituent parts for editing...
 After previously presenting the permanent
magnet, chapter 12 of the NAVPERS series of courses takes a look at the
electromagnet. It is like a natural or artificial magnet in its attraction but
unlike in its control. Its attraction is tremendous-it can hold tons of iron. But
because this magnet is powered by an electric current, the magnetism can be turned
on and off with the flick of a switch. Electrically-powered magnets are called electromagnets.
Electromagnets come in all sizes and shapes - and do all kinds of jobs. All electromagnets
use a coil of wire and a core of iron to produce their magnetism. The coil furnishes
the magnetic flux and the iron concentrates it. To understand how it works, you
should start with the magnetic field around a conductor. All conductors carrying
current are surrounded by a field-of flux. As in the case of artificial magnets,
iron filings will make this field visible. Connect a wire to a battery and dip the
wire in iron filings... |
