|
 I have written
before about the love-hate relationship a lot of the buying public had with
television and radio repair shops and repairmen - similar to car owners and
mechanics. Lots of jokes and skits (what today is termed a "meme") were created
back in the heyday of in-home entertainment to make light of the situation.
These four
electronics-themed comics from a 1962 issue of Radio-Electronics
magazine are typical examples. The one from page 111 alludes to an issue that
would almost never be seen today on a TV, unless maybe the AC power supply was
on the fritz. A composite analog broadcast signal contained vertical and
horizontal sync[ronization] components which...
 "Electrostatic
discharge (ESD) protection is a significant concern in the chemical and electronics
industries. In electronics, ESD often causes integrated circuit failures due to
rapid voltage and current discharges from charged objects, such as human fingers
or tools. With the help of 3D printing techniques, researchers at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory (LLNL) are 'packaging' electronics with printable elastomeric
silicone foams to provide both mechanical and electrical protection of sensitive
components. Without suitable protection, substantial equipment and component..."
 Mr. Bob Davis, a seemingly endless
source of little known and/or long forgotten
historical radio and television
technical trivia, apprised me of this short segment from the 1960s Dragnet
television series, starring Sgt. Joe Friday. It features a guy, who turns out to
be a ... well, I won't spoil it for you ... who proudly professes his thirty
year career as a radio repairman. "...started back in the days of the old Crosleys, Atwater-Kents, Farnsworths.
Those were real radios, well built, well designed. Nothing cheap about any of
them. They didn't have transistors in those days, just tubes as big as light
bulbs. That meant heavy chassis, heavy transformers, and we didn't fix them by
simply slapping in a new part, either. We fixed the old parts. I wish...
 A new word has been added to my personal
lexicon: "sphenoidal."
Author John Kraus used it to describe the wedge shape of a
corner reflector. The Oxford Dictionary defines "sphenoid" thusly: "A compound
bone that forms the base of the cranium, behind the eye and below the front part
of the brain. It has two pairs of broad lateral "wings" and a number of other projections,
and contains two air-filled sinuses." This "square corner" configuration - essentially
a "V" shape, is shown to exhibit up to 10 dB of gain while being relatively (compared
to a parabolic reflector) insensitive...
 Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity,
published in 1915, fundamentally reshaped the way scientists understand gravity,
space, and time. It extended his 1905 special theory of relativity, which described
how the laws of physics are consistent for all observers in uniform motion and how
light's speed is constant in a vacuum. However, the special theory did not address
accelerating reference frames or gravitational forces. Einstein's general theory
tackled these limitations by proposing that gravity is not a force in the traditional
sense, but rather a curvature of spacetime caused by mass and energy. This profound
insight would alter the course of 20th-century physics, influencing cosmology, black
hole theory...
 "The growing use of artificial intelligence
(AI)-based models is placing greater demands on the electronics industry, as many
of these models require significant storage space and computational power. Engineers
worldwide have thus been trying to develop neuromorphic computing systems that could
help meet these demands, many of which are based on memristors.
Memristors are electronic components that regulate the flow of electrical current
in circuits while also 'remembering' the amount of electrical charge that previously
passed through them. These components could replicate the function of biological..."
 Reading through the news items in the vintage
electronics magazines provides a mixture of important historical facts and figures
along with some predictions on the future of the industry. Some of the predictions
turn out to be amazingly accurate, even though in retrospect they might seem obvious.
Take, for example, Sylvania VP Dr. Robert Castor's foresight about how, "the future
growth of the semiconductor industry lies in a major switch from the production
of individual components to solid-state subsystems that can be used as building
blocks in electronic designs." "Well of course," you might be temped to say; however,
at the time there were still significant hurdles to overcome related to material
purity, wafer size, photolithography...
 Reactel has become one of the industry leaders
in the design and manufacture of RF and microwave filters, diplexers, and sub-assemblies. They
offer the generally known tubular, LC, cavity, and waveguide designs, as well as
state of the art high performance suspended substrate models. Through a continuous
process of research and development, they have established a full line of filters
of filters of all types - lowpass, highpass, bandpass, bandstop, diplexer, and more.
Established in 1979. Please contact Reactel today to see how they might help your
project.
 2012 came and went more than a decade ago.
The date was 50 years in the future back in 1962 when Radio-Electronics
magazine editor Hugo Gernsback asked industry leaders to cogitate on possibilities
of the
state of electronics in 2012. Let's see how they did. One guy predicted our
communications would be in the 100 THz to 1,500 THz band, using 2 decimeter
antennas. Nope. Another believed we would be communicating with aliens on a regular
basis. A military dude partly hit the mark by predicting 2- and 3-year-olds would
be sitting in front of "televideo screens" (cellphones) learning Esperanto and "other
basic studies." Bell Labs believed most audiovisual material, along with commerce,
would be done electronically; i.e., the World Wide Web. I'm not quite sure how to
interpret the IT&T guy's prediction of replacing microwave space transmission
with light wavelength waveguide transmission. Seems bassackward to me...
 Here is a unique approach to discouraging scam
callers. A lot of scam calls are themselves AI, so can one AI detect and aviod another?
"Gangster
Granny! Meet Daisy: O2's new weapon against scammers. O2 has unveiled its new,
unique weapon in its fight against scammers: Daisy, an AI-powered assistant designed
to keep fraudsters talking and waste their time. As part of Virgin Media O2's 'Swerve
the Scammers' campaign, Daisy's mission is to distract scammers with realistic,
rambling conversations, helping protect potential victims while raising awareness
about fraud. Her lifelike conversations, peppered with stories about family or hobbies
like knitting, have kept fraudsters on the line for up to 40 minutes..."
Albert Einstein's
special theory of relativity, a milestone in physics, transformed our understanding
of space, time, and energy (mass). The theory, published in 1905, stemmed from Einstein's
efforts to resolve inconsistencies in classical physics, specifically between Newtonian
mechanics and electromagnetism as formulated by James Clerk Maxwell. By reconceiving
space and time as interconnected and relative to the observer's frame of reference,
Einstein established a framework that had profound implications for science and
technology. To understand how this groundbreaking idea emerged, one must consider...
 Werbel Microwave's Model WM2PD-0.5-26.5-S
is a wideband 2-way in-line power splitter covering of 500 MHz to 26.5 GHz with
excellent return loss, low insertion loss, and high isolation performance. With
ultrawideband performance, amplitude balance is typically 0.24 dB and phase
unbalance is typically 2.6°. Insertion loss is low for the bandwidth, coming in
at a typical 1.2 dB above 3 dB splitting loss. Return loss 16 dB
typical. Isolation 18 dB typical. The device is precision-assembled and tested
in the USA...
 If you wanted a career as an
electronics technician at the end of World War II, the world was your oyster
- so to speak. Electronics and communications trade magazines and publications like
Mechanix Illustrated and Popular Science ran a plethora of ads
monthly that offered unlimited opportunity to men seeking a career servicing the
burgeoning market of postwar technological marvels. Even though the enclosures were
not yet being marked with "No user serviceable parts inside," that fact was most
people were not qualified - nor did they want - to monkey with the guts of radios,
televisions, and other household appliances... (I provide a simulation to show the
true zener diode circuit output)...
 Take time out of your busy workday to look
at these three
electronics-themed comics from the February 1962 issue of Radio-Electronics..
The page 32 comic reminds me of sometime in the late 1970s while working as
an electrician (prior to enlisting in the USAF) when I was doing side jobs, and
a guy had me wire up a receptacle for his big 25" screen (CRT) which he had mounted
in a wall, with the chassis sticking out the back. It was in an upstairs room in
a Cape Cod style house with lots of room behind the wall. He was a "man cave" pioneer
with a full suite of high quality audiovisual equipment - even a Betamax machine!
The page 81 comic exhibits the irony that would have existed in the day if
American-made electronics equipment had been promoted in Japan, which they probably
were not. In 1962, Japanese...
 Admittedly, I mostly posted this because
of the drawing. "While
direct-to-cell (D2C) satellite communications were a big topic at the recent
Brooklyn 6G Summit, the technology is already here, well before 6G's anticipated
2030 arrival. Apple and Google already offer D2C emergency messaging, and Starlink,
T-Mobile and others are anticipated to follow. D2C satellite communications will
be well established when 6G arrives. The 3GPP froze a 5G specification for Non-Terrestrial
Networks (NTN) in Release 17 in March 2022, which means that NTN-compatible chips
and components should be available now or soon. SpaceX has reduced the cost..."
 The subtitle of this article from a 1971
issue of Popular Electronics magazine, "From
Quackery to Speculation to Programmed People," could to some extent still be
applicable even though the author evidently meant to put an end to the "quackery"
and "speculation" part of it. Indeed, a lot of advancement has been made in the
fields of electrostimulation of weak or/or paralyzed muscles, healing of certain
types of soft and hard tissues, suppressing sporadic muscle twitching and epileptic
seizures, and other malady diagnosis and relief. Specifically tuned microwave frequencies
have proven useful in healing and symptom relief as well. As with most articles
on medical procedures, I cringe at some...
Anatech Intros 3
Filter Models for November
 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
C-band cavity bandpass filter models have been added to the product line, including
a 4994 MHz BPF with a 50 MHz bandwidth, a 4950 MHz BPF with a 10 MHz
bandwidth, and a 5785 MHz BPF with a 100 MHz bandwidth. 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...
• 5G
Is 42% of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) in 2024
• Robert Dennard,
DRAM Pioneer, Dies at 91
• TSMC's Energy
Demand Drives Taiwan's Geopolitical Future
• Semiconductor
Packaging Market on 5.6% CAGR 'Till 2028
• Altering
Asteroid Trajectories with Nuclear X-Rays
 Albert Einstein, one of the most renowned
physicists in history, was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg,
part of the German Empire. His father, Hermann Einstein, was an engineer and salesman
who ran an electrochemical factory, and his mother, Pauline Koch, managed the household
and supported her son's education. Einstein had one sister, Maja, who was born in
1881 and with whom he had a lifelong close relationship. Einstein's extended family
included several relatives who would play various roles in his life, both personally
and professionally. His early family life was comfortable, though his parents moved
frequently as they sought economic stability. Hermann Einstein's business ventures
had varying success, and eventually, the family moved to Italy in 1894...
 Here is the second part of a series of articles
about
stepping switches appearing in 1967 issues of Radio-Electronics magazine.
A standard (at the time) dial rotary phone was used as a familiar example in the
part one. It delivers a single pulse for each number / letter set from 1, 2 (ABC),
3 (DEF), through 9 (WXY), 0 (Operator). On some phones, you can hear the clacking
of the switch contacts as the spring-loaded dial rotates from the selected number
back to home position. The stepping action as the result of dialing occurs at the
telephone system switching and call routing equipment at central locations. There,
stepping switches increment with each pulse received, and when the full number of
pulse sets have arrived, the circuit is complete and the call put through to ring
the phone...
 "Results are published, and the numbers
are in. They paint a picture of a very active
2024 ARRL
Field Day. Nearly 1.3 million contacts were reported during the 24-hour event.
That is up from 2023's 1.25 million contacts. That's likely indicative of the continued
rise of Solar Cycle 25 leading up to the event, but more people also participated
this year. Entries were received from all 85 ARRL and Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC)
sections, as well as from 27 different countries from outside the US and Canada.
'It is encouraging to see a rise in participation year to year,' said ARRL Contest
Program Manager Paul Bourque, N1SFE. 'ARRL Field Day is amateur radio's premier
event, and the hams turned out for it..."
 After searching for the first mention of
Nikola Tesla in U.S. newspapers, I performed a similar search on
Albert
Einstein, again using editions available in the NewspaperArchive.com database.
I was utterly surprised to find it in a 1919 issue of the The New York Times.
His theory of Special Relativity was published in 1905 and his theory of General
Relativity was published in 1915, so it took The NY Times four years to
mention it. There is a reference to Dr. Einstein's' work on relativity in a 1915
edition of The Manitoban, from Winnipeg, Canada. The NY Times article
is an actual interview with Albert Einstein, wherein at one point it is stated that
there were perhaps only a dozen people in the world at that time who understood
general relativity. Interestingly, Einstein uses the term "difform motion" to describe...
 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
AMP2103P-LC, dual-mode (CW & pulse) amplifier covering 800 to 3200 MHz.
1000 watt peak pulse power, or 500 watts CW. Ideal for automotive pulse/radar
EMC-testing & commercial applications. Pulse widths to 560 μsec, duty cycle
to 10%, 60 dB gain, and outstanding pulse fidelity. Monitoring parameters for
forward/reflected power in watts and dBm, VSWR, voltage, current, and temperature,
with unprecedented reliability and ruggedness in a compact 7U chassis...
 Sally Mason was the soldering iron-wielding
heroette (heroine sounds too much like the narcotic) of Nate Silverman's "Sally,
the Service Maid" series that ran in Radio-Craft magazine during the
years of World War II. As I noted in the previous episode, many of the nation's
women were left behind to run their husband's, father's and/or son's electronics
sales and repair businesses when they went off to save the world from aggressive
Communists, Socialists, Maoists, Nazis, and other nasty types. Some of those ladies
had already become very adept at troubleshooting, component replacement, and aligning
radio and television sets, while some were left to learn at the School of Hard Knocks.
Sally's father, Gus Mason...
 Crane Aerospace & Electronics' products
and services are organized into six integrated solutions: Cabin Systems, Electrical
Power Solutions, Fluid Management Solutions, Landing Systems, Microwave Solutions,
and Sensing Components & Systems. Our Microwave Solution designs and manufactures
high-performance
RF, IF and millimeter-wave components, subsystems and systems for commercial
aviation, defense, and space including linear & log amplifiers, fixed &
variable attenuators, circulators & isolators, power combiners & dividers,
couplers, mixers, switches & matrices, oscillators & synthesizers.
 The AN/MPN-13|14 mobile radar system I worked
on while enlisted in the U.S. Air Force was designed and fielded around the time
this
Electronic Navigation in Flight article appeared in a 1962 issue of Radio-Electronics
magazine. It had been upgraded a few times by 1979 when I was in Air Traffic Control
Radar Repairman technical school at Keesler AFB, Mississippi; however, the original
system did not featured a Doppler capability. The fully RF analog system could not
provide air traffic controllers with speed data, but it did use physical mercury
delay lines to provide a stationary target (ground, and to some degree, rain, clutter)
cancellation by inverting and summing a real-time radar...
 Decisions, decisions, decisions. As the
title states, color television manufacturers were, in 1965 when this Electronics
magazine article was published, finding themselves between a rock and a hard place,
as the saying goes, regarding a change
from vacuum tubes to transistors. The buying public (aka consumers) had mixed
emotions about the newfangled semiconductors based at least partly on bad information
about transistors. Transistors had been designed in various circuits for a decade
and a half and were gaining rapidly in performance and reliability. The price was
coming down, but as reported here, still cost $5 to $10 apiece compared to a $1
vacuum tube. Company management needed to decide whether to delay implementing the
new engineering and production methods required to deal with transistors...
 "At 8:30 p.m. on 16 May 1916, John J. Carty
banged his gavel at the Engineering Societies Building in New York City to call
to order a meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. This was no
ordinary gathering. The AIEE had decided to conduct a live national meeting connecting
more than 5,000 attendees in
eight cities across four time zones. More than a century before Zoom made virtual
meetings a pedestrian experience, telephone lines linked auditoriums from coast
to coast. AIEE members and guests in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York,
Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco had telephone receivers at their
seats so they could listen..."
|
 Prior to the emergence of
silicon-based semiconductors, selenium and copper(cuprous)-oxide rectifiers were
the alternatives to vacuum tubes. Copper-oxide (Cu2O) was popular as a small
signal detector since its forward voltage drop was similar to a Schottky type
diode - typically around 0.2 V. Copper-oxide diodes were used in radios and test
equipment meters. Selenium (Se) has a forward voltage drop of around 1 V, but
its high reverse voltage withstanding of 20 V or more made it popular for
voltage rectification, with as many layers as necessary being stacked serially
as required. Selenium rectifier stacks...
 I remember seeing advertisements for the
"Geniac Electric Brain" in technical magazines like Popular
Electronics, Mechanix Illustrated, Popular Science, etc.,
back in the 1960s and 70s. Even then it seemed like a hokey attempt to pitch a mechanical
gizmo as an honest-to-goodness computer. Personal computers were still a decade
or more away and only multi-million-dollar mainframe computers were available, so
the opportunity for Joe Sixpack to own a "problem solving" computer was a real temptation.
No, I never bought one; my first computer was a second-hand Timex Sinclair 1000
with a membrane keyboard and a cassette tape deck as a program storage device. Anyway,
when I found this article in a 1966 issue of Popular Electronics, I figured
maybe other people of my vintage would enjoy reading about its inner workings ...
 I'm always tempted to wax nostalgic over
ads like this one since they remind me of more care-free childhood and early teenage
years when our household had the typical single television set with an antenna on
the roof and a
300 Ω twin lead cable running haphazardly down the roof surface and over
the metal gutter, stretching under the eave to where it was crushed between the
window sill and lower window pane, and snaked along the wall and floor to the TV.
In the early days, our antenna was fixed (no rotator). Situated in Mayo, Maryland,
about midway between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., where our nearest broadcast
stations resided, we somehow managed to get acceptable reception on our low-end
black & white television. I don't recall in which direction the antenna was
pointed (maybe northwestish to cover both directions equally). It wasn't until sometime
in the early 1970s that we finally got our first color TV that the system showed
its weakness...
 Mac's staff service technician, Barney, asked
a great question when he mentioned that Pittsburgh radio station KDKA made the country's
first commercial broadcast in 1920: "Who
was listening?" It is a reasonable question since prior to the beginning on commercial
radio broadcasts there would have been no reason for there to have been a lot of people
to own a radio for receiving commercial broadcasts. The answer, of course, is that there
were plenty of multi-band radios in homes and businesses for listening in on shortwave
broadcast from around the world - a very popular pastime in the era. Just as today we
are bombarded with admonitions to not stare at computer monitors or cellphone screens
for too long lest we suffer near-sightedness or worse, radio listeners of yore who used
headsets were told, "Youths of this generation will never have as protruding ears as
some of their older brothers." I suppose...
 According to this 1964 article in Electronics
magazine, the U.S. Air Force's decision to build radar systems that would enable
low altitude,
terrain-following flight paths for strategic and tactical aircraft
was in response to the shooting down of Gary Powers' U-2 spy craft in 1960. The
event made clear that simply flying high over enemy territory and dropping bombs
would not be a reliable strategy since surface-to-air missiles could reach and destroy
aircraft before they got to their targets. Terrain-following capability on the part
of bombers and fighters would add a major element of surprise since approach paths
could be masked until it was too late to take offensive action. That approach was
not without its risks and faults, as made apparent by the Dr. Strangelove movie
satire that poked fun at the very concept...
 Television broadcast stations were quickly
growing in number in the post-Korean War era and the FCC needed to devise a
scheme for accommodating more channels. There were only 13 channels (only 2-13
used) allocated in the VHF spectrum with 6 MHz-wide bands. Even though VHF
propagates primarily in a line-of-sight mode, reflections and earth-bounce can extend
the range fairly significantly, limiting density in closely spaced cities. The military
refused to yield any spectrum so a decision was made to add new channels (14-83,
also 6 MHz wide) in the UHF band. UHF presented its own problems with more
difficult equipment manufacturing issues and higher atmospheric attenuation. It
never really caught on because cable TV was being widely installed in metro areas
and even into suburbs by the early 1960s. Over-the-air (OTA) transmission issues
were eliminated...
 Last week Melanie and I drove down to Greensboro,
North Carolina, to attend our daughter's wedding. The weather was typically hot
there, but not out of the norm. All went well at the small ceremony. Both bride
and groom showed up, as did the minister and necessary witnesses. After the blessed
event was over, we headed back northward to our humble abode in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Our route upon exiting NC is I81 for a few miles in Virginia, then north onto I77,
up to Rt. 19, then I79 all the way home up and down mountains for a few hundred
miles. Our 2011 Jeep Patriot has never had any mechanical issues, but then it only
has 81k miles on it and is kept in the garage. That day, though, the transmission
overheating idiot light illuminated while on I81 - not a particularly hilly stretch.
The outside temperature there was about 80 °F. I had noticed a slightly higher
pitch sound from it while going uphill, but didn't think anything of it until the
light came on. (On-Trak
Automotive Services)...
 QST, the monthly publication of
the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), occasionally ran a
crossword puzzle with an electronics theme. This one appeared in the April 1967
edition. Unlike the weekly RF Cafe crossword puzzles, this one does have a few words
that are not strictly technology and science themed. However, many of the clues
and words require some familiarity with Ham radio subjects and lingo ...
 As with my hundreds of previous
science and engineering-themed crossword puzzles, this one for March 1, 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.
 If you're a newcomer to the game, it may
seem that radio theory already has enough mystery without adding more. True, the
technical journals - even QST, sometimes - do make it a mysterious subject with
their textbook language and complex notations. Radio isn't really any more mysterious
or complex than many a detective story - at least not after you've read the last
page and know "whodunit." The difference lies in the method of presentation. There
may be some utility, then, in the idea of presenting radio fundamentals in the manner
of detective fiction. That's what this is - a series of radio lessons in the guise
of a detective-mystery yarn. Instead of human characters we'll use another kind
- but we'll try to make the characterizations true and the background and incident
realistic. Our purpose is to divert ...
 Robert Balin created this
Electronic Factor Quiz for the November 1966 edition of Popular Electronics
magazine. Your challenge is to match the drawing of a particular electronics circuit
or implement with the corresponding "factor." Examples are "current amplification factor,"
"damping factor," "modulation factor," "duty factor," "form factor," "quality factor,"
etc. There are ten in all. Of course on a quiz like this you cannot get just one answer
wrong - or any odd number for that matter. I managed to reverse #5 and #10 (I and B,
respectively). For some reason I couldn't remember what "form factor" was, but was sure
that #10 was a scale factor of sorts... wrong - a clear case of cranial rectumitis...
 As with my hundreds of previous
engineering and science-themed crossword puzzles, this one for January 26, 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...
 A few months 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...
 When reading the opening copy from this 1944's
era Radio News magazine advertisement from the
International Resistance Company, I wonder whether the same can be said of today's
population: "Americans are not sissies. When they know the truth, they can take
it - especially when it relates to the war. It's only when somebody tries to fool
them, that they rear up on their hind legs and yowl." At the time the "war" was
WWII, but today the war and the enemies of our existence as a sovereign nation is
not as well defined. The latest example is the COVID-19 virus cooked up in a Wuhan
research laboratory and released on the world, while politicians, pundits, and media
receiving fortunes and favors from China do their best to excuse and cover the deed.
In 1944, people of the free world would never have succumbed to the useless mask
and business restriction mandates imposed in 2020 and continued through today...
 Lightning has not changed since the days
when Benjamin Franklin flew his special kite during storms. Contrary to some peoples'
belief, he did not "discover electricity;" rather, the experiment proved his theory
that lightning was a form of electrical discharge. Maybe someone has already
pointed this out, but in effect Franklin put into service the world's first
lightning rod. The conductive (wet with rain) hemp rope between the metal wire
spike on the kite and ground (the plate of a Leyden jar) performed the task a lightning
rod is meant to do - lower the difference of potential between the charged clouds
and ground, thereby reducing the likelihood of an electrical discharge. An induced
current traveled along the rope and charged the Leyden jar. If lightning had actually
struck the kite as fables suggest, Franklin would probably have been killed even
though he was holding on to a silk string attached to the bottom of the hemp string
to provide some insulation. Mr. Kirchhoff's current law would have apportioned
the lightning strike current at the knot joining the two strings according to the
respective...
 This is part of a series published by
Radio News and the Short-Wave magazine in the early 1930s. As with most topics
pertaining to electronics, the theory is still relevant and applicable to many modern
circuits and systems.
Piezoelectric principles are introduced for determining the frequency
of oscillators. I have to admit to not having heard of the 'pyroelectric' effect.
A pyroelectric crystal when heated or cooled develops charges on the extremities
of its hemihedral (another new word for me, meaning "exhibiting only half the faces
required for complete symmetry") axes. Types other than the familiar quartz include
tourmaline, boracite, topaz, Rochelle salts, and even sugar. Read on to learn more ...
 This
Wireless Engineering Theme Crossword Puzzle for July 18th 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!
 The
Allen B. Du Mont Laboratories was one of the earliest manufacturers
of television sets for consumer purchase. They were in operation long before committees
like the NTSC were formed to standardize television broadcast signal formats. There
were various methods competing for reproducing the image at the receiver end - including
electromechanical and purely electronic schemes. Regular readers of electronics
magazines like this edition of Radio-Craft followed the evolution of TV
with great, though somewhat guarded, enthusiasm. As with many technologies
that seemed at the time to have mostly commercial and consumer applications, development
during the war years yielded to the needs of victory for the Allied forces. Television
prices were relatively high even in the late 1940s, so most households still did
not have a TV set; radios still ruled in the domestic entertainment realm...
 This is the electronics market prediction for
Denmark, circa 1966. It was part of a comprehensive assessment by the editors of
Electronics magazine of the state of commercial, military, and consumer
electronics at the end of 1965. Unless you can find a news story on the state of
the industry, detailed reports must be purchased from research companies. Their
websites have a lot of charts on Denmark's current electronics market showing
revenue in the consumer electronics segment amounts of US$1,020M in 2018...
 As evidenced by this advertisement in a circa
1951 issue of Radio & Television News magazine,
Channel Master has been producing commercial broadcast television and radio
antennas and antenna accessories for a really long time. They are one of the very
few companies still making such items, with RCA being another. A few years ago I
bought a high gain Channel Master VHF-UHF-FM antenna for use with my vintage Alliance
Model U-100 Tenna-Rotor. Both companies still sell remote control (wired) antenna
rotators. Being an ardent over-the-air broadcast adherent, having a good old-fashioned
steerable, multielement antenna is quite nice. I can dial in any TV or FM radio
station within 50 miles, and some from over 100 miles away. I would like to have
a similar setup for AM radio, but the antenna length gets out of hand at 530 to
1,700 MHz (525 to 1,705 MHz including 10 kHz channel spacing)...
 These
electronics-themed comics from vintage issues of electronics magazines were usually
funny even without being privy to the particulars of the topic to which it alludes. A
couple guys shipwrecked on a floating hunk of wooden hull is usually the basis for a
laughable comic. However, in this case the zip code mention was particularly significant
in 1965 since the U.S. Post Office had only recently, in 1963, implemented the nationwide
5-digit zip code system, so it was in the news and in the forefront of people's minds.
High fidelity stereo systems were also all the rage in the mid 1960's, as evidenced by
all the print space allocated to it in Popular Electronics and other
magazines...
 Good, clean humor has always been a welcome
addition to my day whether it comes in the form of a printed comic strip, a TV show,
or someone's mouth. My father's side of the family was populated with many jokesters
who could be counted on to deliver an ad hoc pun or zinger at the appropriate moment.
The environment instilled a great appreciation for such entertainment, so these
electronics-themed comics that appeared in editions of Radio-Electronics,
Popular Electronics, et al, are a refreshing distraction from the workaday
world. An old saying claims "laughter is the best medicine," and while it cannot
cure cancer, a good dose of humor often helps ease the pain...
 This
RF Engineering Crossword Puzzle for March 7th has many words and
clues related to... you guessed it... RF engineering - and 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!
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...
 One of the Notable Tech Quotes which has
appeared on RF Cafe is, "The nice thing about standards is that you have so many
to choose from," by computer scientist Andrew Tanenbaum. In the middle of the last
century, a change in the fundamental understanding of current flow precipitated
what has become a very large opportunity for people to misunderstand descriptions
of
current direction caused by a difference in voltage potential (voltage) - depending
on the era a particular description was written. Beginning with Benjamin Franklin,
electron current flow was assumed to be from positive to negative, ostensibly but
incorrectly, because a positive thing must contain an excess of something (charge
carriers - electrons) and a negative thing must have a deficiency. Hence, current
flowed from an excess source to a deficient sink. We now know that negative things
contain more electrons (relatively) than a positive... |
