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 It has been quite a while since posting a
Carl & Jerry adventure tale. The teenage-neighbors-cum-Ham-radio-operators-cum-electronics-hobbyists-cum-amateur-detectives-cum-pranksters
are the creation of John T. Frye. He published a monthly episode in Popular
Electronics magazine. Mr. Frye is also the author of the
Mac's Radio Service Shop series of instructional stories
that ran in Radio & Television News magazine. This adventure is quite
a digression from the typical storyline in that the boys actually engage in a bit
of deceit in order to save face based on a bet...
 Exodus Advanced Communications is a multinational
RF communication equipment and engineering service company serving both commercial
and government entities and their affiliates worldwide. Power amplifiers ranging
from 10 kHz to 51 GHz with various output power levels and noise figure
ranges, we fully support custom designs and manufacturing requirements for both
small and large volume levels. decades of combined experience in the RF field for
numerous applications including military jamming, communications, radar, EMI/EMC
and various commercial projects with all designing and manufacturing of our HPA,
MPA, and LNA products in-house.
 Is
the
BOMARC an airplane or a rocket? If it is an airplane, then it is the pilotless
type (aka "drone"). If it is a rocket, then it is the ultimate in controlled trajectory
hardware - at least in its day. The DoD referred to it as a surface-to-air guided
missile. The name is a combination of "BOeing Airplane Company"
and "Michigan Aeronautical Research
Center." Clever, non? If memory serves me correctly (it's been
30+ years), the AN/TPX-42 IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) secondary radar system
(built by Gilfillan) I maintained as an air traffic control radar technician reserved
a special "X" bit in its data packet to designate the BOMARC - and maybe other guided
missiles. That might have been a military secret at the time...
 "Israel's Iron Beam laser weapon that can
destroy drones for a few dollars 'a pop' are being developed and introduced into
combat service. The Chinese
Hurricane 3000 system is another new weapon developed to tackle the growing
use of drones in combat. However, unlike the laser-based Israeli system, the Hurricane
3000 system uses microwaves to disable drones and drone swarms at ranges exceeding
3 kilometers (1.9 miles). This is a similar weapon to the US Army's Leonidas microwave
weapon, although China claims that the 3000's reported three-kilometer-plus range
is over a kilometer more than the Leonidas system...
 This is interesting. The title for the
General Motors S1B radio says it is a 25-cycle model, as compared
to the S1A, 60-cycle model. According to an IEEE Xplore paper, "At 8:53 PM on 12
October 2006, a 66-kV circuit breaker tripped and locked out at the Harper Substation
in Niagara Falls, New York, due to downed transmission conductors near Buffalo,
New York. That event marked the end of over 111 years of 25-Hz alternating current
(ac) electric power service on the American side of the Niagara Frontier." 25 Hz
was considered a good, low frequency for...
 Here is a good
quiz that tests your knowledge of classifications of science fields.
It appeared in a 1949 edition of The Saturday Evening Post magazine. Even
if you do not particularly know the relationships, you should be able to get most
if not all twelve correct with a combination of surety, recognition of word roots,
and a process of elimination. Good luck...
 ConductRF is continually innovating and
developing advanced solutions for RF cable assembly and various RF through millimeterwave
interconnect requirements. We'll be posting their latest RF cables and technical
articles here at RFcafe.com, but to stay abreast, you're encouraged to visit their
Updates section at https://www.conductrf.com/blog
and sign up for their monthly news releases.
 During the early 1960s, Short-Wave Listening
(SWL) was a remarkably popular era-defining hobby, as enthusiasts worldwide competed
to pull in distant broadcasts from London, Moscow, or Hong Kong. "How
to DX Satellites" challenged these listeners to advance beyond Earth-bound stations
to the ultimate frontier: intercepting signals from orbiting spacecraft. While skeptics
dismissed satellite DXing as impossible due to extreme distances, low power, and
elusive verification, the author maintained it was achievable for those with the
right patience and gear. Successful monitoring required sensitive communications
receivers, crystal calibrators...
 Radio Shack,
like so many of America's original great companies, was born and lived long and
prospered during its glory days, then eventually waned into insignificance and obsolescence
within the last decade or so. It is not always simply an unwillingness to adapt
to new technologies and methods that dooms them. The forces behind those life cycles
are often beyond their control because start-ups vying for market share do not carry
the burden of and have to deal with established investments in people, facilities,
and infrastructure...
 Although obviously (but getting less so)
before my time, the mention of this airborne radar surveillance system having been
built by
General Electric, in Utica, New York, struck a chord since that
is where I had my first engineering job after having graduated from the University
of Vermont with a BSEE degree. It seems to me the work at the time was all done
in the converted textile complex on Broad Street. They were the glory days of GE,
Westinghouse, Collins, Raytheon, and other electronics titans whose engineers, technicians,
assemblers, and program managers...
 The June 1949 issue of Radio & Television
News had four
television-themed comics. Television at that time was a relatively
new home appliance, so there was a huge amount of interest in the technology. It
hadn't really been all that long since the public got used to hearing sound (i.e.,
'talkies') in the movie theater, so the mystique that surrounded television made
it the subject of a lot of puns and jokes. 1949 was a mere four years after the
end of World War II, and the post-war economic boom was primed by a surplus
of left-over electronic components along with lots of available talent both in the
areas of design and assembly...
 Temwell is a manufacturer of 5G wireless communications filters
for aerospace, satellite communication, AIoT, 5G networking, IoV, drone, mining
transmission, IoT, medical, military, laboratory, transportation, energy, broadcasting
(CATV), and etc. An RF helical bandpass specialist since 1994, we have posted >5,000
completed spec sheets online for all kinds of RF filters including helical, cavity,
LC, and SMD. Standard highpass, lowpass, bandpass, and bandstop, as well as duplexer/diplexer,
multiplexer. Also RF combiners, splitters, power dividers, attenuators, circulators,
couplers, PA, LNA, and obsolete coil & inductor solutions.
 Both my father and grandfather were
stamp collectors - philatelists is the technical word - who dabbled
in a recreational way with commemoratives from foreign countries. Nearly all were
canceled (used) stamps that today, as back in their
day, have no real value other than to someone interested in history. Of course none
are the rare types. I now possess many of those stamps in an album that was painstakingly
hand-illustrated and assembled to arrange each stamp according to its country and
issue date. At one time I, too, dabbled in the hobby, having collected many plate
blocks and special issue U.S. stamps in the 1970s and 1980s, along with purchasing
a few designs of special purpose such as those with aerospace and communications
themes...
 Exodus Advanced Communications offers a
scalable portfolio of
high-power solid-state RF amplifiers designed for electronic warfare, GPS/GNSS denial,
and counter-drone applications. These systems are engineered to support high-power
RF denial architectures capable of disrupting control, navigation, and payload links
across multiple frequency bands. Integrated into mobile, fixed, and expeditionary
platforms, Exodus amplifiers enable reliable, long-range electronic attack performance
in complex and evolving threat environments. These solutions are deployed within
high-power RF denial systems across mobile and fixed counter-UAS platforms, as illustrated...
 "Measuring low-frequency electric fields
with high precision remains a significant challenge. Existing sensing technologies
often cannot deliver traceability, compact design, and the ability to detect field
direction all in one system.
Rydberg atoms are gaining attention in electric-field quantum metrology because
they have large electric dipole moments and their behavior can be tied to well-defined
atomic properties. Most current methods for detecting low-frequency or DC electric
fields using Rydberg atoms rely on vapor-cell electromagnetically induced transparency
(EIT) spectroscopy. However, this technique is limited..."
 Here are the
Majestic Chassis Models 380 A.C. T.R.F., and 400 A.C.-D.C. Superheterodyne
and
Delco 32-Volt Radio Receiver Chassis Radio Service Data Sheets
as featured in a 1933 edition of
Radio-Craft magazine. As mentioned many times in the past,
I post these online for the benefit of hobbyists looking for information to assist
in repairing or restoring vintage communication equipment. Even with the availability
of SAMS Photofacts, there are some models that cannot be found anywhere other than
in these vintage magazines...
 For 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). Clues
in this week's puzzle with an asterisk (*) are directly from this week's "High Tech
News" column on the RF Cafe homepage (see the Headline Archives page if necessary)...
 Please take a few moments to visit the
everythingRF website to see how they can assist you with your
project. everythingRF is a product discovery platform for RF and microwave products
and services. They currently have 354,801 products from more than 2478 companies
across 485 categories in their database and enable engineers to search for them
using their customized parametric search tool. Amplifiers, test equipment, power
couplers and dividers, coaxial connectors, waveguide, antennas, filters, mixers,
power supplies, and everything else. Please visit everythingRF today to see how
they can help you.
 In 1961, when these
tech-themed comics appeared in Electronics Illustrated magazine, the
"Space Race" was in full swing. That, along with home hi-fi stereo equipment, newfangled
color televisions, and - gasp - transistors, filled the headlines. They were also
the subject of many forms of humor. These four comics touch on many of those aspects,
all centered on the Space Race. Of course, everything is noticeably dated. "Flunking
the code test" means not much to Amateur radio licensees who earned their first
license (like me, in 2010) after the 5 WPM Morse code requirement was removed. Building
something in "kit form" was a good way to save some money and learn something...
 In our present "No user serviceable parts
inside" world of electronic products, it is easy to understand why very few people
have an appreciation for the technical prowess needed to troubleshoot and repair
them. When reading through these episodes of "Mac's Radio Service Shop" that appeared in mid last century editions
of Radio & Television News magazine, I am inspired to envy the skills
that small electronics repair shop owners had for working on the old vacuum tube
based radio and television sets. Digital electronics has its own unique set of quirks
and special knowledge requirements to troubleshoot, but when everything is analog
rather than merely being required to be a "0" or a "1"...
 "The U.S. Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) has announced that it is once again accepting applications for its
Honors Engineer Program. Initiated in 2018, the one-year development program
gives selected candidates an opportunity to work with FCC personnel on innovative
issues in the communications and high-tech arenas, including 5G communications technology,
the national deployment of broadband services, and communications technologies intended
to improve access to those with disabilities. Those selected to participate in the
Honors Engineer Program will be eligible for continued employment at the agency.
Application to the FCC's Honors Engineer Program is open to recent college graduates
with an engineering degree..."
 This week's crossword puzzle theme is
Amateur Radio. All RF Cafe crossword puzzles are custom made by me, Kirt
Blattenberger, and have only words and clues related to RF, microwave, and mm-wave
engineering, optics, amateur radio, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and other technical
subjects. As always, this crossword puzzle 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...
 Submarines first proved their deadly capabilities
during World War II when Adolph Hitler's navy used them to torpedo not just
military ships but merchant ships in commercial trade routes between the Americas
and Europe. Hideki Tojo's navy used subs to conduct surveillance prior to the deadly
surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Their naturally stealthy environment - underwater
- proved to be a difficult realm both for detection and for attack. Fortunately,
sensor technology developed quickly during the war, and soon a combination of air
and sea based methods were in use and proved very effective. Submariners no longer
sailed in relative security from being treated to a violent, icy burial at sea...
 The leading website for the PCB industry.
PCB Directory is the largest directory of
Printed Circuit Board (PCB)
Manufacturers, Assembly houses, and Design Services on the Internet. We have listed
the leading printed circuit board manufacturers around the world and made them searchable
by their capabilities - Number of laminates used, Board thicknesses supported, Number
of layers supported, Types of substrates (FR-4, Rogers, flexible, rigid), Geographical
location (U.S., China), kinds of services (manufacturing, fabrication, assembly,
prototype), and more. Fast turn-around on quotations for PCB fabrication and assembly.
 As
the Soviet army closed in on the Peenemünde rocket base in March 1945, German engineers
led by
Wernher von Braun initiated a desperate evacuation of their revolutionary research.
Tasked by von Braun, engineer Dieter Huzel organized the transport of tons of top-secret
blueprints and records to avoid capture by the advancing Red Army. Amidst the chaos
of collapsing lines and aerial warfare, Huzel successfully secured the documents
in an abandoned, ironclad mine near Goslar, shielding them from Soviet hands. After
dynamiting the entrance to seal the cache, Huzel and fellow scientists fled westward
to surrender to American forces. Following their successful arrival in U.S. lines,
the location was revealed...
|
 • AI Could End
Online Anonymity (or falsely identify)
• How
Test and Measurement Will Evolve in 2026
• AI
and Geopolitics Forge Memory Market Crisis
• European
Electronics Distribution Gains Momentum
• UK
Secure Quantum Communications Boost
 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.
 Unlike all of the other engineering and science-themed
crossword puzzles I have ever seen, every word and clue - without exception - in
these
RF Cafe puzzles has been personally entered into a very large database of relevant
terms. The list has been built over nearly two decades of creating these crossword
puzzles. Let me know if you would like a custom crossword puzzle built for your
company, school, club, etc. (no charge). The same software, Crossword Express, has
been used to generate the puzzle for all those years. Read down near the bottom
of the linked page and you will see where he was doomed by people distributing his
software without paying for it (I paid for mine). I suffer the same injustice from
people who receive my RF Stencils for Visio and RF Cascade Workbook software without
paying me for my hard work...
 Dave Harbaugh created a great many
electronics-themed comics back in the 1960s for magazines like Popular
Electronics, QST, "73",
and others. His "Hobnobbing
with Harbaugh" series usually depicted hobbyists and technicians in a state
of surprise and/or dismay over some event while in the act of pursuing his
passion (electronics, that is, not a woman). Although I have never run across
any evidence of it, I wonder how many of the scenarios are derived from personal
experience. Many do not have captions. I have to admit to being stumped at what
he is trying to convey in the comic where the guy is staring into the back of
the TV while his wife...
 Windfreak Technologies is proud to announces
the availability of our
FT108, an innovative
programmable bidirectional filter bank spanning a frequency range of 5 MHz
to 8 GHz in 15 bands. Band selection can be controlled through USB, UART or
at high speeds through powerful triggering modes. Each unit is factory tested via
network analyzer with unique data stored in the device to help with its use. Crossover
frequencies are stored so the user can send a frequency command and the FT108 will
utilizes Intelligent Band Selection logic to automatically toggle the optimal
filter path based on minimum insertion loss. Readback of FT108 insertion loss at
any frequency between crossover points allows for easy amplitude leveling...
 Here for your enjoyment during another workweek
are three more vintage
electronics-themed comics - this time from a 1966 issue of Popular Electronics
magazine. The "quarter-inch Mylar" referenced in the title is recorder tape used
in the very popular machines of the day. Not only were serious" music aficionados
huge proponents of the medium, but so were the many recreational users. There was
a sort of mystique involved with being able to record and instantly play back even
normal conversations - sort of like with videos these days, except there is no mystique
anymore because most users couldn't care less about the technology which enables
their proclivities. The magazines of the era were full of stories on tape recorders
and advertisements for buying them...
 A love-hate relationship between major nations
competing for leadership and
dominance in the military and aerospace technology realms has
existed in earnest at least since the space race began. Often, the pilots, astronauts,
scientists and engineers are much more willing to set aside political differences
in order to more effectively and efficiently advance the state of the art and/or
basic knowledge. Maybe archeologists, biologists, endocrinologists, climatologists,
zoologists, pathologists, and you-name-it-ologists feel the same way, but those
types, dealing with squishy living things, are probably more altruistic than your
typical physical sciences guy (or gal). It is the government management sides of
the equation agonizing over the need to solicit or accept foreign assistance. There
is (or was at the time) no better example than the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., particularly
for space-based communications...
 Knowing that I am an avid consumer of literature
pertaining to time and astronomy, Melanie picked up a book at the library for me
titled,
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem
of His Time, by Dava Sobel. When Christopher Columbus discovered
America, his intended target was, if you recall, the Indies. His original
charter was to find a direct westerly pathway from the Atlantic coast of Europe
to the immensely profitable trade production region of the Indies as an
alternative to to sailing around the treacherous Cape of Good Hope at the
southern tip of Africa. How could such an experienced navigator have missed his
mark by so far, you might reasonably ask? Didn't Columbus know how to use a
sextant, or at least have a navigator who could? The answer to the second
question is, "no." The answer to the first question is complicated...
 I finally managed to get an early edition
of The
Wireless World magazine for a reasonable price on a eBay auction. Now I
will be able to post a few of those articles from the UK to compliment those from
some of the American magazines. This particular edition is from March 9th, 1932.
My next target is to get a few from the World War II era which although it began
on December 7, 1941 from America's perspective, it officially began on September
1, 1939 for Europe. Warning for the weak of heart - epochal words like "niggardly"
and "parsimonious" are used herein, and therefore adult supervision should be employed
if ignorance might cause an objection to at least one of the aforementioned...
 The
Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) system was designed and built to monitor
the flights of both intercontinental ballistic missiles and hostile aircraft - if
they were ever to occur, which, thankfully, they did not. Nuclear bombs were of
particular interest since they could be launched not just from the USSR, which was
the only other nuclear power in 1956, but also from offshore aircraft carriers and
submarines. This was the beginning of the era when school kids participated in practice
drills of getting under their desks in the event of an attack. I remember doing
it in the mid 1960s while in grade school. Some of the equipment described here
represents the earliest computerized digital technology, including magnetic core
memory. This 1956 issue of Popular Electronics magazine reports on the
system. According to the Wikipedia entry, SAGE did not go into full operation until
1958...
 For many years, Popular Electronics
magazine had a monthly column titled "Transistor
Topics" that reported on news in the world of those newfangled semiconductors.
To wit, this article from the April 1960 edition begins, "Each month, more and more
transistorized consumer products are developed as replacements for vacuum-tube designs."
The Heathkit TCR-1 clock radio is featured for its six-transistor superheterodyne
AM receiver circuit. A mechanical clock is still used since other than using Nixie
tubes, digital displays were not commercially available. The MOBIDIC "super" computer
is also covered for its total transistorization. At about 4 feet wide and 6 feet
tall, it is hard to believe that the "MOB" portion of the acronym stands for "mobile"...
 Electronics World magazine often published
electronics-themed crossword puzzles. Unlike RF Cafe engineering crosswords
I created for two decades that use only technical words and clues, this one does
include some unrelated words. A couple clues I was surprised to see pertain to radar;
e.g., 32A: Small visible mark on a radar or scope screen, and 44A: Identification
Friend or Foe. Some words require a familiarity with technology of the era, but
you shouldn't have much trouble. You'll need to print this out on paper to work
it...
 Illustrating (literally) once again the fascination
the public had with television during its heyday from the late 1940s to the 1960s,
this set of
electronics-themed comics from a 1948 issue of Radio-Craft magazine
depict the humorous situations both real and imagined for the technology. Artist
Frank Beaven, a frequent contributor to the publication, took suggestions by readers
and turned them into comics. The concept of multi-sensory TV experiences were common,
including not just sight and sound, but also smell and tactile sensations. 3-D projection
and large screens were also envisioned in the comics. The page 124 comic is my favorite
as it exhibits a tried and true sales technique for securing business from guys.
Interestingly, note that the comic on page 86 is credited to someone from Tel-Aviv,
Palestine...
 Electronics symbols
for schematics and wiring diagrams have remained amazingly consistent for the last
hundred years, although obviously many new ones have been added. You can see from
this set of standardized wiring diagram and schematic symbols from a 1955 edition
of Popular Electronics what I mean. Even symbols for newly introduced devices tend
not to change. There are some variations such as whether or not to draw a circle
around a transistor or how many lightning bolt lines to use with photon emitters
and detectors, but that's about it. The digital world adopted IEEE Standard 91-1984
for logic and microprocessors, although you will still occasionally see variants
in symbols, especially in early digital circuit schematics. The ARRL publishes its
own version of standardized electrical schematic symbols, but even the ARRL
Handbook, in which the symbols are printed, does not strictly conform to its
own standards.
 This custom RF Cafe
electronics-themed crossword puzzle for June 18th contains words and clues
which pertain exclusively to the subjects of electronics, science, physics, mechanics,
engineering, power distribution, astronomy, chemistry, etc. If you do see names
of people or places, they are intimately related to the aforementioned areas of
study. Being that "R" is the 18th letter of the alphabet, it is used as the first
and/or last letter of many words in today's crossword puzzle - as well as in-between.
Those clues are marked with an asterisk (*). As always, you will find no references
to numbnut movie stars or fashion designers. Need more crossword RF Cafe puzzles?
A list at the bottom of the page links to hundreds of them dating back to the year
2000. Enjoy.
 If you were hanging around here in 2014,
you might recall a paper I published titled, "Drone-Based
Field Measurement System™ (dB-FMS)™." Since that time, I have seen news
items about a few companies using drones to measure antenna radiation patterns and many more others are coming online all the time. Some amazing working systems
have been implemented that seem to perform very well. I'm not saying they got the
idea from my article because more than one person can have the same brilliant idea
;-). It's just good to know that my concept had some merit in the real world...
 Whilst reading this Carl Kohler technodrama
entitled "Thin
Air My Foot!," I happened upon this word new to me: "din," as in "It was dinned
into me." OK, maybe you already knew that, but surely I should have been aware of
its alternate meaning other than being a loud noise ("the agitated cat made quite
a din."). Fortunately, I am not subject to a household of people who refuse to put
things back in their respective places when through with them, but this tale of
woe tells what might be a familiar scenario to you. To be honest, this could have
been written about me as a boy - before the U.S. Air Force taught me a thing or
two about organization and neatness - since I continually frustrated my father by
leaving his tools (and hardware and lumber and paint) scattered in forgotten places
around the house and yard...
 In the early 1960's, the U.S. Air Force's
Air Defense Command began installing high power
AN/FPS-24 long range radar units in some of the country's major seaboard and
northern cities. Designed to watch for ICBM's and intruding long-range aircraft
from the U.S.S.R., it operated in the VHF band at a 7.5 MW peak power output.
Once operational, nearby residents immediately began lodging complaints about severe
bleeps of interference on radios (AM, FM, mobile radio, wireless surveillance) and
television that occurred once every 12 seconds - the rotation period of the radar's
120-foot-wide by 50-foot-tall antenna. The USAF's response was to blame the problem
on crappy receiver design by all the manufacturers, and refused to take any action
to mitigation the problem. Many science and engineering magazines reported on the
heated battle, and eventually the government was forced to yield...
 Upon seeing this advertisement by Bell Laboratories
for their "Twistor"
form of magnetic memory data storage in a 1958 issue of Radio News magazine,
my thought was that it was just another flash in the pan, so to speak, in the history
of breakthrough, paradigm-changing inventions. It was a variation of the non-volatile
magnetic core memory that used sections of ferromagnetic wire twisted around copper
wire in such a way that electrical currents directed to particular intersections
in an x-y grid would cause a magnetic orientation to be set (store a bit) and a
set or read and sense wires permitted detection of the stored magnetic field to
be determined (read a bit). The Twistor was hailed as a much more manufacturable
form of the magnetic core memory, which required production workers with small hands
and finger to manually thread...
 This is the
electronics market prediction for Belgium, 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. Military systems for NATO and television
sets were a big part of the picture. Unless you can find a news story on the state
of the industry, detailed reports must be purchased from research companies like
Statista. Their website has a lot of charts on Belgium's current electronics market
showing revenue in the consumer electronics segment amounts of US$2,995M in 2023.
Reports for other countries - Japan, the UK, France, Russia, and more - are also
provided...
 For 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. As with all RF Cafe
crossword puzzles, this November 15th
Electronics Engineering crossword puzzle 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.
, movie star unless he/she was involved in a technical endeavor (e.g., Hedy Lamarr)... |
