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Exodus Advanced Communications Best in Class RF Amplifier SSPAs - RF Cafe

FCC Proposes CB "Type Acceptance" - Manufacturers Blamed for Malpractices

FCC Proposes CB "Type Acceptance" - Manufacturers Blamed for CB Malpractices, May 1967 Popular Electronics - RF CafeIn all-too-typical style, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to look for a scapegoat it could not just blame for but strong-arm a solution for claimed problems plaguing Citizen Band (CB) radio as it was rapidly becoming a popular hobby in the 1960s. In the same manner in which bureaucrats blame gun and steak knife manufacturers for the abusive actions of a minority of their products' users, the FCC sought to curtail improper (maybe even illegal) operation of CB radios by imposing type certification and feature restrictions on equipment manufacturers. To demonstrate its magnanimity, though, the FCC offered to give companies half a year to deplete their existing inventories. At the time and through 1977, CBs had 23 channels, after which time 40 channels became the new mandate...

Electronics Supply Chains at Crossroads Scaling AI

Electronics Supply Chains Face Crossroads Scaling AI - RF Cafe"In the electronics industry, where complexity and speed are essential, artificial intelligence (AI) stands out as a transformative force poised to revolutionize the field. Yet, despite significant investments and high expectations, many organizations find themselves grappling with an uncomfortable reality: the true value of AI for supply chains remains elusive at scale. Great expectations, harsh realities Gartner research found that 65% of CEOs in supply chain-intensive sectors believe the next 'business era' will be defined by AI. An impressive 73% believe that AI will emerge as the most transformative technology for their businesses..."

VDR's and Thermistors

VDR's and Thermistors, April 1969 Radio-Electronics - RF CafePop Quiz: What is the contemporary name we have given to the voltage variable resistor (VDR)? Although VDRs are nowadays used most familiarly for overvoltage protection due to spikes on a power or signal line, they used to be functional parts of television display and power supply circuits. They also made those newfangled field effect transistors - junction (JFET), and enhancement mode and depletion mode insulated-gate (IGFET, aka MOSFET). Thermistors, silicon-controlled rectifiers (SCRs), and varactor diodes are also discussed. Sylvania was a prime user of all these devices back in the day as part of their effort to modernize televisions and radio by abandoning vacuum tubes wherever possible...

Squires Sanders CB's Advertisement re Sporadic E

Squires Sanders CBs, October 1967 Popular Electronics - RF CafeSporadic E skip is an upper atmosphere phenomenon whereby the "E" layer is ionized to where certain radio frequency (RF) wavelengths are refracted to the degree that they are bent back down towards the earth's surface rather than exiting into space. It facilitates long distance (DX) communications to areas not normally available otherwise. Amateur radio operators (Hams) have exploited sporadic E skip for nearly as long as there has been Ham operators - even before anyone knew for certain that the upper atmosphere could be ionized. Thus far there is no concrete correlation between sunspot activity and sporadic E propagation, although sunspots definitely have other profound effects on propagation when highly energetic electrons released from the sun's photosphere interact with molecules in the ionosphere...

Werbel 90° Hybrid Splitter for 500-1000 MHz

Werbel Microwave 90° Hybrid Power Splitter for 500 to 1000 MHz - RF CafeWerbel Microwave began as a consulting firm, specializing in RF components design, with the ability to rapidly spin low volume prototypes, and has quickly grown into a major designer and manufacturer with volume production capacities. Werbel is proud to announce its WMQH-0.5-1-S is a 90° hybrid designed for the 500-1000 MHz octave band. It provides a 3 dB power split with tight 90° phase shift and low amplitude unbalance. Key features include high isolation, typically 26 dB, and excellent return loss of 24 dB typical, ensuring minimal signal reflection and optimal performance across the band. Products are designed and manufactured in our Whippany, New Jersey, location. "No Worries with Werbel!"...

The Sarasota Mystery

The Sarasota Mystery, April 1966 Popular Electronics - RF CafeAfter reading both this article and "The Sarasota Mystery First Follow-Up" article in the April 1966 issue of Popular Electronics, I'm convinced that the inventor Wallace Minto either did not understand the phenomenon he describes, or he's out to punk the reader. If this initial article had been printed in the April issue rather than March, it almost certainly would have to have been a Fool's scam. Minto believes he has discovered a new form of electromagnetic propagation that exploits molecular / atomic properties of water to transmit the signal - without attenuation and without picking up noise. If it sounds too good to be true...

Electromaze Puzzle

Electromaze Puzzle, April 1966 Popular Electronics - RF CafeRobert Radford's (not to be confused with Robert Redford) "Electromaze" is a unique - and weird - sort of word puzzle that appeared in the April 1966 issue of Popular Electronics magazine. You will probably want to print out the maze grid and find an old guy who should still have a pencil stowed away somewhere you can borrow to use for filling in the boxes. Note that in my opinion the answer given for clue number 2 is technically wrong. What say you?...

Western Tech Pivot Away from China

Western Technology Giants Pivot Away from China - RF cafe"Big tech is redrawing the global manufacturing map. As Western technology giants strategically pivot away from their longstanding reliance on China, a fundamental and likely irreversible global technology supply chain recalibration is underway. What began as a shift in the U.S.-China trade war from tariffs to the more intricate arena of export controls is now a full-blown strategic imperative for major tech firms. The action has decisively shifted to a 'China+N' manufacturing model, driven by persistent geopolitical tensions, the erosion of China's cost advantage, and the stark operational vulnerabilities exposed by the global COVID-19 pandemic..."

Variable-Capacitance Diodes

Variable-Capacitance Diodes, July 1969 Electronics World - RF CafeIt appears that maybe Abraham Lincoln had a son who was an electrical engineer working at Motorola Semiconductor back in the 1960's. Put glasses on Honest Abe (I did) and author Irwin Carroll's a spitting image of the Great Emancipator. Seriously though, this article is a great introduction to the fabrication and use of variable capacitance (aka varicap and varactor) diodes. They have been - and still are - used widely for electrically tunable oscillator and filter circuits. Topics such as temperature and figure of merit ("Q") are discussed as well. This edition of Electronics World ran a series...

Anatech Electronics July 2025 Newsletter

Anatech Electronics July 2025 Newsletter - RF CafeSam Benzacar, of Anatech Electronics, an RF and microwave filter company, has published his July 2025 Newsletter that, along with timely news items, features his short op-ed entitled "3GPP Release 20 Gets Us Closer to 6G." In it, he states, "One of the most significant areas of emphasis in Release 20 is integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning into the radio access network (RAN) and the core network." I have seen numerous news items in the last few months reporting on the melding of AI and network communications. This type of AI "intelligently" controls the global and local systems by optimizing traffic flow via real-time tower and control center analysis. A major feature is device-to-device (D2D) communications that can bypass the network...

Solid-State Scene: IC Comparators and Op Amps

Solid-State Scene: IC Comparators and Op Amps, May 1973 Popular Electronics - RF CafeIt is hard to imagine a time when integrated circuit (IC) comparators were a big deal, but as recently as 1973 when this article appeared in Popular Electronics, they were new to a designer's bag of tricks. Prior to an IC solution, comparators needed to be constructed from opamps and a handful of peripheral biasing components. As with other integrated circuits, not only does the overall price go down, but so does circuit board real estate, cost, temperature variability, and electrical parameter variance between devices. The first comparator circuit I remember designing was a temperature sensor that went in an oven used for curing the potting...

Mac's Service Shop: Servicing Without Service Data

Mac's Service Shop: Servicing Without Service Data, February 1974 Popular Electronics - RF CafeHere is an area of electronics that will be foreign soil to most Gen-Xers and Millennials - troubleshooting your malfunctioning radio, phone, television, garage door opener, kitchen appliance, etc. Admittedly, most modern devices are designed and priced to be replaced rather than repaired. Relatively cheap product replacement and service plans keep them going for a year or three until they are obsoleted by newer devices with whiz-bang additional features. However, there are many of us still around who are born to tinker and are too cheap to bear the thought of throwing something away before at least attempting to fix it. I have written often about how many...

MIT's 3D Chips Faster Energy-Efficienter

MIT 3D Chips Could Make Electronics Faster and More Energy-Efficient - RF Cafe"The low-cost, scalable technology enables seamless integration of high-speed gallium nitride transistors onto a standard silicon chip. Gallium nitride is an advanced semiconductor material that is expected to play a key role in the next generation of high-speed communication systems and the power electronics that support modern data centers. However, the widespread use of gallium nitride (GaN) has been limited by its high cost to incorporate it into standard electronic systems. To address these challenges, researchers from MIT and collaborating institutions have developed a new fabrication process that integrates high-performance GaN transistors..."

RF Cafe Engineering Crossword Puzzle

RF Cafe Engineering Crossword Puzzle w/Weekly Headlines February 25, 2018At least 10 clues with an asterisk (*) in this technology-themed crossword puzzle are pulled from "Tech Industry Headlines" column on the RF Cafe homepage (see the Headline Archives page for help). For the sake of all the avid cruciverbalists amongst us, each week I create a new technology-themed crossword puzzle using only words from my custom-created related to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc. Enjoy...

Please Thank IPP for Their Long-Time Support!

Innovative Power ProductsInnovative Power Products has been designing and manufacturing RF and Microwave passive components since 2005. We use the latest design tools available to build our baluns, 90-degree couplers, directional couplers, combiners/dividers, single-ended transformers, resistors, terminations, and custom products. Applications in military, medical, industrial, and commercial markets are serviced around the world. Products listed on the website link to detailed mechanical drawings, electrical specifications, and performance data. If you cannot find a product that meets your requirements on our website, contact us to speak with one of our experienced design engineers about your project.

Scope-Trace Quiz

Scope-Trace Quiz, March 1965 Popular Electronics - RF CafeJust yesterday I posted an article titled "Understanding Your Triggered Sweep Scope," that appeared in the May 1973 issue of Popular Electronics, so I figured this "Scope-Trace Quiz" would make a good compliment. It is from a 1965 issue of Popular Electronics. Driver circuits all include a sinewave source in parallel with a series resistor and diode, connected to the vertical and horizontal o-scope inputs. The resulting Lissajous waveforms resemble hands on a clock face thanks to the diode. Shamefully, I only scored 70%, but in my own defense I'll say I didn't take the time to draw them out on paper. Pay careful attention to the scope...

Airport Radar Could Help Aliens Spot Earth

Airport Radar Could Help Aliens Spot Earth - RF Cafe"Advanced alien civilisations could discover human life on Earth by picking up technosignatures given off inadvertently by civilian and military radar, new research shows. The study investigated how hidden electromagnetic leakage might look to extraterrestrials up to 200 light-years away if they had advanced radio telescopes like those on Earth. It also suggests this is how far humans would be able to look to spot extraterrestrials who have evolved to use a similar level of technology. Preliminary results revealed at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting 2025 in Durham show how aviation hubs such as Heathrow, Gatwick and New York's JFK International Airport give off clues to human existence..."

Test Bench: Build the Torture Box Environmental Chamber

Test Bench: Build the Torture Box Environmental Chamber, February 1974 Popular Electronics - RF CafeHere is a unique type of article from a 1974 issue of Popular Electronics. Author Ralph Tenny presents a poor-man's environmental test chamber constructed with a Styrofoam picnic cooler, a dry ice sump, a heater, a thermocouple, and a bunch of input/output ports for making electrical measurements. While working on my senior project at college - an electronic remote weather station - I needed to verify functionality up to 150°F and down to 0°F. Having the Torture Box would have been handy, but instead I used the kitchen oven and freezer with the interconnect cable mashed between the door gasket and frame. Unfortunately I don't have any...

Mac's Service Shop: Modules and the Technician

Mac's Service Shop: Modules and the Technician, January 1973 Popular Electronics - RF CafeThe transition from vacuum tubes to semiconductors, and from black and white to color televisions was in full swing by 1973. Accompanying the change in components was a re-thinking of the most effective and profitable method of manufacturing and servicing the new equipment. Modularization was thought to be key to future success even though production costs were slightly higher. Reliability improvements were already reducing the need for service calls and highly trained technicians who could troubleshoot failures down to the component level. Swapping out suspect modules with known-good modules, in Mac's words, results in "a quickly trained module swapper who knows only 'how' and not..."

Radio Measurements in Space

Radio Measurements in Space, May 1967 Electronics World - Airplanes and RocketsThe first thing I learned (or re-learned) in reading this article is that in 1967, "Hertz" had only recently been assigned as the official unit of frequency. According to Wikipedia, International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) adopted it in in 1930, but it wasn't until 1960 that it was adopted by the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) (Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures). Hertz replace cycles per second (cps). The next thing that happened was that I was reminded of how images such as the op-art tracing of antenna oscillation that are routinely generated today by sophisticated software, required huge amounts of setup time and trials to yield just a single useful and meaningful image using actual hardware...

The 8 Most Essential Types of PCB Vias

San Francisco Circuits has published a comprehensive guide on the 8 most essential types of PCB vias, helping designers, engineers, and procurement teams navigate the challenges of modern board manufacturing. This is a guide to the 8 different via types. As electronic devices continue to shrink in size while increasing in complexity, PCB vias play a critical role in enabling multi-layer interconnections, high-speed signal integrity, and thermal performance. The 8 main types of PCB vias each serves a specific function depending on the board's structure, component density, and electrical requirements...

Atomic Radiation: Measuring Techniques

Atomic Radiation: Measuring Techniques, July 1969 Electronics World - RF CafeThis is Part 3 of a series of articles on atomic radiation that appeared in Electronic World magazine in 1969. It deals with measurement techniques and equipment. Shippingport Atomic Power Station, the first full scale nuclear power plant in the U.S., went operational in 1957. It marked the dawn of a new era of electric power generation that was filled with grandiose predictions of limitless, non-polluting, dirt cheap power. Everything was going to be powered by electricity - air heating and cooling, lighting, automobiles, water heating. Atomic power was going to be a figurative and almost literal beating of swords into ploughshares as the destructive energy...

Engineering & Tech Headlines <Archives>

• FCC Power Shift Underway

• Global Foundry Market Sees Milder Dip in 2025

• U.S. Renegotiating Chips Act Awards

• Recalls Can Create a Multitude of Legal Problems

• Why ChatGPT's Essays Don't Fool the Experts - Yet

Electronics Themed Comics

Electronics Themed Comics, April 1944 Radio-Craft - RF CafeTGIF, as the saying goes. Here are a couple new vintage electronics-themed comics for your enjoyment as you wind down the work week. They appeared in a 1944 issue of Radio-Craft magazine. My favorite is the one with the lady in the vacuum cleaner repair shop. Look at her request! Her husband must have put her up to it. The other comic is pretty good, too. Having lived toward the end of the vacuum tube era, my appreciation of the equipment is more for the nostalgic quality than memories of having to wait for the tubes to warm up and re-tuning the radio and TV set at intervals while listening and/or watching...

Calvin & Phineas Hamming It Up®™: Saving Field Day

Calvin & Phineas Hamming It Up®™: Saving Field Day, by Kirt Blattenberger - RF CafeAmateur Extra-class teenagers Calvin Nolten and Phineas Thorin embark on a mission to track down the source of spurious signals in the 70 cm Ham band which threaten DX contesting on Field Day. The story is Saving Field Day, wherein, Calvin Nolten, a pint-sized shockwave of teenage pandemonium, slammed open the front door of his home with a report that could've been mistaken for a misfiring capacitor, the frame shuddering as if protesting the assault. At fifteen, barely scraping five-and-a-half feet, Calvin was a bundle of raw energy. His school backpack was a chaotic jumble of ham radio manuals, a late-model Galaxy smartphone, and lunchtime leftovers. He stormed the kitchen, raided the fridge for a quick snack, and before the light inside had a chance to go out, Calvin was out the back door, bound for Phineas Thorin's basement "shack." Mrs. Nolten, unperturbed by the familiar maelstrom, took solace in know that the chaos meant her boy was home safe - and likely already plotting some radio mischief with his partner in crime next door...

Today in Science History

Today in Science History - RF Cafe

RF Cafe Homepage Archives

The RF Cafe Homepage Archive is a comprehensive collection of every item appearing daily on this website since 2012 - and many from earlier years.

Your Receiver as an Audio Generator

Your Receiver as an Audio Generator, December 1955 Radio-Electronics - RF CafeI swear when I perused the December 1955 issue of Radio-Electronics there was a good reason that I tagged this "Your Receiver as an Audio Generator" article for posting, but I'll be danged if the motivation for it is obvious now. There's nothing undeserving about the subject from the perspective of a reader back in the day when test equipment could be hard and/or expensive to come by. In fact, as with many of the articles selected this one demonstrates the old maxim about how necessity is the mother of invention. No less an authority on the value of being able to cobble up test equipment from magazine articles and a box of spare parts than Mac McGregor, proprietor of Mac's Radio Service Shop, promotes the practice as an essential skill. Even if you don't find the article useful, at least there's an electronics-related comic on the page to entertain you.

Comics with an Electronics Theme

Comics with an Electronics Theme, May 1967 Popular Electronics - RF CafeWalt Miller drew a lot of comics for electronics magazines like Popular Electronics, and he did the cover art for Astounding Science Fiction magazine. No doubt there were others. I could not find any detailed information about Mr. Miller's personal background, such as whether he was a Ham radio operator, but clearly he enjoyed electronics and science topics. This group of comics, which appeared in the May 1967 issue of Popular Electronics, touches on many scenarios that would have been familiar to hobbyists of the day. I like the one where the guy sneezes and scatters carefully counted and sorted resistors all over the floor. Another refers to installment plans for purchasing equipment. That was from a time when credit cards were not handed out like candy and only people with provable credit-worthiness could get them...

Reactivating Leaky Electrolytic Capacitors

Reactivating Leaky Electrolytic Capacitors, January 1956 Popular Electronics - RF CafeUnlike the Roll Your Own Foil Capacitors article in the same issue of Popular Electronics magazine, this one advising how to reactivate leaky capacitors might be of use to a lot more people. The process is called "reforming," and consists of applying a DC voltage to the faulty capacitor, beginning at a very low voltage, and then slowly raising the voltage until the rated working voltage (WVDC) is reached. Doing so, if the capacitor is not beyond rehabilitation, will reconstitute the oxide layer that serves as the dielectric. This particular item was presented as the answer to a question posed by a reader. A Google search on "reform capacitor" will turn up more detail about the procedure. Most people recommend against reforming unless you have no other option, as this writer from India might have faced at the time...

Out of Order: Attack of the Cookie Monster

Out of Order: Attack of the Cookie Monster - RF CafeDuring my electronics technician days at the Westinghouse Electric Company's Oceanic Division in Annapolis, Maryland, I spent the first couple years building printed circuit boards, wiring harnesses, and system-level assemblies for U.S. Navy sonar systems. We had some really slick stuff like towed vehicles with transducer arrays along the sides, nose cones for smart torpedoes, flow sensors, proximity fuse elements, etc. Exposure to all that, and the super-smart people that designed it, fuelled my desire to go to the trouble of earning an engineering degree. One of my tasks for a while was to build the transducer arrays, which entailed building the hundreds of tiny transducer elements. One of the phased array acoustic antennas was mounted on each side of the AN/AQS-14 towed sonar vehicle...

Simpson Electric Company Vacuum Tube Volt-Ohmmeter

Simpson Electric Company Vacuum Tube Volt-Ohmmeter, November 1949 Radio-Electronics - RF CafeThose of us old enough to remember the classic Simpson volt-ohmmeter (VOM) from the 1970s will look at this 1949 model appearing in Radio-Electronics magazine and probably not notice much if any difference. The basic case design is similar and it appears to be about the same physical size. The selector switches and potentiometer knobs look familiar as well. The primary difference is what is inside - a vacuum tube rather than a field-effect transistor (FET). The Simpson Model 303 is a vacuum tube voltmeter (VTVM - actually a VTVOH). Prior to the availability of FETs with their very high input impedance characteristic (10 MΩ or greater), a vacuum tube input stage was needed to isolate the device (or circuit) under test (DUT) from the relatively low impedance of the resistor-based volt-ohm meter (VOM - as with the Simpson Model 260) meter circuitry. The problem is that a low VOM impedance...

Onboard Radio Operator: Master of His Domain

Onboard Radio Operator: Master of His Domain, October 1932 Radio News - RF CafeShipboard radio operators have been a crucial part of commercial and military transport since first being implemented in the early 20th century. Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company's operators (John "Jack" Phillips and Harold Bride) onboard the RMS Titanic are credited for saving the ship after it ran into an iceberg in the north Atlantic, as are the radio operators aboard the RMS Lusitania after German U-boats mercilessly torpedoed it. Today's sailing vessels, as well as aircraft, are as reliant upon skillful radio operators and radio equipment as back then. Much has been automated, but ultimately it is the human element...

Electronic Crosswords, April 1960 Electronics World

Electronic Crosswords, April 1960 Electronics World - RF CafeJohn Gill published many electronics-themed crossword puzzles in Electronics World magazine in the 1950s and 1960s. Unlike the weekly RF Cafe engineering crossword puzzles, some of the words used herein are not directly related to science, engineering, mathematics, etc. You will find the level of difficulty much less than that of a Sunday edition New York Times crossword, but there are some challenging clues, particularly given the era that it was created. Bon chance...

Get Your Custom-Designed RF Cafe Gear!

Custom-Designed RF-Themed Cups, T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks (Cafe Press) - RF CafeThis assortment of custom-designed themes by RF Cafe includes T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks, Tote Bags, Coffee Mugs and Steins, Purses, Sweatshirts, Baseball Caps, and more, all sporting my amazingly clever "RF Engineers - We Are the World's Matchmakers" Smith chart design. These would make excellent gifts for husbands, wives, kids, significant others, and for handing out at company events or as rewards for excellent service. My graphic has been ripped off by other people and used on their products, so please be sure to purchase only official RF Cafe gear. I only make a couple bucks on each sale - the rest goes to Cafe Press. It's a great way to help support RF Cafe. Thanks...

Promote Your Company on RF Cafe

Sponsor RF Cafe for as Little as $40 per Month - RF CafeBanner Ads are rotated in all locations on the page! RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000 visits each weekday. RF Cafe is a favorite of engineers, technicians, hobbyists, and students all over the world. With more than 17,000 pages in the Google search index, RF Cafe returns in favorable positions on many types of key searches, both for text and images. Your Banner Ads are displayed on average 225,000 times per year! New content is added on a daily basis, which keeps the major search engines interested enough to spider it multiple times each day. Items added on the homepage often can be found in a Google search within a few hours of being posted. If you need your company news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be...

Walsco Electronics Corporation Antennas

Walsco Electronics Corporation Antennas, April 1954 Radio & Televsion News - RF CafeThis is another example of one of those advertisements you likely would not see in a modern electronics magazine. There is nothing fundamentally problematic about its content or message, but politically correct standards would condemn any depiction of a woman expressing such excessive appreciation for a man's efforts. It might, after all, convey the idea that all television antenna servicemen should expect such treatment from all women. It also implies that only men can be TV antenna servicemen / servicepersons. If that sounds nutty, well, what can I say. It's the world we live in as evidenced by news items of late. Keep firmly in mind that what is accepted as a social norm today might be considered to be a crime in a few decades, so exercise caution in all you do in the presence of witnesses be it written, videoed, spoken, or acted out...

Broadcasting - As I Imagined It...

Broadcasting - As I Imagined I..., February 1939 Radio-Craft - RF CafeDr. Lee DeForest might have had something like National Public Radio (est. 1970) in mind when he penned this article in 1933. In it, the famous vacuum tube amplifier inventor lamented and criticized the commercialization of broadcasts because of all the paid product announcements (aka commercials) that had been steadily increasing over the years. He also was critical of the "hit-or-miss, higgeldy-piggeldy mélange program basis" of programing; i.e., the same station playing a mix of jazz, opera, swing, syndicated story-telling, etc. The good doctor did not elaborate on where funding for such dedicated, uncorrupted broadcasts would originate if not from paying advertisers, and I do not recall ever reading about a DeForest Radio Network paid for by his vast fortune. I don't like commercials any more than the next person, but a company deserves time to pitch its products and/or services if it helps deliver a source of entertainment to you that...

Get Your Custom-Designed RF Cafe Gear!

Custom-Designed RF-Themed Cups, T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks (Cafe Press) - RF CafeThis assortment of custom-designed themes by RF Cafe includes T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks, Tote Bags, Coffee Mugs and Steins, Purses, Sweatshirts, Baseball Caps, and more, all sporting my amazingly clever "RF Engineers - We Are the World's Matchmakers" Smith chart design. These would make excellent gifts for husbands, wives, kids, significant others, and for handing out at company events or as rewards for excellent service. My graphic has been ripped off by other people and used on their products, so please be sure to purchase only official RF Cafe gear. I only make a couple bucks on each sale - the rest goes to Cafe Press. It's a great way to help support RF Cafe. Thanks...

Promote Your Company on RF Cafe

Sponsor RF Cafe for as Little as $40 per Month - RF CafeBanner Ads are rotated in all locations on the page! RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000 visits each weekday. RF Cafe is a favorite of engineers, technicians, hobbyists, and students all over the world. With more than 17,000 pages in the Google search index, RF Cafe returns in favorable positions on many types of key searches, both for text and images. Your Banner Ads are displayed on average 225,000 times per year! New content is added on a daily basis, which keeps the major search engines interested enough to spider it multiple times each day. Items added on the homepage often can be found in a Google search within a few hours of being posted. If you need your company news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be...

Carl & Jerry: Eeeeelectricity!

Carl & Jerry: Eeeeelectricity!, November 1956 Popular Electronics - RF CafeWikipedia claims there are about 350 species of electric fish. Jerry tells fellow electrical and electronics experimenter Carl that the electric eel is not an eel at all, but a fish. Actually, the eel is a fish (a knifefish); however - and I needed to look this up - a true eel is a member of the fish order Anguilliformes, which the electric eel is not. Having no expertise in the field of eels, I'll leave it at that. Jerry's uncle, who is an active duty Navy guy, somehow managed to ship an electric eel to him for experimentation purposes. Doing so might have been possible in 1956 when this episode of "Carl & Jerry" appeared in Popular Electronics magazine, but today it is doubtful. Besides that, how to you mail an electric eel to somebody? The pair's measurements of voltages and pulse widths jive pretty well with modern data. Here is a story about how electric eels curl to obtain higher voltages for stunning prey...

Standing Waves on Transmission Lines

Standing Waves on Transmission Lines, December 1942 QST - RF CafeIn this article from a 1942 issue of QST magazine, author T.A. Gadwa employs a standing wave mechanism analogy that I don't recall having read before - that of a dam on a river. The river is the transmission line with a lake as the source (presumably) and then he imagines a dam load. The dam standing waves, per his description, have phase and amplitude characteristics that depend on how tall the dam wall is relative to the surface height of the dammed river. An extensive array of graphs is provided showing how the current of the dam standing waves react to the dam transmission line termination impedance. I always wonder when seeing electrical-mechanical parity examples whether, as with this case, there are any dam magazine articles out there that use an electrical transmission line to help fellow civil engineers...

Kluge Electronics "California Kilowatt" Amateur Radio Station

Kluge Electronics "California Kilowatt" Amateur Radio Station, March 1946, Radio-Craft - RF CafeNo matter how proud I was of my family name, I do believe I would refrain from using "Kluge" as a company moniker. Maybe the word did no connate the same meaning in 1946 when this advertisement for the Kluge Electronics "California Kilowatt" Amateur Radio Station appeared in Radio-Craft magazine. An extensive WWW search turned up no examples of any surviving Kluge "California Kilowatt" Amateur Radio Stations. One QRZ website discussion supposed that none were ever manufactured. Per Wikipedia: "A kludge or kluge (klooj) is a workaround or quick-and-dirty solution that is clumsy, inelegant, inefficient, difficult to extend and hard to maintain." It has an interesting etymology. I found references to the term "California Kilowatt" meaning a transmitter putting out more than the legal power limit. California Kilowatt is also nowadays the name of a Canadian rock band...

Transistor Dictionary

Transistor Dictionary, May 1958 Radio-Electronics - RF CafeA few (many, actually) new terms have been added to the transistor lexicon since 1958, but this list from Radio-Electronics magazine contains more than 150 definitions that are still useful today. It is amazing that this list was created just a decade after the transistor was invented, and now half a century later the most commonly used terms have not changed much. A huge number of elemental compounds, configurations, and process terms have been added since then, though. All of these are included in my custom dictionary used for creating the weekly crossword puzzles - compiled over more than two decades...

Exodus Advanced Communications Best in Class RF Amplifier SSPAs - RF Cafe