Radio & Television News magazine
ran a two-part article on the state of the art of computers in the late 1950s. It
had only been since ENIAC's (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) debut in 1946 at
MIT that the public was getting used to regularly hearing about computers in the
news. By 1957 there were many companies popping up with electronic computer offerings.
Originally the exclusive purview of university research labs and defense installations,
the size and cost of computers was moving into the realm of affordability by corporations
that used them for accounting and bookkeeping, and in some cases even rented idle
time to outside users. Desktop PCs and notebook...
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.
In this adventure from a 1962 issue of
Popular Electronics magazine, Carl and Jerry were once again called upon
by law enforcement to apply their combined
electronics expertise to help collar a perp. By this time, the boys were college
students in the electrical engineering program at Parvoo U. (fabled to be a tribute
to Perdue). A storied past in their high school days is well-documented in previous
"Carl & Jerry" technodramas. Mr. Frye was always careful to provide a balanced
mix of technical prowess and adventure into his stories. It is easy when reading
these kinds of stories in today's world to ask what is so special about the feat
pulled off here, but in fact access to materials and equipment...
"Researchers have uncovered a way to manipulate
DNA at the atomic level using electric field gradients to control nitrogen nuclear
spins. Their findings suggest that DNA could be used as both a storage and computation
mechanism in future quantum computing devices. A recent study by researchers from
Peking University highlights the potential of nuclear electric resonance to control
the nuclear spins of nitrogen atoms in
DNA using electric field gradients. This breakthrough suggests that DNA could
one day be manipulated for computational purposes..."
RF Cafe visitors are involved in many aspects
of what has come to be known as "green energy" through direct involvement in resource,
component, and end-product production, through ownership of those end products,
and through paying taxes to government which allocate subsidies for all phases of
the life cycle. For example, with government incentives, an EV like the Tesla Model
Y may cost the buyer $46k. However, without subsidies, the real cost would be closer
to $66k to $76k. The pursuit of green energy encompasses both notable achievements...
SatNow maintains a list of
upcoming satellite launches from the leading launch companies. These include
NASA, Space X, Rocket, ISRO, Blue Origin and many more. Learn more about each launch,
its launch date, location and launch vehicle used. We provide the latest news, interesting
white papers, technical articles and an innovative product search tool. The product
search tool is the first of its kind and helps engineers find products across various
categories in three areas: Satellite, Ground, Launch. SatNow also provides a huge
collection of online calculators for satellite communications. Examples are an anomalistic
period calculator, an antenna G/T ratio calculator, an antenna polarization...
Mixing a little fun with learning has always
been a good motivation for students. I have written in the past about a particular
electronic circuits professor I had that liked to play practical jokes during lessons
and exams. Including gag options on a multiple choice test is a great way to inject
a bit of tension-easing levity while at the same time eliminating one or more opportunities
to guess at a wrong answer (although no relief for the truly clueless). I sometimes
do that on the RF Cafe Quizzes that I generate. Radio-Craft printed a large
bunch of such quiz questions under the title "Radio WittiQuiz," where the questions and answers were provided
by readers...
• Wireless Broadband Alliance's
10 Predictions for Wi-Fi in 2025
• Fixed
Wireless Access is Preferred Next Internet Connection (I use it)
• FCC Upholds
Forfeiture Order Against Ham Operator
• European
Commission Updates AI Act
• 345%
News Radio Listening Surge for LA Wildfires
Combinational logic is a fundamental category
of digital circuit design in which the output depends solely on the present input
values, without any memory or feedback elements. Unlike sequential logic, which
retains state across clock cycles, combinational logic circuits process input signals
in real-time and produce immediate output. The relationship between input and output
in these circuits can be described using Boolean algebra and truth tables. The history
of combinational logic dates back to the early 20th century when Boolean algebra,
introduced by George Boole in the mid-19th century, was first applied to electrical
circuits. In the 1930s and 1940s, engineers like Claude Shannon and George Stibitz...
This first of a three-part series on
digital electronics run by Popular Electronics magazine
begins with introducing binary (base 2), octal (base 8), and decimal (base 10)
number systems, along with conversions between the types. Sure, this is probably
old-hat to most RF Cafe visitors, but there is always a new cadre of electronics
enthusiasts entering the field who appreciate the instruction. No matter how advanced
digital electronics gets, a fundamental understanding and fluency in binary arithmetic
is essential to success whether as a hobbyists or as a professional. If you cannot
move effortlessly between the various number formats...
"The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
last week announced a Special Temporary Authority (STA) for AST SpaceMobile to enable
its operator partners - AT&T and Verizon - to test its Bluebird direct-to-device
(D2D)
satellite constellation over the United States. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom,
Vodafone has used the nascent Bluebird constellation to enable a video call between
Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group chief executive in Newbury, England, and
Vodafone engineer Rowan Chesmer..."
The
San Andreas Fault has been in the news again lately, with hundreds of small
tremors being detected along its 750 mile extent. Given its proximity to many of
the world's most important and valuable high technology companies, government facilities,
and universities, a delve into some of the issues is relevant to RF Cafe visitors.
According to some sources, the probability of a major rupture along the San Andreas
Fault varies depending on the specific segment and the time frame considered. According
to the Third Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast (UCERF3), developed
by the USGS and other institutions, there is an estimated 7% chance of a magnitude
8.0 or greater earthquake occurring...
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- and don't miss the blog articles!
Put on your thinking cap again and take
a shot at these trio of new circuit analysis problems that appeared in the "What's
Your EQ?" feature in the February 1964 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine.
These days, I'm guessing not too many people are familiar with the characteristics
of neon bulbs, and even way fewer with vacuum tube circuits. Neon bulbs were one
of the earlier forms of voltage references since once ignited, the voltage drop
across them is fairly constant, sort of like a gaseous Zener diode - except there
was zero current flow prior to ignition. Although I didn't know for sure, I figured
that even with its high input impedance...
It is doubtful that as many people today
build their own
stereo speaker enclosures as was the case back in the 1950s through about the
1970s. During those decades stereo equipment was a really big deal, as evidenced
by the large number of articles in technical and hobby magazines. I have posted
a couple dozen articles on the subject here on RF Cafe. Topics included equipment
reviews and feature comparisons, troubleshooting and alignment, modifications to
commercial units, build-it-yourself projects, optimized room layout and construction,
and even advice on how to best enjoy your stereo system. Lots of comics appeared
in the magazines as well poking fun at how a stereo enthusiast's family members
and neighbor might not appreciate the ear drum-busting power capability of your
system. There were also quizzes like this one on speaker enclosure baffle design ...
The long-running
patent litigation between ParkerVision and Qualcomm is in the news again. It
has been a significant case in the wireless technology industry, focusing on radio-frequency
(RF) receivers and signal down-conversion methods. Given the importance of RF technology
in Bluetooth, ZigBee, Wi-Fi, and even wireless charging, the outcome of this case
has broader implications for wireless communication markets. ParkerVision's patents
center on RF down-conversion technology, a key process in wireless communications.
RF down-conversion involves converting high-frequency signals into lower frequencies...
"Ofcom has given Amazon the go-ahead to
launch satellite broadband services in the UK and simultaneously announced it is
releasing more high-band spectrum that could be used by the satellite industry.
Meanwhile, the UK government is also getting in on the act, allocating funding to
a pair of projects in the satellite space. The UK telecoms regulator has granted
an earth station network licence to
Amazon's Kuiper. That essentially means that the company has the green light
to provide satellite connectivity services, including high-speed..."
This is a story with a lesson learned by
the author and thousands of others ever since electric power appliances and tools
first became available. Fortunately, his Ham buddy was not permanently harmed, but
even today with all the effort put into educating the public, people continue to
use ungrounded (2-wire type, or with the ground prong removed) extension cords in
conjunction with 3-wire power cords on tools and end up
electrocuting
themselves (or somebody else). I've told the story before about a friend of mine
from high school who shortly after graduation was making a piece of furniture in
a garage that had a damp dirt floor, and was electrocuted to death by the metal-framed
circular saw that had no ground connected. Nowadays we often have power provided
by a GFCI receptacle...
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.
If you believe this 1953 advertisement in
Radio & Television News magazine, engineering at
Bell Telephone Laboratories invented the wire-wrapping process. A little additional
research shows that indeed it was a Bell Telephone engineering team led by Arthur
Keller who developed the method and a wire-wrap tool to do the job. Field technician
needed a fast, durable, and reliable electrical connection when making hundreds
or thousands of splices at relay stations and while up on telephone poles. The key
to making a good wire-wrap connection is sharp corners on the wrapping post so that
the corner pushes through any oxidation or contaminant on the bare wire. NASA and
the Department of Defense (DoD) have exacting workmanship standards to guarantee
a rugged, durable electrical connection...
"Coordinate your actions, unify your approach,
and collaborate to fulfill a shared objective. This 'pep talk' succinctly captures
how NASA's latest swarm-based breakthrough operates. Known as
Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy (DSA), it allows each satellite to make decisions
independently while uniting with fellow spacecraft to pursue collective goals, all
free from human oversight. Within NASA's DSA project, researchers achieved multiple
unprecedented feats when testing technologies for satellite swarms. Managed at NASA's
Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, the project..."
This article reporting ongoing research
for
auto anti-collision systems and backup warning systems appeared
in a 1972 issue of Popular Electronics has only come to practical fruition
within the last decade and a half. High-end cars were offering such equipment
options in the early 2000s, but it has only been commonplace since around 2010.
1972 components were still pretty large and power hungry, and digital processing
capacity and speed was significantly less advanced as well. Bendix, one of the early
developers of anti-collision systems, estimated that the option on a new car might
add about $200 to the price, which was...
The debate over whether to
stop minting new pennies is rooted in economic efficiency, public convenience,
and the broader impact on commerce. President Trump's directive to the Treasury
Department to halt penny production is driven by the fact that each penny costs
nearly three cents to produce, leading to a financial loss for the U.S. government.
However, this decision raises concerns about potential shortages, changes in pricing
strategies, and consumer sentiment regarding the smallest unit of U.S. currency.
One major argument in favor of stopping penny production is the high cost...
Providing full solution service is our motto,
not just selling goods. RF &
Connector Technology has persistently pursued a management policy stressing
quality assurance system and technological advancement. From your very first contact,
you will be supported by competent RF specialists; all of them have several years
of field experience in this industry allowing them to suggest a fundamental solution
and troubleshooting approach. Coaxial RF connectors, cable assemblies, antennas,
terminations, attenuators, couplers, dividers, and more. Practically, we put priority
on process inspection at each step of workflow as well as during final inspection
in order to actualize "Zero Defects."
Here are four more
electronics-themed comics to help get your work week started on a happy note.
They all appeared in Radio-Electronics magazine in the 1960s. The page
107 comic conjures up a bit of a nostalgic memory in me, remembering earlier days
sitting at a workbench and troubleshooting a piece of electronics gear. I never
heated a coffee pot on a chassis, but definitely remember cases with vacuum tubes
operating inside that were hot enough to do so. Some of those buggers could melt
flesh. I've told the tale before how whilst in the USAF tuning up our air traffic
control radar system, I (and fellow techs) would open an access door on the front
(not intended to admit passage of a human hand) and blindly "walking" tuning wand-carrying
my fingers across the tops of piping hot tubes to get to a potentiometer...
"Join The Engineer, Dassault Systèmes, BAE
Systems, Monolith AI, AMRC and others experts from across industry on Tuesday Feb
25th for this online panel session exploring
what the rise of AI means for engineers. AI is currently dominating industry
discussion, is at the heart of industry's accelerating digital transformation and
is widely anticipated to be one of the most transformative trends in manufacturing
and engineering as more and more engineering and manufacturing organizations look
at how they can integrate AI capabilities within..."
The late 18th century was a period of intense
effort to standardize measurement systems in both France and the United States.
Thomas Jefferson and the French Academy of Sciences independently developed proposals
for a
rational system of weights and measures based on decimal principles. While Jefferson's
system was designed for national use, the French metric system aimed for universal
application. Despite their similarities, the two systems differed in fundamental
ways, particularly in their definition of base units...
Exodus Advanced Communications, is a multinational
RF communication equipment and engineering service company serving both commercial
and government entities and their affiliates worldwide. Exodus' model
AMP20100 is an elegant, quiet, broadband class A/AB solid state amplifier (SSPA)
and excellent TWT replacement. Ideal for EMC/EMI testing applications including
automotive pulse/radar & commercial applications. Frequency ranges from 2.0
to 8.0 GHz, 200 W minimum, 250 W typical, 53 dB minimum gain,
and -20 dBc harmonics. Monitoring...
The
Gloster E.1/44, presented in this 1948 issue of Popular Science magazine,
was a British experimental jet fighter developed in the 1940s as a potential single-engine
counterpart to the twin-engine Gloster Meteor. Designed by the Gloster Aircraft
Company to meet Air Ministry Specification E.1/44, it was powered by a Rolls-Royce
Nene turbojet and featured a sleek, straight-wing design with a tricycle landing
gear. Initially conceived as a simpler and more economical jet fighter for the Royal
Air Force, the project faced numerous delays due to shifting priorities...
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.
In much the same way as the solution to
a word problem seems obvious when you look it up in the back of a textbook, Sylvania's
answer to manufacturing a
vacuum tube heater element that is more robust and less subject to vibration
failure is illustrated in this advertisement which appeared in a 1968 issue of
Radio-Electronics magazine. Eliminating the suspended element and wrapping
it securely on a supporting post facilitated an "instant on" requirement for up-and-coming
transistorized televisions and radios by reducing heat-up time to about a second.
The heater's symmetrical shape also assured even emission of electrons from the
cathode. Its captured winding around the support post also eliminated the annoying
failure mode where a broken-off heater...
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Take a look at the list of National Company's
employee list wishing their customers a
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Every one of them is a licensed Ham radio
operator. It appeared in the January 1942 issue of ARRL's QST magazine,
but was for the 1941 Christmas. National Company was a major producer of amateur
radio gear in the day. Little did they suspect when the magazine went to print that
by the time readers received it, America would be newly engaged in World War II
after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Many of the names
would be different in1943 due to employees going off to fight the war in the European,
Pacific, and North African Theaters of Operation...
FM (frequency modulation) radio certainly
was a hot topic beginning in the middle to late 1940s. With the war out of the way,
energies and resources were being redirected back to peacetime production. Major
Edwin Armstrong announced his FM scheme in 1935, and as with many new inventions,
it was met with skepticism by many who doubted his claim of static interference
immunity. For many, it was a lack of understanding that caused the negative reaction,
caused primarily by the increased level of sophistication of the transmitter and
receiver circuitry. Amplitude modulation (AM) was so easy even a caveman could understand
it, but adding phase relationships into the equation (literally) left many in the
dust. This
FM Radio Quiz from a 1950 issue of Radio & Television News magazine
tests your grasp of frequency modulation principles.
Banner Ads are rotated in all locations
on the page! RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000 visits each
weekday. RF Cafe
is a favorite of engineers, technicians, hobbyists, and students all over the world.
With more than 17,000 pages in the Google search index, RF Cafe returns in
favorable positions on many types of key searches, both for text and images.
Your Banner Ads are displayed on average 225,000 times per year! New content
is added on a daily basis, which keeps the major search engines interested enough
to spider it multiple times each day. Items added on the homepage often can be found
in a Google search within a few hours of being posted. If you need your company
news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be...
This 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...
Banner Ads are rotated in all locations
on the page! RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000 visits each
weekday. RF Cafe
is a favorite of engineers, technicians, hobbyists, and students all over the world.
With more than 17,000 pages in the Google search index, RF Cafe returns in
favorable positions on many types of key searches, both for text and images.
Your Banner Ads are displayed on average 225,000 times per year! New content
is added on a daily basis, which keeps the major search engines interested enough
to spider it multiple times each day. Items added on the homepage often can be found
in a Google search within a few hours of being posted. If you need your company
news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be...
It's probably a safe bet that most people,
even at the
dawn of color television, knew of the competition which occurred for the adoption
of three different methods of implementation. Two of them - line-sequential by Color
Television, Inc. (CTI), and dot-sequential by Radio Corporation of America (RCA)
- were fully electronic while the third system by the Columbia Broadcast System
(CBS) used a kludge of a spinning color wheel placed in front of a black and white
display. The CBS field-sequential design used a synchronization component of the
composite transmitted signal to position the correct color screen (red, yellow,
or blue) in front of the screen as the electron gun scanned the CRT - analogous
to how World War I airplane machine guns were synchronized with the engine
to fire between propeller blades. Of course an out-of-synch scenario in the color
wheel was not as serious as with the machine gun. The worst that could happen with
the TV is a false color picture whereas with the machine gun your biplane instantly
became a glider. Although I poke some fun at the CBS solution...
In the days before people were so easily
offended by light-hearted poking, it was not uncommon to find magazine articles
written by the wives of hobbyist husbands lamenting the habits and proclivities
of their matrimonial mates. Over the years I have read many such treatises in model
and full-scale airplane, electronics, and Ham radio publications. As with "A
Radioman's Wife Puts in a Good Word" from a 1951 issue of Radio-Electronics,
they typically start by expressing frustration of having lost their once-doting
husbands to alternative loves in the form of hobbies (I once saw a boat named "The
Other Woman"). Determined to win back the devotion of their sweethearts, they make
a sincere attempt to learn about and be part of whatever hobby or hobbies is/are
the cause of abandonment of wife and children. It usually doesn't take long for
Friend Wife, as Popular Electronics' Carl Kohler addresses his better half, to decide
that try as she may, engendering a sufficient...
Necessity
is the mother of invention, according to a popular saying, and perhaps there is
no greater need that the one for survival as a nation. It cannot be denied that
most of our advanced technology has been invented for the sake of defending the
country against the threat of invasion from a formidable enemy who intends to use
its advanced technology against you. Whether you love, hate or are neutral on the
military, you have benefitted from its existence both in the form of enduring freedom
and from everyday products and methods produced due to its existence. Human nature
being what it is, history has shown that simply being willing to lay down your arms
and play nice with the rest of the world does not result in peace - only in your
being subject to somebody else's control. Missile technology - particularly the
intercontinental range type - was the primary concern ...
When this January 1948 issue of Radio
News magazine was published, a mere two and a half years had passed since the
end of World War II, and military planners were already strategizing about
what a future war might look like. Two technologies that had a huge effect on the
previous efforts were the atom bomb and the guided missile; therefore, they were
prominent in discussions. Germany's use of the V-1 Buzz Bomb is a familiar example
of a
guided missile that struck terror in the hearts of populations that experienced
its devastating destructive power. Ditto for the V-2 rocket. The U.S. developed
a few missiles of its own, particularly immediately after WWII when it had the assistance
of Werner von Braun and other notable rocket scientists who worked for the
U.S. space effort after the war...
RF Cafe visitor Rick Marz, KD6EFB, happened
upon my Erie Resistor Corporation webpage that is from a 1958 issue of Popular
Electronics magazine. As it turns out, Rick is a native of Erie, Pennsylvania,
and work at the company in the mid 1960s. He has since moved on to much bigger and
better things. Rick provided some very interesting historical information on his
experience with
Erie Technological Products - one incarnation of Erie Resistor - and how the
electronics industry evolved as he made the rounds of some of the top semiconductor
concerns of the era ...
With more than 1000
custom-built symbols, this has got to be the most comprehensive set of
Visio Symbols
available for RF, analog, and digital system and schematic drawings! Every object
has been built to fit proportionally on the provided A-, B- and C-size drawing page
templates (or can use your own). Symbols are provided for equipment racks and test
equipment, system block diagrams, conceptual drawings, and schematics. Unlike previous
versions, these are NOT Stencils, but instead are all contained on tabbed pages
within a single Visio document. That puts everything in front of you in its full
glory. Just copy and paste what you need on your drawing...
This 1970s-era Mac's Service Shop story made me
think about all the
cellphones today being dunked in toilets, swimming pools, lakes, and washing machines.
Of course back in Mac''s day not everyone was walking around with an electronic device
tucked into his or her pocket waiting for its absentminded owner to bend over or drop
his/her drawers. At the time, far more wallets made the dive than transistor radios.
I won't bother linking to any articles about how to best dry your dunked phone because
there are hundreds - nay, thousands - of them out there. They contradict each other about
which absorbent materials to use...
This
Technology Theme Crossword Puzzle for June 27th has many words and clues related
to RF, microwave, and mm-wave engineering, optics, mathematics, chemistry, physics,
and other technical subjects. 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., Reginald Denny or
the Tunguska event in Siberia). The technically inclined cruciverbalists amongst
us will appreciate the effort. Enjoy!
On December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor, the FCC issued a "Notice to All Amateur Licensees" that
began thusly: "All amateur licensees are hereby notified that the Commission has
ordered the
immediate suspension of all amateur radio operation in the continental United States,
its territories, and possessions." The October 1945 issue of Radio-Craft magazine
announced the long-awaited planned resumption of transmitting operations. On November
15, 1945, amateurs were finally allowed back on the air, but only on the 10 and
2 meter bands. Another end to an FCC wartime policy announced was the requirement
to reduce output power by 1 dB (~20%) below normal maximum power, with the
motivation having been to extend the lifetime of tubes. Proving that engineers and
major corporations can have a sense of humor, get a load of the "sniffer" radar
dish shown here...
When I read about Du Mont's
Iconumerator, the first thing that came to mind was the video of the Rockwell
Retro Encabulator and General Electric's Turboencabulator. As it turns out, the
Du Mont device is real. This article from a 1955 issue of Radio Electronics
discusses a new type of oscillator-amplifier that works on the principle of microwave
amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (maser). It used ammonia as a
masing medium. Masers were quickly applied to commercial broadcast systems, to military
communications systems, and in laboratories. The state of the art has of course
advanced far beyond the relatively crude apparatus shown here, but it is always
good to have a working knowledge of the technology's history...
Thyratrons, klystrons, and magnetrons I've
heard of, but
trochotrons, charactrons, tonotrons I ain't heard of. That made this quiz more
of a learning exercise for me than a test of any sort of knowledge possessed. Heck,
I thought an 'ignitron' was a pejorative term for a really dumb techie wannabe.
In all there are 17 types of '-tron' devices given for which to match from a list
of descriptions. You'll probably do better than I did on this quiz that appeared
in the October 1963 issue of Electronics World magazine.
Given that this
Circuitry Crossword was created at the peak of the post-war television popularity
wave, it is no surprise that the main focus is on TV-related terms. Still, most
people who lived during the era of "real" television sets with cathode ray tubes
(CRTs), will probably have no problem completing it successfully. If you have ever
adjusted the horizontal and vertical hold controls on a TV, you're in the club.
After nearly two decades with LCD computer and television displays, the days of
less than perfect images are fading like an over-the-air broadcast on a stormy day.
Unlike the time it took me days to figure out that two heavy speakers sitting on
a shelf over top of my CRT computer monitor was causing a weird distortion in the
picture ...
A column entitled "Radio-Electronics
Monthly Review" appeared in each issue of Radio-Craft magazine. As now, things
were moving quickly at the time. With WWWII recently ended, a lot of the new technology
developed to help beat back Nazism and Communism was being transferred to peacetime
uses. The May 1947 issue contained, amongst other items, info regarding how radio
servicemen were organizing efforts to get its ranks educated on FM sets as AM was
being replaced and/or supplemented with the new miracle noise-free broadcast systems.
It also reported that the IRS decided not to go forward with earlier plans to tax
television shows being displayed in public places. Attempts to tax the air that
you breathe are to this day still being worked on, though. The U.S. Bureau of Standards
(now NIST) announced adoption of international standards of measure for certain
electrical units...
The discovery of the first transistor in
1948 by a team of physicists at the
Bell Telephone Laboratories sparked an interest in solid-state research that
spread rapidly. The transistor, which began as a simple laboratory oddity, was rapidly
developed into a semiconductor device of major importance. The transistor demonstrated
for the first time in history that amplification in solids was possible. Before
the transistor, amplification was achieved only with electron tubes. Transistors
now perform numerous electronic tasks with new and improved transistor designs being
continually put on the market. In many cases, transistors are more desirable than
tubes because they are small, rugged, require no filament power, and operate at
low voltages with comparatively high efficiency. The development of a family of
transistors has even made possible the miniaturization of electronic circuits...
Here is another exciting episode of the sleuthing
adventures starring Popular Electronics' tech savvy teenagers,
Carl and Jerry. The Hardy Boys of electronics are the creation of author John
T. Frye, who created short story adventures for many years - long enough to at one
point require a major modification in the boys' appearances to reflect more modern
attire and eyewear (Carl's "The Far Side"-style glasses had to go). This particular
adventure begins with Carl considering whether his ham radio hobby is more useful
from the standpoint of its technical aspects or of its social aspects.
Here is a little levity from the "Hobnobbing
with Harbaugh" series of comics that appeared in Popular Electronics
magazine. Unfortunately, none of the "The 5 Most Wanted Household Inventions" have
come to full fruition in the marketplace yet, although the Conversation Jammer can
be found on the Internet in various unofficial forms. Personal computers were a
pipe dream in 1963, but nowadays we do have software like TurboTax to take care
of filing taxes, although you still can't simply dump all your receipts into a bin
and have it work. Flat-fixing robots might not be needed in a few years as tubeless,
airless tires hit the road. Alarm clock vaporizers are not Star Trek phaser-like
devices yet, but the same effect can be affected with a low-tech hammer, or a shoe...
Here are a couple more
electronics-themed comics from 1947 issues of Radio-Craft magazine.
Artist Frank Beaven, who created a huge number of comics and advertisements (e.g.,
Eveready batteries, Zippo lighters) for technical and other types of publications
(Saturday Evening Post, New Yorker, Esquire), did both of them. Beaven must have
a fan base since many examples of his drawings are offered for sale on eBay. Most
of his comics credit reader suggestions as the basis for the subject. I have to
admit to not really "getting" the gag in the top comic. Maybe Sinatra's voice strained
the frequency response of simple tabletop radios of the day. The bottom comic is
one of a series entitled "Radio Terms Illustrated," in this example "High Potential"
(get it?)... |