|
 I have written
before about the love-hate relationship a lot of the buying public had with
television and radio repair shops and repairmen - similar to car owners and
mechanics. Lots of jokes and skits (what today is termed a "meme") were created
back in the heyday of in-home entertainment to make light of the situation.
These four
electronics-themed comics from a 1962 issue of Radio-Electronics
magazine are typical examples. The one from page 111 alludes to an issue that
would almost never be seen today on a TV, unless maybe the AC power supply was
on the fritz. A composite analog broadcast signal contained vertical and
horizontal sync[ronization] components which...
 "Electrostatic
discharge (ESD) protection is a significant concern in the chemical and electronics
industries. In electronics, ESD often causes integrated circuit failures due to
rapid voltage and current discharges from charged objects, such as human fingers
or tools. With the help of 3D printing techniques, researchers at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory (LLNL) are 'packaging' electronics with printable elastomeric
silicone foams to provide both mechanical and electrical protection of sensitive
components. Without suitable protection, substantial equipment and component..."
 Mr. Bob Davis, a seemingly endless
source of little known and/or long forgotten
historical radio and television
technical trivia, apprised me of this short segment from the 1960s Dragnet
television series, starring Sgt. Joe Friday. It features a guy, who turns out to
be a ... well, I won't spoil it for you ... who proudly professes his thirty
year career as a radio repairman. "...started back in the days of the old Crosleys, Atwater-Kents, Farnsworths.
Those were real radios, well built, well designed. Nothing cheap about any of
them. They didn't have transistors in those days, just tubes as big as light
bulbs. That meant heavy chassis, heavy transformers, and we didn't fix them by
simply slapping in a new part, either. We fixed the old parts. I wish...
 A new word has been added to my personal
lexicon: "sphenoidal."
Author John Kraus used it to describe the wedge shape of a
corner reflector. The Oxford Dictionary defines "sphenoid" thusly: "A compound
bone that forms the base of the cranium, behind the eye and below the front part
of the brain. It has two pairs of broad lateral "wings" and a number of other projections,
and contains two air-filled sinuses." This "square corner" configuration - essentially
a "V" shape, is shown to exhibit up to 10 dB of gain while being relatively (compared
to a parabolic reflector) insensitive...
 Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity,
published in 1915, fundamentally reshaped the way scientists understand gravity,
space, and time. It extended his 1905 special theory of relativity, which described
how the laws of physics are consistent for all observers in uniform motion and how
light's speed is constant in a vacuum. However, the special theory did not address
accelerating reference frames or gravitational forces. Einstein's general theory
tackled these limitations by proposing that gravity is not a force in the traditional
sense, but rather a curvature of spacetime caused by mass and energy. This profound
insight would alter the course of 20th-century physics, influencing cosmology, black
hole theory...
 "The growing use of artificial intelligence
(AI)-based models is placing greater demands on the electronics industry, as many
of these models require significant storage space and computational power. Engineers
worldwide have thus been trying to develop neuromorphic computing systems that could
help meet these demands, many of which are based on memristors.
Memristors are electronic components that regulate the flow of electrical current
in circuits while also 'remembering' the amount of electrical charge that previously
passed through them. These components could replicate the function of biological..."
 Reading through the news items in the vintage
electronics magazines provides a mixture of important historical facts and figures
along with some predictions on the future of the industry. Some of the predictions
turn out to be amazingly accurate, even though in retrospect they might seem obvious.
Take, for example, Sylvania VP Dr. Robert Castor's foresight about how, "the future
growth of the semiconductor industry lies in a major switch from the production
of individual components to solid-state subsystems that can be used as building
blocks in electronic designs." "Well of course," you might be temped to say; however,
at the time there were still significant hurdles to overcome related to material
purity, wafer size, photolithography...
 Reactel has become one of the industry leaders
in the design and manufacture of RF and microwave filters, diplexers, and sub-assemblies. They
offer the generally known tubular, LC, cavity, and waveguide designs, as well as
state of the art high performance suspended substrate models. Through a continuous
process of research and development, they have established a full line of filters
of filters of all types - lowpass, highpass, bandpass, bandstop, diplexer, and more.
Established in 1979. Please contact Reactel today to see how they might help your
project.
 2012 came and went more than a decade ago.
The date was 50 years in the future back in 1962 when Radio-Electronics
magazine editor Hugo Gernsback asked industry leaders to cogitate on possibilities
of the
state of electronics in 2012. Let's see how they did. One guy predicted our
communications would be in the 100 THz to 1,500 THz band, using 2 decimeter
antennas. Nope. Another believed we would be communicating with aliens on a regular
basis. A military dude partly hit the mark by predicting 2- and 3-year-olds would
be sitting in front of "televideo screens" (cellphones) learning Esperanto and "other
basic studies." Bell Labs believed most audiovisual material, along with commerce,
would be done electronically; i.e., the World Wide Web. I'm not quite sure how to
interpret the IT&T guy's prediction of replacing microwave space transmission
with light wavelength waveguide transmission. Seems bassackward to me...
 Here is a unique approach to discouraging scam
callers. A lot of scam calls are themselves AI, so can one AI detect and aviod another?
"Gangster
Granny! Meet Daisy: O2's new weapon against scammers. O2 has unveiled its new,
unique weapon in its fight against scammers: Daisy, an AI-powered assistant designed
to keep fraudsters talking and waste their time. As part of Virgin Media O2's 'Swerve
the Scammers' campaign, Daisy's mission is to distract scammers with realistic,
rambling conversations, helping protect potential victims while raising awareness
about fraud. Her lifelike conversations, peppered with stories about family or hobbies
like knitting, have kept fraudsters on the line for up to 40 minutes..."
Albert Einstein's
special theory of relativity, a milestone in physics, transformed our understanding
of space, time, and energy (mass). The theory, published in 1905, stemmed from Einstein's
efforts to resolve inconsistencies in classical physics, specifically between Newtonian
mechanics and electromagnetism as formulated by James Clerk Maxwell. By reconceiving
space and time as interconnected and relative to the observer's frame of reference,
Einstein established a framework that had profound implications for science and
technology. To understand how this groundbreaking idea emerged, one must consider...
 Werbel Microwave's Model WM2PD-0.5-26.5-S
is a wideband 2-way in-line power splitter covering of 500 MHz to 26.5 GHz with
excellent return loss, low insertion loss, and high isolation performance. With
ultrawideband performance, amplitude balance is typically 0.24 dB and phase
unbalance is typically 2.6°. Insertion loss is low for the bandwidth, coming in
at a typical 1.2 dB above 3 dB splitting loss. Return loss 16 dB
typical. Isolation 18 dB typical. The device is precision-assembled and tested
in the USA...
 If you wanted a career as an
electronics technician at the end of World War II, the world was your oyster
- so to speak. Electronics and communications trade magazines and publications like
Mechanix Illustrated and Popular Science ran a plethora of ads
monthly that offered unlimited opportunity to men seeking a career servicing the
burgeoning market of postwar technological marvels. Even though the enclosures were
not yet being marked with "No user serviceable parts inside," that fact was most
people were not qualified - nor did they want - to monkey with the guts of radios,
televisions, and other household appliances... (I provide a simulation to show the
true zener diode circuit output)...
 Take time out of your busy workday to look
at these three
electronics-themed comics from the February 1962 issue of Radio-Electronics..
The page 32 comic reminds me of sometime in the late 1970s while working as
an electrician (prior to enlisting in the USAF) when I was doing side jobs, and
a guy had me wire up a receptacle for his big 25" screen (CRT) which he had mounted
in a wall, with the chassis sticking out the back. It was in an upstairs room in
a Cape Cod style house with lots of room behind the wall. He was a "man cave" pioneer
with a full suite of high quality audiovisual equipment - even a Betamax machine!
The page 81 comic exhibits the irony that would have existed in the day if
American-made electronics equipment had been promoted in Japan, which they probably
were not. In 1962, Japanese...
 Admittedly, I mostly posted this because
of the drawing. "While
direct-to-cell (D2C) satellite communications were a big topic at the recent
Brooklyn 6G Summit, the technology is already here, well before 6G's anticipated
2030 arrival. Apple and Google already offer D2C emergency messaging, and Starlink,
T-Mobile and others are anticipated to follow. D2C satellite communications will
be well established when 6G arrives. The 3GPP froze a 5G specification for Non-Terrestrial
Networks (NTN) in Release 17 in March 2022, which means that NTN-compatible chips
and components should be available now or soon. SpaceX has reduced the cost..."
 The subtitle of this article from a 1971
issue of Popular Electronics magazine, "From
Quackery to Speculation to Programmed People," could to some extent still be
applicable even though the author evidently meant to put an end to the "quackery"
and "speculation" part of it. Indeed, a lot of advancement has been made in the
fields of electrostimulation of weak or/or paralyzed muscles, healing of certain
types of soft and hard tissues, suppressing sporadic muscle twitching and epileptic
seizures, and other malady diagnosis and relief. Specifically tuned microwave frequencies
have proven useful in healing and symptom relief as well. As with most articles
on medical procedures, I cringe at some...
Anatech Intros 3
Filter Models for November
 Anatech Electronics offers the industry's
largest portfolio of high-performance standard and customized RF and microwave filters
and filter-related products for military, commercial, aerospace and defense, and
industrial applications up to 40 GHz. Three new
C-band cavity bandpass filter models have been added to the product line, including
a 4994 MHz BPF with a 50 MHz bandwidth, a 4950 MHz BPF with a 10 MHz
bandwidth, and a 5785 MHz BPF with a 100 MHz bandwidth. Custom RF power
filter and directional couplers designs can be designed and produced with required
connector types when a standard cannot be found, or the requirements are such that
a custom...
• 5G
Is 42% of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) in 2024
• Robert Dennard,
DRAM Pioneer, Dies at 91
• TSMC's Energy
Demand Drives Taiwan's Geopolitical Future
• Semiconductor
Packaging Market on 5.6% CAGR 'Till 2028
• Altering
Asteroid Trajectories with Nuclear X-Rays
 Albert Einstein, one of the most renowned
physicists in history, was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg,
part of the German Empire. His father, Hermann Einstein, was an engineer and salesman
who ran an electrochemical factory, and his mother, Pauline Koch, managed the household
and supported her son's education. Einstein had one sister, Maja, who was born in
1881 and with whom he had a lifelong close relationship. Einstein's extended family
included several relatives who would play various roles in his life, both personally
and professionally. His early family life was comfortable, though his parents moved
frequently as they sought economic stability. Hermann Einstein's business ventures
had varying success, and eventually, the family moved to Italy in 1894...
 Here is the second part of a series of articles
about
stepping switches appearing in 1967 issues of Radio-Electronics magazine.
A standard (at the time) dial rotary phone was used as a familiar example in the
part one. It delivers a single pulse for each number / letter set from 1, 2 (ABC),
3 (DEF), through 9 (WXY), 0 (Operator). On some phones, you can hear the clacking
of the switch contacts as the spring-loaded dial rotates from the selected number
back to home position. The stepping action as the result of dialing occurs at the
telephone system switching and call routing equipment at central locations. There,
stepping switches increment with each pulse received, and when the full number of
pulse sets have arrived, the circuit is complete and the call put through to ring
the phone...
 "Results are published, and the numbers
are in. They paint a picture of a very active
2024 ARRL
Field Day. Nearly 1.3 million contacts were reported during the 24-hour event.
That is up from 2023's 1.25 million contacts. That's likely indicative of the continued
rise of Solar Cycle 25 leading up to the event, but more people also participated
this year. Entries were received from all 85 ARRL and Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC)
sections, as well as from 27 different countries from outside the US and Canada.
'It is encouraging to see a rise in participation year to year,' said ARRL Contest
Program Manager Paul Bourque, N1SFE. 'ARRL Field Day is amateur radio's premier
event, and the hams turned out for it..."
 After searching for the first mention of
Nikola Tesla in U.S. newspapers, I performed a similar search on
Albert
Einstein, again using editions available in the NewspaperArchive.com database.
I was utterly surprised to find it in a 1919 issue of the The New York Times.
His theory of Special Relativity was published in 1905 and his theory of General
Relativity was published in 1915, so it took The NY Times four years to
mention it. There is a reference to Dr. Einstein's' work on relativity in a 1915
edition of The Manitoban, from Winnipeg, Canada. The NY Times article
is an actual interview with Albert Einstein, wherein at one point it is stated that
there were perhaps only a dozen people in the world at that time who understood
general relativity. Interestingly, Einstein uses the term "difform motion" to describe...
 Exodus Advanced Communications, is a multinational
RF communication equipment and engineering service company serving both commercial
and government entities and their affiliates worldwide. We are pleased to announce
the model
AMP2103P-LC, dual-mode (CW & pulse) amplifier covering 800 to 3200 MHz.
1000 watt peak pulse power, or 500 watts CW. Ideal for automotive pulse/radar
EMC-testing & commercial applications. Pulse widths to 560 μsec, duty cycle
to 10%, 60 dB gain, and outstanding pulse fidelity. Monitoring parameters for
forward/reflected power in watts and dBm, VSWR, voltage, current, and temperature,
with unprecedented reliability and ruggedness in a compact 7U chassis...
 Sally Mason was the soldering iron-wielding
heroette (heroine sounds too much like the narcotic) of Nate Silverman's "Sally,
the Service Maid" series that ran in Radio-Craft magazine during the
years of World War II. As I noted in the previous episode, many of the nation's
women were left behind to run their husband's, father's and/or son's electronics
sales and repair businesses when they went off to save the world from aggressive
Communists, Socialists, Maoists, Nazis, and other nasty types. Some of those ladies
had already become very adept at troubleshooting, component replacement, and aligning
radio and television sets, while some were left to learn at the School of Hard Knocks.
Sally's father, Gus Mason...
 Crane Aerospace & Electronics' products
and services are organized into six integrated solutions: Cabin Systems, Electrical
Power Solutions, Fluid Management Solutions, Landing Systems, Microwave Solutions,
and Sensing Components & Systems. Our Microwave Solution designs and manufactures
high-performance
RF, IF and millimeter-wave components, subsystems and systems for commercial
aviation, defense, and space including linear & log amplifiers, fixed &
variable attenuators, circulators & isolators, power combiners & dividers,
couplers, mixers, switches & matrices, oscillators & synthesizers.
 The AN/MPN-13|14 mobile radar system I worked
on while enlisted in the U.S. Air Force was designed and fielded around the time
this
Electronic Navigation in Flight article appeared in a 1962 issue of Radio-Electronics
magazine. It had been upgraded a few times by 1979 when I was in Air Traffic Control
Radar Repairman technical school at Keesler AFB, Mississippi; however, the original
system did not featured a Doppler capability. The fully RF analog system could not
provide air traffic controllers with speed data, but it did use physical mercury
delay lines to provide a stationary target (ground, and to some degree, rain, clutter)
cancellation by inverting and summing a real-time radar...
 Decisions, decisions, decisions. As the
title states, color television manufacturers were, in 1965 when this Electronics
magazine article was published, finding themselves between a rock and a hard place,
as the saying goes, regarding a change
from vacuum tubes to transistors. The buying public (aka consumers) had mixed
emotions about the newfangled semiconductors based at least partly on bad information
about transistors. Transistors had been designed in various circuits for a decade
and a half and were gaining rapidly in performance and reliability. The price was
coming down, but as reported here, still cost $5 to $10 apiece compared to a $1
vacuum tube. Company management needed to decide whether to delay implementing the
new engineering and production methods required to deal with transistors...
 "At 8:30 p.m. on 16 May 1916, John J. Carty
banged his gavel at the Engineering Societies Building in New York City to call
to order a meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. This was no
ordinary gathering. The AIEE had decided to conduct a live national meeting connecting
more than 5,000 attendees in
eight cities across four time zones. More than a century before Zoom made virtual
meetings a pedestrian experience, telephone lines linked auditoriums from coast
to coast. AIEE members and guests in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York,
Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco had telephone receivers at their
seats so they could listen..."
|
 It's hard to believe that even by the end
of 1957, single-sideband broadcasting was still in its infancy. The claim that,
"CSSB's
most remarkable feature is that although it uses but one sideband, a broadcast
will still sound the same to even the simplest home radio," is still a matter of
dispute amongst radio aficionados. Just as many audiophiles swear that even the
most sophisticated solid-state driver is not as good as a vintage vacuum tube circuit,
there are those who say that single-sideband reception is clearly distinguishable
from standard double-sideband. Doubt me? Here I quote from page 2-7 of the "ARRL
General Class License Manual for Ham Radio, "SSB transmitters tend to optimize the
signal characteristics for strength at the expanse of some fidelity. AM transmitters,
on the other hand, tend to give a 'warmer' sound to the speaker's voice..."
 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...
 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...
 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...
 Designing a
log periodic antenna is a piece of cake. Just punch in your computer program
or smartphone app a few parameters for frequency range, power handling, directivity,
impedance, etc., and out pops boom and element lengths, diameters, and spacings
- and probably radiation gain profiles for elevation and azimuth. That is the way
it's done today. However, when Dwight Isbell and Raymond DuHamel of the University
of Illinois came up with the log periodic concept in 1958, they did not have the
convenience of a computer or even a hand-held calculator. Slide rules and logarithm
tables were the order of the day. After trudging through the equations for building
the antenna ...
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...
 The General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trades (GATT) has been around for a really long time - since 1947, shortly
after the end of World War II. It changed its name to the World Trade Organization
(WTO) in 1995. Japan was admitted as a GATT signatory in 1964 according to this
Electronics magazine newsletter. One of the conditions for membership
was allowing foreign ownership of businesses on Japanese soil - previously
prohibited. Texas Instruments was the first American company to establish a
presence there. Japanese industry was just getting a foothold on manufacturing
and selling into foreign markets in the mid 1960s, and was still working to shed
its reputation - deserved or not - of producing inferior quality goods.
Increasing foreign presence and dependence on the country's economic well-being
was a good thing for them. In fact, many pundits believe that the globalization
of production is key to preserving peace (or at least not war) between certain
countries...
 Lee de Forest, inventor of the Audion vacuum
tube, created a business called De Forest Radio Company (although I hear he didn't
build that). This advertisement for his company's electron tubes appeared in the
December 1931 edition of the ARRL's QST magazine. If you research Lee de Forest,
you will find his name spelled incorrectly in many different forms: de Forest, De
Forest, de Forest, de Forest, to give a few. When in doubt, go straight to the source,
which in this case is the signature that de Forest placed on his patent applications
- he used "de Forest." Note that the official company name, according to the advertisement
address at the bottom, is "De Forest Radio Company," (space used) yet the text of
the copy uses the form ...
 This is the electronics market prediction for
Italy, 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. Computers, military communications, numerically
controlled factory automation, and consumer electronics drove the Italian
markets, as was the case for every first-world nation. A bigger concentration on
exports was becoming an important part of the equation. Unless you can find a
news story on the state of the industry, detailed reports must be purchased from
research companies. Their websites have a lot of charts on Italy's current
electronics market showing revenue...
 According to the Wikipedia entry, Cannon
Electric Company introduced the now-familiar D-Sub (D-subminiature)
connector format in 1952. This advertisement in a 1954 issue of Radio & Television
News magazine is the first one I recall seeing. D-Sub connectors were a really big
deal back in the 1980s when personal computers (PCs) first appeared. CRT monitors
used them, printers used them, scanners used them, network interfaces used them,
mice and keyboards used them (those that didn't use PS/2 connectors, which were
an invention of IBM for their Personal System 2 computers). Nowadays the USB (Universal
Serial Bus) and HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface ) connectors have replaced
most D-Subs in the computer cable realm. Of course with everything going wireless,
connectors and cables of all sorts are rapidly disappearing except those used for
charging...
 A large portion of the U.S. has experienced
prolonged periods this winter with temperatures substantially below long-term averages.
That means heating systems have been running much more often than usual, and if
you have a forced hot air system, that means the indoor humidity level has been
much lower than normal. In northern areas like where I live, humidity can easily
drop to near zero. Because of that, triboelectric charging to high voltage potential
occurs merely by walking a few steps across a carpet, resulting in a sometimes painful
discharge arc when a metal object is touched. The only way to mitigate low humidity
conditions is to add water back into the air. The preferred option, IMHO, is to
install a whole-house humidifier that resides on the furnace ductwork, has its own
regulated water supply, and is controlled by a humidistat. After a couple weeks
of refilling three free-standing humidifiers two to three times a day and listening
to the fans, I decided it would be worth the expense and effort to install a whole-house
humidifier. The
Honeywell HE240A whole-house humidifier with a couple additional parts...
 Each week, for the sake of all avid cruciverbalists
amongst us, I create a new
technology-themed crossword puzzle using only words from my custom-created
lexicon related to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry, physics,
astronomy, etc. You will never find among the words names of politicians,
mountain ranges, exotic foods or plants, movie stars, or anything of the sort.
You might, however, see someone or something in the exclusion list who or that
is directly related to this puzzle's theme, such as Hedy Lamarr or the Bikini
Atoll, respectively. Enjoy!...
 This handful of
Ham-related comics appeared in the November 1965 issue of Popular Electronics. One
of them has an operator using "oboe" as the phonetic alphabet version of the letter "O."
Having never seen that before, I did a search and learned that the British Forces in
World War II uniquely used "oboe" for the letter "O." Maybe the artist, Walt Miller,
was either a member of the British Forces or hung around (or served in the military)
with someone that was. For that matter, using "able" for the letter "A" is also a British
thing. This Silent English phonetic alphabet is interesting. I guarantee you'll appreciate
the others as well, or double your money back...
 By now, most people involved with spread spectrum
communications are (or should be) aware that Hollywood starlet
Hedy Lamarr is credited
for being the first to suggest a frequency hopping scheme for secure communications.
If you do a Google search on Hedy Lamarr and spread spectrum, you see that except for
a few mentions on tech websites, it has only been in the news since the end of the last
decade. Scientific American magazine ran an article titled, "Hedy Lamarr: Not
Just a Pretty Face," in 2008. Google honored her in 2015 with a Doodle on their homepage.
"The most beautiful woman in the world," with the assistance of her co-inventor-composer
George Antheil...
 This is a different type of
electronics-related quiz from Quizmaster Robert P. Balin. Mr. Balin
created many monthly quizzes for Popular Electronics magazine. Here you
are provided a series of images and a list of men's first names, and you need to
match the image to the name. There are nine in all. Sure, it's kind of hokey (especially
B and I), but it is a good Friday afternoon challenge to help pass the time until
the weekend begins. Enjoy.
 All
RF Cafe Quizzes make great
fodder for employment interviews for technicians or engineers - particularly those
who are fresh out of school or are relatively new to the work world. Come to think
of it, they would make equally excellent study material for the same persons who
are going to be interviewed for a job. This quiz is based on the information presented
in Multi-Gigabit Microwave
and Millimeter-Wave Wireless Communications, by Jonathan Wells.
 Yes, this is another article that will probably
appeal to a small percentage of RF Cafe visitors, but please countenance my indulgence
in things aeronautical as well as things electrical. The early 1930s was a time
when both airplanes and electronics were a wonder and a mystery to most of the public
worldwide. Of course today both are still a mystery to the public but the wonder
is gone - it's merely taken for granted. Many idiosyncrasies of
airborne electronic communications were encountered for the first
time, like the need for proper grounding and static electricity dissipation. Ruggedization
of chassis assemblies in terms of mechanical vibration and shock as well as for
temperature extremes was a real challenge to engineers, technicians, and pilots...
 Part 1 of this "All About IC's" trilogy titled,
"What Makes Them Tick," author Bob Hibberd introduced the concept of semiconductor physics
and doped PN junctions. In Part 2, he discusses methods used to
fabricate monolithic, integrated circuits (IC's) on silicon chips.
Transistors, diodes, resistor, capacitors, and to some extent, inductors, can be
built using a combination of variously doped junction regions, metallization,
and oxidation (insulators). Technology has come a long way since 1969, including
mask techniques, 3-D structures, doping gradients, feature size, dielectric
breakdown strength, current leakage, circuit density, mixed analog, RF, and
digital circuitry, and other things. Part 3, covered in the August issue, goes
into more detail about how passive components are realized in silicon...
 A few days ago I mentioned that a popular
early form of radio detector circuit involved the used of a flame - yes, the flame
of a fire, not a romantic significant other. The subject arose in a couple articles
in the January 1947 issue of Radio-Craft magazine that celebrated the 40th
anniversary of
Lee de Forest's Audion vacuum tube invention. This particular piece was
authored by de Forest himself, who was a personal friend of Radio-Craft
editor Hugo Gernsback. It is a very interesting autobiographical account of the
early days of experimentation and the evolution of what eventually became the world's
first mass producible signal amplifying device. You will also read that de Forest
created the designation of the "B" battery for a reason he makes obvious. Also,
although you have probably seen pictures of the old household type gas light fixture...
 In the last few years, many color photos
from the WWII era have been appearing, being a stark contrast to the B&W photos
we have been used to seeing. The Smithsonian Institute's Air & Space
magazine published this photo of what appears to be an
electrical
cable production station. Obviously it was a staged public relations shot, but
its color content, snaking arrays of cables, and excellent lighting effect could
easily win it a prize. At first glance I though it might be steel control cables
for the PB2Y flying boats into which they were installed. A close look at the ends
of the cables inside the work station assembly area reveals ring lugs on the ends
of the cables, as might be found on control lines between cockpit elevator and aileron
control yokes (or joy sticks), rudder pedals, wing flaps, trim tabs, etc. However,
notice that the cables are being terminated inside a rather small junction box,
which suggests...
 The Duoscope, as presented in a 1954 issue
of Radio-News magazine, was a pretty neat concept - sort of like a picture-in-picture
(PiP) scheme for television, only in a way much better. Whereas PiP provides only
a partial screen for each television program,
Du Mont's "Duoscopic" viewer somehow received two independent
signals and combined them on the screen in such a manner that there was both a horizontally
polarized for one show and a vertically polarized image for the other. The viewer
selected which picture to watch by wearing the appropriately polarized glasses or
by watching through a floor-mounted transparent, polarized screen. The superimposed
image on the CRT looked a lot like a virtually indiscernible 3-D picture as seen
without colored glasses. Similarly, the audio for each program was selectable using
a remote (wired) switch box. Headphones were used to provide private listening.
The Duoscope turned out to be just another "outside the box" concept that never
played out in the consumer world...
 The newest release of RF Cafe's spreadsheet
(Excel) based engineering and science calculator is now available -
Espresso Engineering Workbook™. Among other additions, it now has a Butterworth
Bandpass Calculator, and a Highpass Filter Calculator that does not just gain, but
also phase and group delay! Since 2002,
the original Calculator Workbook has been available as a free download.
Continuing the tradition, RF Cafe Espresso Engineering Workbook™ is
also provided at no cost,
compliments of my generous sponsors. The original calculators are included, but
with a vastly expanded and improved user interface. Error-trapped user input cells
help prevent entry of invalid values. An extensive use of Visual Basic for Applications
(VBA) functions now do most of the heavy lifting with calculations, and facilitates
a wide user-selectable choice of units for voltage, frequency, speed, temperature,
power, wavelength, weight, etc. In fact, a full page of units conversion calculators
is included. A particularly handy feature is the ability to specify the the number
of significant digits to display. Drop-down menus are provided for convenience...
 Naval communications and their communicators
have always been held in high regard. Operating and maintaining sophisticated electronics
equipment is difficult enough on solid ground, but doing it on the ocean with winds
and waves tossing the platform (ship) relentlessly can exacerbate the problem tremendously.
It is a wonder that radar systems can even be useful with the antenna constantly
rotating about pitch, roll, and yaw axes while simultaneously shifting in the x,
y and z axes. Sure, airborne platforms have the same sort of challenge, but their
perturbations are not typically as violent, as great in magnitude, or as prolonged
as a naval vessel in rough seas. For the record, I'm a former USAF radar guy so
I'm not just trying to glorify my own branch of service...
 In 2012, we were inundated with stories on
the 100-year anniversary of the "unsinkable" RMS Titanic, on April 15, 1912. Even
after a century of research and exploration, no definitive cause has been determined
relating to how the ship's crew managed to hit a gigantic iceberg on a star-lit,
glass-smooth sea. The prevailing theory seems to be that an optical illusion due
to an atmospheric inversion caused the crew to misjudge the position of the iceberg.
An article in the March 2012 Smithsonian magazine lays out the scenario,
complete with diagrams. The same edition has a story titled, "They Missed the Boat,"
discussing some of the famous people who were originally scheduled to make the voyage,
but decided not to before it departed. Amongst the notables was none other than
1909 Nobel Prize in Physics honoree
Guglielmo
Marconi. Instead, he left for America on the Lusitania three days earlier. Interestingly,
he also made the Atlantic passage on the Lusitania three years later on the trip
immediately before a German U-Boat sunk it...
 Contrary to the fantastic claim made by the
author of this article from a 1964 issue of Popular Electronics magazine,
the "bug battery," also known as a biobattery, did not revolutionize
rechargeable battery technology. In the ensuing 55+ years we have seen nickel cadmium
(NiCad), nickel metal hydride (NiMH), and now lithium polymer (LiPo) batteries,
respectively, do the revolutionizing. It's not that bacteria-based energy production
was a bad or impractical endeavor; it's just that advances did not proceed quickly
enough to keep up with the other technologies. Research and development efforts
inevitably moved away from bug and onto chemicals. D.S. Halacy, Jr., of course had
no way of knowing that at the time, so his enthusiasm might have been justified.
I say might have been because then, as now, every new idea and technology has its
die-hard evangelists... |
