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Helping to Deliver RF Cafe
Amplical focuses on premium quality amplifiers and attenuators at affordable prices. Amplifiers
are tuned for exceptional amplitude flatness and our attenuators are designed for
precision and the utmost in accuracy. Their products are typically available from
stock. It is their pleasure and honor to provide you with both an exceptional product
and exceptional service. Amplical features GaAs technology.
 Never one to worry about being un-PC,
I want to wish everyone who celebrates Christmas
a very Merry one, and
a Happy &
Prosperous
New Year
to All, regardless of your beliefs! These are a few of my favorite Christmas videos.
Enjoy.
 
Pat Nelson: Ace of Test Pilots
(as seen in A
Christmas Story)
 Do you remember the scene in A Christmas
Story where the kids Ralphie's the classroom all wear fake teeth and the teacher,
Mrs. Shields, collects them and tosses them in her desk drawer? That drawer is filled
with many formerly confiscated items, including a copy of "Pat
Nelson: Ace of Test Pilots" (copyright 1937). The
story is about a daring young pilot who is regarded by his peers as one of the best
test pilots and racing pilots in the country. Pat's life is one of tragedy and victory.
His father was killed during a robbery that also left his youngest brother, 'The
Kid,' paralyzed from a bullet wound, and his other brother missing after being absconded
by the gang of thugs. The book appeals to me from many aspects. As my
AirplanesAndRockets.com
website attests to, I have been a lifelong lover of aircraft of all types. As my
RFCafe.com website attests to,
I have been a lifelong lover of electronics of all types. The Kid, happens to be
an "expert radio Ham" (license number W-103) who is
constantly in contact with Pat when he's in the air. He (The
Kid) was "a true member of that great clan of radio amateurs who never leave
their post when danger threatens"
...
Impedance Bridge
 Here is an amazingly detailed article on how
to construct and operate a near-lab-quality
impedance bridge out of relatively inexpensive components. A bridge is used
to determine the precise value of a resistor, capacitor, or inductor. Prior to modern,
easily affordable digital impedance meters, both amateurs and professionals relied
on such devices for lab and field work. Why might you need to measure the value
of a component when most are marked with a value? One common application is when
a variable version of a component (or components) is soldered into the circuit while
tweaking for optimal performance, and then the variable is replaced either with
a single fixed component or a fixed component with a smaller-range variable component
(the latter provides adjustment, but over a smaller range of values). It is not
uncommon when doing the initial tuning on a complete home-built transceiver to have
many variable components in place initially, and then solder in fixed versions later...
Savings Alert - Time Is Short!
 MegaPhase's 2012 "End of the World" Savings!
For orders placed by 12/21/12 receive 15% discount off all GrooveTube® cables, 10%
off all RF cables, 5% off all Accessories (torque wrenches, torque screwdrivers,
adapters). Equip your labs for 2013 NOW with MegaPhase's T&M and System product
line. Lock in your 15%, 10%, 5% discounts
MAYANEND by December 21, 2012.
New VNA Cal Kits
 Pasternack introduces their new lines of vector
network analyzer calibration kits. The new
vector network analyzer (VNA) calibration kits from Pasternack
provide the RF components needed to enable stable and accurate error corrected measurements
of DUTs using a VNA from DC to 26.5 GHz in one convenient kit. Calibration of a
DUT using Pasternack's kit allows for precise measurements needed to meet IEEE 287
standards. Pasternack's VNA calibration kits offer broad VNA coverage for the most
popular models including Agilent®, Anritsu®, Rohde & Schwarz® and other VNAs.
Creating Economic Value
 The first eBook in IEEE-USA's Innovation Series, Doing Innovation: Creating Economic Value – Book 1:
Perspectives on Innovation, was written by Gerard H. (Gus) Gaynor, Retired 3M Director
of Engineering. The Doing Innovation: Creating Economic Value series was written
out of the author's concern that "while innovation appears to receive considerable
attention in the academic and business media, these so-called innovations provide
little, if any, consistent and significant economic growth."
Circuit Simulator
 Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit
Emphasis (SPICE)
has been around since 1973. The basic computational engine has always been open
source. It began as a simple analog circuit simulator that took a structured text
file as the input net list and provided a text file output that contained the calculated
values that the user specified such as DC bias points, transient analysis, and AC
analysis. Component models started with relatively simple definitions. If you wanted
a graph of the response, it was in the form of text characters with a standard 80-column
division on the y-axis and the x-axis was as many divisions as it needed to be to
cover all the points calculated (often printed out on fan-fold paper in a pin printer).
Yes, I personally used those versions in the mid 1980s. As time progressed, improvements
were added to the computational engine to handle a wider range of component models
including digital and RF/microwave. More parameters were added to component models
to yield a better agreement between simulation and laboratory measurements. Lagging...
7-Day Weather Forecast
RF Cafe visitor Bob D. sent me this
Mayan Apocalypse Weather
Forecast graphic. Is this great or what? Note that there is nothing for Saturday,
the day after the world ends. Don't forget to ask your doomsdayer friends to assign
you all their worldly goods today since they won't be needing anything after tomorrow.
Please consider RF Cafe as a beneficiary in your end-of-the-world planning
(send to rfcafe@yahoo.com
via PayPal).
The engineering magazines have posted their December issue articles online now.
Here are a few you might be interested in reading.
•
Understand Uncertainty for Better Test Accuracy, by Antonio
Castro
•
Ultra Low Noise Amplifiers Improve Cell Coverage and Reduce Costs,
by Paul Mattheijssen
•
A 5G Wireless Communications Vision, by Gerhard Fettweis
 "If the Mayans were so good at predicting
the future, why aren't the Mayan cites still around?"- Anon
(nor did they predict the coming of Spanish conquistadores
- KRB)
Linearity, Low Power Amplifier
 Skyworks introduces a highly efficient, broadband,
13 dB gain, GaAs HBT drive amplifier in a small 2 x 2 millimeter quad flat,
no lead package. The
SKY67130-396LF draws less than 23 mA at 3.3 V, while
achieving +39 dBm OIP3, providing the market with a very compelling, high linearity
solution. On-die active bias design ensures consistent performance and unconditional
stability.
Tips from the IEEE
•
2012 Holiday Networking for Both Candidates and Hiring Managers
to Jumpstart Your Career in 2013
• Nuclear Engineering: $99,920 median salary
Pacific Highway (IPH) Crew
 It is hard to imagine a time when there wasn't
a vast network of highways connecting not just the interior of the continental U.S.,
but also interconnecting all of the countries in North America. Just as pioneers
in covered wagons and on horseback forged the routes that became the Oregon Trail
in the early 19th century, so did teams of explorers, cartographers and engineers
do the heavy lifting in the early 20th century in establishing the first defined
roads for expediting the transportation of goods and persons all up and down the
continent's west coast. Radio operators were among the crews of the
International
Pacific Highway (IPH) project. Heavy, bulky, and fragile tube-based radio equipment
was transported in vehicles equally bereft of adequate facilities in the form of
power and shock absorbing suspensions. This story from a 1931 edition of the ARRL's
QST magazine tells of harrowing experiences in the jungles and mountains of South
America, including...
Technology for the Application
 Vishay engineering director Yuval Hernik
has a brief primer posted on EDN discussing considerations when selecting resistors
for your design.
Resistors seem like - and are - the simplest of electronics
elements (other than wires), but a thoughtless selection could spell doom as surely
as the wrong transistor
or transformer. Aside from special properties that must be accounted for in
high frequency circuits (stray reactance, composition), there are 'design centering'
needs to account for tolerances in resistance, temperature coefficient, and mechanical
environment.
Resistors Advertisement
 Allen-Bradley has been making resistors for
a long time. From my earliest days in electronics in the 1970s, I remember using
their products in hobby projects and then later in professional applications. Rockwell
Automation now owns
Allen-Bradley, so if you want historical information, you will have to do a
search for pages like this one, which shows an advertisement from the December 1931
edition of the ARRL's QST magazine. According to Wikipedia: "The company was initially
founded as the Compression Rheostat Company by Dr. Stanton Allen and Lynde Bradley
with an initial investment of $1,000 in 1903. In 1910 the company was renamed the
Allen-Bradley Company."
as Educational Resource
 Sherry Hess, VP of Marketing at AWR, has posted
a new blog discussing the value of online videos as an innovative educational resource
for providing remote learning. The blog, "Kahn Academy—I'm
a Fan!" lauds the Kahn Academy website,
which provides over 3,500 online videos on all facets of education. It compares
this education model to AWR's own AWR.TV online
video channel, which is a valuable resource for customers, university students,
and anyone interested in AWR's RF/microwave design software.
New Line of RF Filters
 Pasternack introduces their new lines of
lowpass filters and highpass filters. The new RF filters from
Pasternack are passive components that allow frequency signals to pass within a
certain range and attenuate (reject) frequencies outside that given range, in this
case, up to 3 GHz. Both the new lowpass and highpass filters are constructed
using the Combline design, which provides outstanding VSWR and long term performance.
for Continued Support!
 MECA Electronics manufactures
RF & microwave components
including fixed attenuators, directional & hybrid couplers, isolators/circulators,
power divider/combiners, RF loads, DC blocks, bias Tees and adapters & cables.
MECA has long been the 'backbone' of high performance wired and air-interfaced networks
such as in-building applications, satellite communications, radar, radio communications,
telemetry applications, mobile radio, aviation & air traffic communications.
 Over on the Design News website,
Jon Titus, former editor of numerous electronics magazines and
all-around electronics whiz, is recommending the Machinist Calc Pro to people who
do a lot of metal machining and woodworking projects. It performs a lot of commonly
needed functions like bolt hole patterns, thread tapping tables, spindle feed and
speed, etc.
Amazon has it on sale now for $70, and if you buy before then
end of the year, you can get an additional
$20 rebate from
the manufacturer.
Continued Support!
Pasternack is a global supplier of RF, microwave and fiber optic components supported by a growing
list of international distributors who service customers in more than 30 countries
worldwide and partner with us in pursuit of our vision to be the world's most recognized
and trusted provider of urgently needed RF, microwave and fiber optic components
and assemblies.
Subscriptions
Many of the engineering and science magazines offer
free subscriptions to qualified
people. Their advertisers foot the bill. Here are a few select examples, but there
are many others available for just about every interest.
 Lightwave - Optical communications technology,
applications, and industry trend information.
 Asia Electronics Industry -Reports on the
latest parts and components, material, production equipment and test & measuring
instrument.
 NASA Tech Briefs - Reports of innovations
developed by NASA and its industry partners/contractors that can be applied to develop
new/improved products and solve engineering or manufacturing problems
Crossword for 12/16/2012
For the sake of avid cruciverbalists, each week I create a new crossword puzzle
that has a theme related to engineering, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and other
technical words. You will never be asked the name of a movie star unless he/she
was involved in a technical endeavor (e.g., Hedy Lamar).
Doing Innovation: Creating Economic Value,
by Georgia Stelluto. Excerpt: "Innovation occupies many pages of the business and
academic press, yet under close scrutiny, it is difficult to find innovation that
provides economic value. Where are the innovations that have an impact on economic
growth? Introducing new features to current products or processes often dominates
discussions on innovation. Much confusion abounds as to what innovation really involves..."
 Anatech Electronics / AMCrf has posted their December newsletter. The focus is on
SAW filters.
 Many people have written over the years asking
where to buy those little donut shaped
thumbwheels for SMA / K (2.9 mm) / V (2.4 mm) RF Connectors
. A lot of companies hand them out at trade shows, with their company names printed
on them. Finding one for sale, though, has been somewhat elusive. Search no longer.
RF Cafe visitor Michael M. just provided a source for buying them:
Marki Microwave. Marki's
main product line originally consisted of high performance mixers, but now they
also manufacture amplifiers, filters, power dividers, baluns, couplers, and a host
of other RF / microwave components. I
couldn't find a price on their website, so you will have to call.
 Watch this poor guy freak out when his physics
professor wakes him while he naps during class. The lecture was on nuclear physics
and atom bombs.
 Pasternack announces the expansion of their line
of Schottky diode detectors. RF detectors from Pasternack are coaxial components
that convert the input RF signal strength into proportional DC voltage at its output,
also referred to as “video out”. The positive-biased Schottky detectors offer varying
operating frequencies ranging from 500 MHz to 26 GHz and are available
with SMA connectors. This line of biased detectors has a RF signal threshold (tangential
sensitivity or TSS) of -54 to -52 dBm.
 PMI Model No.
SAA-500M18G-20DB-SFF is a switch bit attenuator that operates
over the frequency range of 500 MHz to 18 GHz. This model provides 20 dB
of attenuation when a TTL "0" is applied and less than 3 dB of insertion loss
when TTL "1" is applied. This attenuator switches between states in less than 100 nsec
and maintains a maximum VSWR of 2.0:1 into a 50 ohm impedance. ±5 VDC
is required to power. Other frequency ranges and attenuation values are available.
 While looking around on eBay for a couple
pieces of test equipment, I
noticed that some of the overseas distributors have products wired for 220 VAC
w/o an option for 120 VAC as used in the U.S. They do properly state
the voltage, but just be careful because if you are not aware of it, you will need
a step-up transformer or pay shipping to return it. Also, a couple of the ARB products
have software that will not work on a 64-bit Windows system. If you have any questions,
be sure to send a message; they are usually really good about answering quickly.
 PA Design Series:
Envelope Tracking
Simulation and Analysis, December 13, 1:00 PM ET. Modern modulated signals have
high peak-to-average power ratios (PAPR.) Power amplifiers that must amplify these
high PAPR signals, if using a fixed bias, must be operated at relatively high output
power back off, to avoid greatly distorting the signal when its envelope excursion
is near its peak. This webcast will provide an overview of Envelope Tracking simulation
and analysis.
Orbel is a precision solutions manufacturer of photo etched components, board level shielding, EMI/RFI gasketing,
custom metal stampings, fabric over foam gaskets and plated foils. Orbel's board
level shielding products offer engineers the most flexibility for surface mount
or thru-hole designs.
over Erie, Pennsylvania
 I stayed up late last night (early this morning,
actually) to watch the
FITSAT-1 CubeSat satellite flash its Morse code "HI DE NIWAKA JAPAN" message
via super-bright LEDs over eastern North America. It was scheduled to pass just
south of my location in Erie, Pennsylvania, at 1:14 AM, with a lights-on intensity
great enough to be easily seen with binoculars. FITSAT-1 is a project conceived
of and built by professors and students at the Fukuoka Institute of Technology (FIT)
in Japan. In addition to the LED visual display, the satellite also carries several
Amateur Radio payloads including a CW beacon on 437.250 MHz, a telemetry beacon
on 437.445 MHz and a high-speed data downlink on 5,840.0 MHz. The CubeSat
Project was developed by California Polytechnic State University and Stanford University's
Space Systems Development Lab. It creates launch opportunities for universities
previously unable to access space. A CubeSat...
213 Minutes to Pronunciate
 Just as technologies continually advances
with more and more complexity, so, apparently, do words. I remember as a kid back
in the late 1960s when the word 'antidisestablishmentarianism' was all the rage.
It was pronounced and joked about on all the Prime Time and Late Night variety shows
like Carol Burnett , Sonny & Cher, Dean Martin, and Johnny Carson. Those 28
letters and 12 syllables pale in comparison to the new king of the word-length hill.
Sporting 189,819 letters, the long version of a giant protein called
Titin
takes the guy in the embedded video 213 minutes to pronounce. Here is the word in
all its glory: 'Methionylalanylthreonyl... …+ 189,777 more letters
+… ...prolylprolylleucine'
Switches for Base Stations
 Skyworks is pleased to unveil three high power
SPDT switches for multiple applications. The
SKY12207-478LF (0.9-4.0 GHz; 50 W),
SKY12208-306LF (0.02-2.7 GHz; 50 W) and
SKY12210-478LF (0.9-4.0 GHz; 100 W) deliver transmit/receive
and failsafe switching functionality for TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE base stations, as well
as land mobile radios and military communication systems. These PIN diode
switches handle continuous wave RF input power and provide very low insertion loss
in the antenna-to-Rx mode, minimizing the effect on receiver noise figure.
High-Isolation SPDT Switch
 The
RFSW6124 is an SPDT RF switch featuring a symmetric design for exceptional isolation.
Typical applications for this GaAs pHEMT switch include cellular base stations and
other communications systems requiring high linearity and power-handling capability.
The RFSW6124 uses a non-reflective architecture that terminates ports in the Off
state and provides an enable pin for an All-Off state. Control of the switch is
both 3V and 5V positive logic-compatible.
and Electro-Optical Systems
 This quiz is based on the information presented
in "Introduction
to Infrared and Electro-Optical Systems," by Ronald G. Driggers and Melvin H.
Friedman. All RF Cafe quizzes would make perfect 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.
of the Scalar EM Waves
 Sherlock Ohms is a regular feature of Design
News that presents submissions from readers about troubleshooting challenges and
how they were solved. This one is utterly amazing and is titled "Mystery Signals Show Up in Neurological Amplifiers." Have you
heard of
scalar electromagnetic waves and the [in]effectiveness of shielding
on them? I had not. A Google search resulted in a bunch of conspiracy theory articles
referencing Tesla's writings and how the government was using them for mind and
weather control. Does anyone have credible information on scalar EM waves? Maybe
this Sherlock Ohms case should have been saved for April 1st.
Who Will Change the World
"Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World,"
by Tony Wagner. A childhood of creative play leads to deep-seated interests, which
in adolescence and adulthood blossom into a deeper purpose for career and life goals.
Play, passion, and purpose are the forces that drive young innovators. Wagner shows
how we can apply this knowledge as educators and what parents can do to compensate
for poor schooling. He takes readers into the most forward-thinking schools,
colleges, and workplaces in the country, where teachers and employers are developing
cultures of innovation based on collaboration, interdisciplinary problem-solving,
and intrinsic motivation. The result is a timely, provocative, and inspiring manifesto
that will change how we look at our schools and workplaces, and provide us with
a road map for creating the change makers of tomorrow.
"I don't care what the majority voted to do,
they don't have a right to steal my money just because they vote for it." -- Peter
Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, on CNBC (start
video at 4:40)
RF/Microwave Copywriter
 Pasternack Enterprises announces the availability
of a new position at their Irvine, California, location.
•
RF/Microwave Copywriter and Content Manager
Two New Job Openings
 TriQuint
just announced two new fulltime openings at their Hillsboro, Oregon, location.
•
RF Metrology Engineer
•
RF Substrate/Laminate Technologist
![Flying Radiomen [and Radiowomen] of the Ferrying Division, June 1944 QST - RF Cafe](images/flying-radiomeny-wwii-ferrying-division.jpg) "Necessity is the mother of invention" is
an oft-heard phrase that never rang truer than during World War II. Both the
Axis and the Allied powers had extremely brilliant and capable people working to
defeat each other, driving advances in technology and methods at a break-neck pace
for nearly a decade (remember WWII began before the U.S. entered
the fray in 1941). Aircraft and radio were powerful new weapons for all sides
at that point since both were still in their fledgling modes in WWI. Efficient and
effective execution of aircraft ferrying, troop movement, and supply delivery was
absolutely dependent on radio equipment and operators that could adapt to new strategic
situations and endure all sorts of weather and geographic stresses. While the Army
Signal Corps had a good cadre of
radio operators available, few were experienced with operating in their gear
while airborne. Background noise (audible and electronic)
and vibration from the engines and airframe tested the limits of skills...
Specs or Pepper?
 Pondering a possible purchase puts the potential
pocketbook provider in a pickle! Unless, that is, they are a savvy
savant of specifications. This
quiz will lead you through a jumbled jam of jargon to see how well you speak the
language of the specification!
Crossword for 12/9/2012
For the sake of avid cruciverbalists, each week I create a new crossword puzzle
that has a theme related to engineering, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and other
technical words. You will never be asked the name of a movie star unless he/she
was involved in a technical endeavor (e.g., Hedy Lamar).
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