"A Russian team of aerospace engineers and enthusiasts are preparing
to launch their
'Mayak' satellite into space aboard the Soyuz-2 rocket, where it will be the brightest
'star' that shines above Earth. The team of aerospace engineers and enthusiasts from Moscow's University
of Mechanical Engineering (MAMI) are putting the finishing touches to their 'Mayak,' or 'Beacon' satellite,
and have raised enough money for the next stage of the spacecraft's testing before it
..."
Here is another electronics quiz for you to try. Intuition from
experience goes a long way here, but if all else fails you can work out the details of the rectifier
circuits to determine
which lamp received the most current. Keep in mind that the diode symbols are not LEDs;
it is the 'A,' 'B,' and 'C' symbols inside circles that are the lamps whose brightnesses are being considered.
LEDs did exist at the time this quiz was created in 1969, but the circuits would perform differently
if in fact LEDs were used for double duty of rectification and illumination
...
"High Performance
RX Antennas for a Small Lot" will be the topic of a free webinar by Jose 'JC' Carlos, N4IS, and sponsored
by the World Wide Radio Operators Foundation (WWROF).
Carlos will explore basic concepts of receiving antennas and share his experiences with low-band receiving
antennas on a small lot, including the Waller Flag. The webinar will take place on Thursday, March 3,
at 9:00-10:00 PM EST. It will run for about 1 hour.
Registration
is required.
Advanced
Test Equipment Rentals (ATEC), an award-winning leader in test and measurement equipment rentals, is
proud to announce the availability of the
Instruments For Industry (IFI) PT-KW HP Series Pulse TWT Microwave Power Amplifiers
for lease. Designed for microwave, high intensity radiated field (HIRF), and radar testing, the
high power pulse traveling-wave tube (TWT) amplifiers are used in satellite transponders, military,
aerospace and many other applications
...
FBI: Apple Taking Us to a 'Different World'
ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology Announces 2016 Schedule
Ericsson 5G Field
Trial Achieves Peak Downlink Throughput over 25Gbps (then, on to
6G)
New 'Tetraquark' Particle Discovered
The more things change, the more they stay the same. That saying
applies to many recreational activities. Pick up a copy of QST that was published in the last
year and look at reader
comments and you will find laments about the dwindling participation of youngsters, an increased
degree of incivility and rule breaking during engagement, the high cost of getting into the hobby, yadda
yadda yadda. I witness it regularly in the model aircraft world, too. That is not to say the issues
are not true or irrelevant, just that they are persistent. Each generation, it has been said, tends
to think ...
I have a confession to make regarding the puzzle titles. While
all RF Cafe crosswords
do in fact use only my hand-entered dictionary of terms and clues (literally thousands accumulated over
the years) that pertain exclusively to science, engineering, chemistry, physics, mathematics, astronomy,
etc., the choice for a particular title is to help attract search engines to the page. There is nothing
deceptive going on, just an attempt to exploit the nature of search engine algorithms that rank pages
based on meta tags coinciding with relevant
...
Tech News for February 28, 2016
Georgia Tech Discovers
How Mobile Ads Leak Personal Data
'Girls in Tech' Competition
Won by Boy (gotta laugh)
Wireless Satisfaction
Increases, Despite Rising Cost of Smartphones
Here
is round two for this month of the new RF-type magazine articles that have appeared in the trade magazine.
Since the majority of people no longer receive paper copies of the magazines, I try to drive a little
traffic to their websites by highlighting titles that appeal to my interest and like-minded RF Cafe
visitors. That's not to say ...
-
A Bluffers Guide to Evaluating Scientific
Results, Part 1: Systematic Bias
-
Understanding and Measuring Power-Supply
Transient Recovery Time
-
The Differences Between
Receiver Types:
Part 1
- Design
of a 10 GHz LNA for Amateur Radio
Operation
<more>
"Wide available bandwidths at
W-band frequencies from 75 to 110 GHz have long made that frequency range attractive for applications
from communications through radar. Practical antennas are an important part of making use of those bandwidths,
and a substrate-integrated-cavity (SIC) antenna array excited by an L-probe offers high gain with high
efficiency at those
..."
These are the schematics and parts list for vintage vacuum tube
radios
Westinghouse
Model H-133;
Arvin
Models 150TC, 151TC; and
Admiral Model
7C63, Chassis 7C1 as they appeared in the December 1947 issue of Radio News magazine. I
scan and post these for the benefit of hobbyists and historians seeking such information. As time goes
by, there is less and less likelihood that records of these relics from yesteryear's archives will be
made available. As with all historical information, it takes someone with a personal interest in preserving
the memories in order to fulfill the mission
...
Baron von Richthofen
would be proud of this model of his famous red Fokker DR1 triplane, piloted by world champion
Gernot Bruckmann. It sports a 14.5 foot wingspan
and weighs in at 194 pounds. European modelers rule when it comes to really giant-sized and most excellently
built model airplanes. This is a
must-see
video not just for the airplane but for the incredible Austrian setting
...
Planar Monolithics Industries (PMI) has got to be one of the
most prolific designer and manufacturer of new RF/microwave products. I am amazed at the number of new
devices they announce. This month PMI offers 8 more, including 5 switches, an LNA, a SDLVA, and a
diplexer. PMI
also typically has really well-done photos of their products, but when I saw the
1P8T RF switch
it made me think of Dali's "The Persistence of Memory" ;-)
The radar system I worked on in the USAF used two early memory
types described in this 1956 article. In fact, the radar was designed during that era, so it is no surprise.
Our IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) secondary radar had a whopping 1 kilobyte of
magnetic core memory in its processor circuitry. It consisted of 1024 tiny toroids mounted in a
square matrix with four hair-width enamel coated wires running through them as x and y magnetization
current lines, sense, and inhibit functions. If my memory serves me (pun intended) after three decades
...
Tech Headlines for February 26, 2016
FBI's War on Phones Is Bigger Than You Think
Nissan Leaf Electric Car Hack
Demonstrated
Biggest Change for Infantry Since WWII: XM25
Mobile Devices Become
a New Target for Spam and Malware Attacks
Smartphone Slaves Look at Devices Every 4 Minutes Average, Feel Phantom Vibrations
45% of
Americans Pay No Federal Income Tax (no, it's not just 'the
rich' - I pay plenty every year w/<$60k/yr income)
"'The sodium
inside the soda-lime glass creates high electron density in the graphene, which is essential to many
processes and has been challenging to achieve,' said Nanditha Dissanayake of Voxtel, Inc. in a
press release.
Dissanayake is formerly of Brookhaven Lab and one of the coauthors of the journal article in Scientific
Reports. The team initially set out to optimize a solar cell containing graphene stacked on a copper
indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) semiconductor, which
..."
Ethertronics, the leader in ultra-high performance smart antenna
system solutions, today announced it has expanded its portfolio of
active antenna RF switches with the industry's
highest linearity for LTE smartphones, devices and other Internet of Things (IoT) applications. In addition
to the best linearity and small footprint, these fully integrated switch solutions support high data
rates and broad frequency ranges. Available today, the EC686 and EC646 are designed to meet the market
...
Often
when I see photos of some of the
early radio control gear for model airplanes, I have a simultaneous reaction of aghastness and marvel
at the crudity and ingenuousness, respectively, of the electromechanical devices - the same kind of
reaction I have to stories about early surgical procedures and equipment. In 1940, when this article
appeared in the ARRL's QST magazine, successful takeoffs and landings were considered notable
events not so much because of pilot ability (or inability), but because of the low reliability of electronic
and mechanical
...
"Drivers constantly reaching for their phones may be the single factor
most responsible for
car crash increases in recent years. Such distracted driving behavior was caught
repeatedly on video in the largest study of car crash risk ever conducted using real-world
driving data. The damning data came from a US $70-million study designed by the Virginia Tech Transportation
Institute and funded by the U.S. Transportation Research Board
..."
Saelig Company has
introduced the RFP Smart Fieldmeter® Kits
which contain all that is needed for making calibrated RF field strength measurements from 0.2 MHz
to 18 GHz, including a calibrated field strength meter, a calibrated Omnifield Antenna®, and a
6" table tripod. Designed for budget-conscious RF engineers, the RFP Smart Fieldmeters combine the major
features of professional quality test equipment with the convenience and simplicity of a multimeter.
They can be used
...
Tech News for February 25, 2016
Beijing Overtakes NYC as 'Billionaire Capital of the World'
FCC Seeks Comments on Petition to Grant Lifetime Amateur Radio Licenses
Quantum
Phase Transition Underpins Superconductivity
Kilogram Redefinition Heads into Crucial Test
Qualcomm Tests LTE over Unlicensed Spectrum in Germany
World's 1st 'Internet of Things' Has Successful Trial
Anritsu just sent me an e-mail announcing a brief whitepaper titled
"Ten 5G Challenges for Engineers to Overcome." It talks about IoT and the huge number
of connections, data volumes, capacity, deployment, critical service, M2M and automotive, network densification,
and other things. I'm not a network engineer and didn't find it particularly useful, but if Anritsu
thinks it is something 5G planners need to know, then who am I to question it? The download is free,
so you might as well take a look
...
"Graphene is an amazing conductor. The transport of electrons
through graphene
nanoribbons has even surpassed what scientists thought were the theoretical limits
for the material—so much so that electrons moving through it seem to behave almost like photons. Its
amazing properties as a conductor has inspired some researchers to explore whether the single-atom-thick
sheets of carbon could also be made into superconductors
..."
Author T.A. Gadwa employs a
standing wave
mechanism analogy that I don't recall having read before - that of a dam on a river. The river is
the transmission line with a lake as the source and then he imagines a dam load. The dam standing waves,
per his description, have phase and amplitude characteristics that depend on how tall the dam wall is
relative to the surface height of the dammed river. An extensive array of graphs is provided showing
how the current of the dam standing waves react to the dam transmission line termination impedance
...
"The
RS-UV3 is a shot in the arm for amateur radio. Mobile phones and the Internet have
made the basic act of talking to a faraway person an everyday experience. This means that much of the
appeal of ham radio is now in things like emergency response; technically challenging exercises such
as bouncing signals off satellites or ultralow-power long-distance contacts; and exploring a host of
digital communications modes. In some ways, trying out such digital modes has never been
..."
As the doors open for Embedded World 2016, Antenova, manufacturer
of antennas and RF antenna modules for M2M and the Internet of Things, is revealing a new
SMD antenna called
Similis, which offers an exceptionally low profile solution for 3G, LTE and MIMO applications. The
Similis antenna measures just 40 x 10 x 1.6 mm, making it literally half the height of the popular
Lucida which Antenova introduced last year. This exceptionally slim antenna will definitely be
...
Tech News for February 24, 2016
Indian Government
Threatens to Seize Vodafone Assets
Samsung Galaxy S7 Restores
Expandable Storage
Pre-5G Will Be Key
for ZTE in 2016
Researchers
Demonstrate 'Quantum Surrealism'
Cellphones Cooking Men's Sp**m
Worldwide Smartphone Sales Grew 9.7% in Q4 2015
The
R&S ESW EMI test receiver from Rohde & Schwarz is designed for applications
in manufacturers' EMI labs and in test houses. It can carry out certification tests on modules, components
and devices as well as on systems and technical facilities in line with all relevant commercial and
military standards such as CISPR, FCC and military standards. The R&S ESW is ideal for conducted
as well as radiated certification measurements and even meets the stringent demands placed on EMI measurements ...
Please bear with me again whilst I make more of these Radio Service
Data Sheets available to historians and hobbyists. They provide schematics and parts lists for
Kadette Model
90 Duplex 4-Tube 110 V-6 V Car-Home-Farm,
Grunow 11A
Chassis 11-Tube All-Wave, and
RCA-Victor "Magic Brain" Model 281 12-Tube All-Wave Superheterodyne receivers. Most - if not all
- electronics servicemen had subscriptions to these magazines because they were a ready source of not
just the above service sheets
...
"In January, British actor Eddie Redmayne made headlines around
the world as he became the latest in a growing band of smartphone refuseniks. 'It was a reaction against
being glued permanently to my iPhone during waking hours,' he explained, turning instead to an old-fashioned
'dumb phone' handset. He is not alone. There is a small but busy market for phones
that are simple and cheap at a time when
..."
Located
in Mumbai , India, Conex India is a manufacturer
and exporter of a wide variety of non-ferrous metal components and wiring accessories including brass,
bonze, stainless steel, & copper electrical connections, decorative knobs & finials, nuts, bolts, &
washers, clamps, keys, ferrules, pipe & hose fittings. Conex India has been added to my
Electrical & Mechanical Assembly Hardware
page.
Notable Tech Quote - Einstein on Peer Review
"I see no reason to address
the – in any case erroneous - comments of your anonymous expert." - Albert Einstein to the editor, Mr.
John Tate, of
The Physical Review, in response to a critical review of his submitted paper.
The date was July 23, 1936.
"The U.S. Navy was planning to test an
electromagnetic rail gun at sea later this year, but officials are considering postponing
or skipping the demonstration in order to speed up the project. The test, which is planned to be based
out of the Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, would involve using a prototype of the futuristic weapon
to hit a floating barge in the ocean. However, Navy officials are now considering skipping
..."
What
drew my attention with this
P.R. Mallory &
Company advertisement was not an actual electronic component that they are most noted for - potentiometers,
capacitors, switches, metal alloys, and of course batteries (later renamed Duracell). Philip Rogers
Mallory began his company manufacturing tungsten wire for lamps. Rather what interested me was the huge
variety of standard potentiometer and rotary switch extension shafts. Unlike modern electronics where
pots and switches are typically mounted to the enclosure with wires running to the circuit assembly,
many ...
Tech Headlines for February 23, 2016
Neon Gas Supply Issues Dog the Semiconductor Industry
Smartphones to Replace Cards at Bank Machines
U. of Utah Develops Tin Monoxide as 2D Electronic Material
FCC to Force Cable Companies to Sell Set-top Boxes to Customers
Telstra to Launch
1-Gbps Mobile Service
Volume Manufacturing of 300 mm RF-SOI Substrates
"Researchers
affiliated with Boeing have produced what they claim to be the lightest metal ever made. It's called
'microlattice,' and the reason it's so light is because it's 99.99% air. Sophia Yang,
research scientist in architected materials at HRL Laboratories, a joint venture that Boeing is involved
in with General Motors, calls it 'the world's lightest material.' It's an open-cellular polymer structure,
made of interconnected hollow tubes, in three
..."
Here, for your Monday, beginning-of-the-work-week enjoyment, are
a couple
electronics-themed
comics that appeared in the October 1951 edition of Radio & Television News. When is
the last time you saw a comic in a technical magazine? Note the AC power cod attached to the 'portable'
television. Nowadays, a person would have a smartphone, tablet, or notebook computer while on the can.
There is a list of other comics at the bottom of the page
...
"Researchers have
demonstrated the ability to generate a quantum logic operation, or rotation of the qubit, that is intrinsically
resilient to noise as well as to variations in the strength or duration of the control. While a classical
bit found in conventional electronics exists only in binary 1 or 0 states, the more resourceful quantum
bit, or 'qubit' is represented by a vector, pointing to a simultaneous combination of the 1 and 0 states
..."
In our present "No user serviceable parts inside" world of electronic
products, it is easy to understand why very few people have an appreciation for the technical prowess
needed to troubleshoot and repair them. When reading through these episodes of "Mac's
Radio Service Shop" that appeared in mid last century editions of Radio & Television News
magazine, I am inspired to envy the skills that small electronics repair shop owners had for working
on the old vacuum tube based radio and television sets
...
"Nanoelectronics research center imec and Vrije Universiteit Brussel
(VUB) present a frequency division duplex (FDD) balance network, capable of
dual-frequency impedance tuning for all LTE bands in the 0.7-to-1GHz range. When
integrated into an electrical-balance duplexer (EBD), it enables FDD duplexing with antennas in real-world
environments, paving the way to high-performance, low-power, low-cost solutions for mobile communication
..."
Tech News for February 22, 2016
Indian Company Briefly Sells $4 Smartphone Before Website Crashes
How to Attract Investment for Your Engineering Inventions
Research
Success Increasingly Hinges on Honing Teamwork Skills
I will
be glad to post some of your company's press releases,
company news, events, etc., at no charge, as a service to RF Cafe visitors. While there is no guarantee
a particular item will be posted, I do try to give fair access to the >10,000 visitors RF Cafe receives
each weekday. Of course there i$ a way to help $ee to it that your pre$$ relea$e get$ priority con$ideration
;-)
Fairview Microwave, a supplier of on-demand microwave and RF components,
debuts a new family of
semi-rigid test
probes operating up to 6 GHz. Designed to assist in testing microwave circuits, these test probes
are constructed of high quality semi-rigid coax and SMA Female connectors. The new test probe assemblies
from Fairview Microwave come in multiple cable diameters to help when attaching the unterminated end
of the probe to a circuit board trace
...
This week's
Amateur Radio crossword
puzzle contains the usual collection of science, math, and engineering terms, and amateur radio.
You'll never be 'challenged' to know terms relating to movie stars, leaders of obscure countries, or
archaic pottery making terms. Enjoy
...
"A new type of flat, ultrathin lens designed to be
free of chromatic aberrations has been developed by researchers in the U.S. The
device has a variety of potential applications, from ultralight imaging systems for drone aircraft to
more compact lenses for mobile-phone cameras. Lenses for cameras, eyeglasses and other applications
are traditionally based on refractive optics, which involves using curved lenses to bend light rays
..."
Tech Headlines for February 21, 2016
China Looks to Reward Academic Innovation to Drive Economic Growth
Half the World to Be Short-Sighted
by 2050
Ground-Penetrating Radar Boosts Asparagus Production
At least for now, I am going to only scan and post schematics &
parts lists like these four featuring the
Sears Roebuck Silvertone "Rocket" Models 6110 and 6111, the
Allied Radio Knight Model E10913, the
General Electric Model GD-52, and the
Zenith Models 6D302, 6D311, 6D326, 6D336, 6D360 in graphical format, rather than run OCR on them
to separate the textual content. An ever-growing list of models is at the bottom of every page
...
"NASA engineers Neerav Shah and Phil Calhoun will realize a long-held
ambition later this year when a Space-X launch vehicle deploys two tiny satellites that will fly in
a precise formation to create, in effect, a single or "virtual" telescope benefitting a range of scientific
disciplines. Through a NASA international agreement, Shah and his team have partnered with South Korea's
Yonsei University and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) to validate
..."
Anatech Electronics, a manufacturer of
RF and microwave filters, has published its
February 2016 newsletter. As always, it includes both company news and some tidbits
about relevant industry happenings. This month, Sam Benzacar's main thesis addresses the public nuisance
that multirotor 'drones' have become in the hands of stupid and/or ignorant pilots. "Wireless: Behind
the Scenes at Super Bowl 50" is among other topics
...
Empower RF Systems today announced a partnership with
TEVET to become a value added reseller of Empower's RF and microwave
amplifier modules and systems. TEVET is an established nationally recognized technology driven Service-Disabled
Veteran-Owned and HUBZone Small Business (SDVOSB) with exemplary performance servicing the Aerospace,
Defense and Energy markets. Empower's Next Generation rack-mount amplifiers
...
IMS ExpertServices periodically sends me e-mails that highlight recent key court
cases that can significantly affect the effectiveness of expert testimony, both for the plaintiff and
for the defendant. This article by
Annie Dike, writing for IMS ExpertServices, cites a story by NPR that claims merely
conferring 'expert' status on someone is likely to cause him/her to act in a more dogmatic, close-minded
manner. Upon reading the NPR transcript of the interview, my first reaction is that the researchers
who arrived at the conclusion undoubtedly have themselves been referred to as 'experts' in their field,
thereby virtually assuring, evidently, that their conclusions
...
Tech News for February 19, 2016
VHFer Claims "Mathematically Impossible" AO-7 Mode B Distance Record
Indian Government
Threatens to Seize Vodafone Assets
Google's Balloon Internet Project Enters Next Phase of Testing
Intelligent Robots Threaten Millions of Jobs
Japanese Team Might Have Route to Low-Power Spintronics
Should Time Zones be Scrapped?
"All of those important files you have can now be stored for essentially
forever. New developments in the technology of digitally based
laser memory made by researchers at Southampton University in the UK have enabled
information to be stored for 14 billion years. To put this into perspective, it is estimated that the
universe it 12.5 billion years old; the memory will last practically forever. Using a process similar
to laser engraving, seen
..."
The
embedded software engineer will be responsible for developing embedded software for FreeWave wireless
products. These responsibilities will encompass all phases of the embedded software development lifecycle
including requirements analysis, architecture review, software design, software coding and unit test,
integration, and supporting system test. Duties will be focused on Layer 3 wireless data path design
and implementation with typical work encompassing networking applications, protocols, drivers, APIs,
and management interfaces
...
I spent
a lot of time searching - to no avail - on Google Images for a photo of "The Radio Beginner"
photo mosaic that, per this article, used to be on display in the RCA License Laboratory in New York.
Author Washburne points out that, as with all areas of pursuit, be they technical, artistic, or literary,
everyone is at some point a 'beginner.' Each progresses at a different pace, and some not at all. It
is hard to think of Thomas Edison, Guglielmo Marconi, Alexander Graham Bell, or Lee de Forest as a beginner,
but indeed they were early on ...
Hams who are interested in 'fox hunting' might also benefit from
this
Mobile Interference Hunting System app note PDF published by Anritsu (here is a
short
video). It pitches their proprietary equipment, but the method is applicable in
general. Interference, whether it be illegal or unintentional, is a significant problem. It can degrade
network performance and cause critical communications to be interrupted. Traditionally methods of locating
sources of interference is time-intensive. This application note uses various case scenarios to illustrate
how to
...
We are
looking for a
Senior Level RF Design Engineer. The ideal candidate will have experience designing and developing
data radios from concept through production-ready on multiple products using a mix of discrete RF components
and integrated circuits. The ideal candidate will also have a strong understanding of radio system design
and have a deep understanding of the tradeoffs at both the design and system level to achieve a product
that meets specifications. Candidate will have proven design experience in: receivers, transmitters,
synthesizers, VCO's, lumped element filters, and power
...
"Companies
have been promising us futuristic, paper-like displays since forever, but so far we remain unimpressed.
The ReFlex,
a prototype flexible smartphone from Queens University is tantalizingly close to what we've been waiting
for, though. To build it, the team mated a 720p flexible LG OLED display to bend sensors and haptic
feedback motors. Powering the device is an Android 4.4-powered board, complete with custom drivers
..."
Tech Headlines for February 18, 2016
Military Electronics Spending for Communications and Intelligence Increased in 2017
TSMC Says Recovery
from Taiwan Quake to Take Longer Than Expected
New Amateur Extra Question Pool Puts Greater Emphasis on Digital, SDRs, Propagation
Should Computer Education Cover More Than Just Coding?
Congress Wary of Chinese Deal for Chicago Stock Exchange
(what possible danger?)
Apple Ordered to
Assist in Unlocking Terrorist iPhone
Pasternack has just released an improved version of their popular
online tool called The Cable
Creator™. This new iteration allows the user to not only design and customize special cable configurations
online in a few clicks, but also purchase their designs without the need to wait for a quote from the
company's sales team. With a modernized look and feel, Pasternack's Cable Creator enables engineers
and buyers to quickly and easily create customized RF
...
"The 2015
ARRL Antenna Book for Radio Communications has everything you need to design
your own complete antenna system. Since 1939, it has maintained its place at the forefront of Amateur
Radio technology a single resource covering antenna theory, design and construction, and practical treatments
and projects. In this edition, The ARRL Antenna Book describes hundreds of antenna designs:
wire, vertical, portable and mobile, and new high-performance VHF/UHF Yagi designs. Radio amateurs continue
to make contributions to the state of the art in antenna design and construction
..."
Sending
telegraph messages, whether by wire or wireless means, has always been expensive, particularly considering
charges are determined by the character (letter, number, symbol). Accordingly, the Shakespearean line
from Hamlet declaring that "brevity is the soul of wit" can be reworked to "brevity is the soul of economy."
A telegraph wire, unlike a telephone call, is a legally binding communiqué, as is of course a written
letter, but a telegram is immediate transmission of information for time-critical messaging. A series
of 'commercial
codes' were developed enabling senders to save often
...
"China
will move nearly 10,000 people to make way for the world's largest radio telescope which promises to
help humanity search for alien life, state media reported on Tuesday. The Five-hundred-metre Aperture
Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), nestled between hills in the southwestern province of Guizhou, is due to
start operation this year. Provincial officials have vowed to relocate 9,110 residents living within
five kilometres of the listening
..."
Tech News for February 17, 2016
Android Mazar Malware Wipes
Phones via SMS
Graphene Leans on Glass to Advance Electronics
Radio for IoT Draws 1/10 the Power of Wi-Fi
Fairchild Rejects Chinese Takeover Bid
2015 Ig Nobel
Prizes Announced
House Bill Would Stop States from Banning Phone Encryption
Skyworks offers a family of high isolation (47 dB) multi-throw
switches for 0.7–3.0 GHz Rx switching. The
SKY13522-644LF,
SKY13523-639LF
and SKY13524-639LF
are designed for switching single-ended Rx SAW filters in cellular handsets. Consuming less than 10
µA of current, they are ideal for low power switching in smartphone, data card, IoT, infrastructure
and test and measurement applications and may be used for switching filter banks in infrastructure Rx
chains. The small footprint devices are supplied in quad-flat no-lead (QFN) packages
...
"Wide-band
gap metal-oxide
thin-film transistors (TFTs) have never been quite as popular as the ubiquitous
metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFET). One of the main issues with TFTs has been
that they are limited to n-type semiconductor materials that can only move negative charges through
them, limiting their electrical output. While different architectures have been investigated to overcome
this, the problem has remained that there
..."
How the Poles Cracked the Enigma Machine Before Turing
There
is a constant deluge of news stories reporting on how yet another firmly held historical belief has
been shown to be false. While a lot of it is obviously driven by someone's agenda - for whatever reason
- but there have been bona fide instances of either new discoveries or new evidence of malfeasance on
the part of historians. Here, representatives of the Embassy of Poland are touring the world to tell
people about their crucial contribution to shortening WWII. They refute credit given to British mathematician
Alan Turing, claiming it was actually their work with
Enigma that
...
Here is a story near and dear to my heart. From 1978 through 1982,
I trained for and worked on a ground-based, mobile air traffic control radar system (AFSC 303x1). The
AN/MPN-13 & 14 systems had both airport surveillance(ASR) and
precision approach (PAR) primary radars, identification friend or foe (IFF) secondary radar, and UHF
and VHF communications radios. The AN/MPN-13 was contained in two trailers; air traffic controllers
sat and worked within the operations ('ops') trailer where the radar electronics were located. It was
very a cramped environment, particularly when maintenance was required. The AN/MPN-14 was basically
an AN/MPN-13 with an additional separate, spacious, radar
...
"A radical
new weapon that can fire a shell at seven times the speed of sound could be used by the Navy as soon
as 2018. Described as 'Star Wars technology' by researchers, the
rail gun can fire a shell weighing 10kg at up to 5,400mph over 100 miles. It does
this with such force and accuracy it penetrates three concrete walls or six half-inch thick steel plates.
Development of a futuristic weapon is going well enough that a Navy admiral wants to skip
..."
Peregrine
Semiconductor, founder of RF SOI and pioneer of advanced RF solutions, announces the
UltraCMOS®
PE4314, a 75 Ω glitch-less RF digital step attenuator (DSA). This new DSA extends Peregrine's
existing glitch-less DSA portfolio to 75 Ω. The PE4314 is ideal for wired broadband applications
in cable/satellite customer premises equipment (CPE) and infrastructure equipment. The 75 Ω PE4314
joins Peregrine's 50 Ω glitch-less DSAs
...
"Learn with
your head but also with your hands" -
Nils F. Testor, founder of the Testor Corporation, maker of the well-known Testors
brand of adhesives and paints. Nils Testor, an early 20th century immigrant from Sweden, is a classic
American success story. Having begun his management career at Woolworth as a stock boy (although he
had a college degree from Stockholm), his business acumen and love of the arts - including airplane
modeling - quickly propelled him into the position of entrepreneur as owner and progenitor of the Testor
...
Tech Headlines for February 16, 2016
Russia is Widening the Gap in EW
1st InAs finFET Reported
Making Sense of Metallic Glass
iPhones Accounted
for 40% of U.S. Smartphone Market in 2015
Hack Lets Phones Eavesdrop
and Make Premium Calls
Mark Zuckerberg Hired 16 Bodyguards to Protect Him at Home (wonder if they carry guns?)
