"Despite
a considerable hype around
electromobility among German carmakers, the Chinese market holds an unassailable
lead in terms of units. If one looks at the growth figures, Germany also lags far behind any comparable
economy. Market researcher Center of Automotive Management (CAM) this week came up with the latest figures
..."
"Unfortunately, good technical ability and good business ability
do not always grow naturally on the same tree." That line by "Mac," (Mac
McGregor) is all too true for lot of us, and I definitely include myself as part of 'us.'
I have often paraphrased the line by Dr. McCoy on Star Trek as, "Dammit, Jim, I'm an engineer,
not a salesman." Part of the reason RF Cafe has pretty much remained at the same level of income over
the years is due to my unwillingness to make performance guarantees to anyone in return for pay - other
than to not do anything intentional that will harm them. My advertisers
...
Triad RF Systems has introduced the
TTRM1008 - 4.4 - 5.0
GHz, 25W, Bi-Directional Amplifier. The TTRM1008 is compatible with nearly all military and commercial
radio systems operating in the 4400-5000 MHz band. It offers 25W of peak power for signals such as QPSK/BPSK,
but is also linear enough to provide 4-5W of power with more highly modulated signals such as 64QAM
...
"The Pentagon is looking for
the next wave in warfighting technologies, inviting industry to offer ideas in key areas, such as dealing
with the electromagnetic spectrum and ways to manage the flood of data collected by its growing number
of sensors. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is staging a
Proposer's Day Sept. 20 to solicit information on what it calls 'revolutionary advances'
for its Microsystems Technology Office
..."
"Qorvo announced that its Low Power Wireless business unit
(formerly GreenPeak Technologies) is the first in the industry to receive
the ZigBee 3.0 certification for its smart home gateway platform. A certified ZigBee 3.0-ready platform
enables software developers to quickly integrate the standard into their smart home applications. ZigBee
3.0 combines
..."
Incredibly, 15 years has passed since the extremist Islamic attack
on American soil. Nearly 3,000 citizens died that day. World leaders have
embarked on a path of colonizing our homelands with groups of people
that are known to harbor sympathies for the terrorists. They dwell among us now and mean to do us harm
when
opportunity presents itself - which it has on numerous occasions
in the past few years. Never forget the people who died in the burning towers, the Pentagon, and the
airplanes, and 
those left behind to grieve
and get on with life. Never forget the police and military members who fought - and some died - keep
us safe and free. Never forget the rotten politicians who imperil our existence with their selfish agendas.
"Instead
of relying on thick metals or layers of conductive coatings with limited shielding effectiveness, the
researchers relied on layers of two-dimensional titanium carbide, a 2D material only a few atoms thick
that conducts like metals and graphite. The novel nanomaterial, part of the
MXene family of 2D transition metal carbides only recently discovered
..."
"Spacetime tells matter how to
move; matter tells spacetime how to curve." -
John A. Wheeler, astrophysicist who coined the terms
'black hole' and 'wormhole.' Quote taken from his book Geons,
Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics.
"Electronic
components have become faster and faster over the years, thus making powerful computers and other technologies
possible. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now investigated how fast electrons can ultimately be controlled
with electric fields. Their insights are of importance for the
petahertz electronics of the future. Speed may not be witchcraft, but it is the
basis for technologies that often seem
..."
Over the last
decade or two, Vishay has acquired a slew electronics components companies many of us grew up with,
among them Dale, Sprague, Vitramon, Siliconix, General Semiconductor, and BCcomponents. Vishay has a
handy Ferrite Bead
Calculator that suggests one of its surface mount models based on your frequency and current inputs
...
Did you know that the examinations for
Amateur
Radio Operator licenses were originally conducted by the Commerce Department, and not the FCC? The
FCC was established with passage of the Communications Act of 1934, which abolished the Federal Radio
Commission and replaced it with the FCC. The 'Act' combined and organized federal regulation of telephone,
telegraph, and radio communications. That's right, bureaucracies were renaming and reorganizing themselves
even back then in order to expand and increase control and regulatory power. After all, the more segments
of society
...
With more than 700 custom-built symbols, this has
got to be the most comprehensive set of
Visio Stencils available
for RF, analog, and digital system and schematic drawings!
Every object has been built from scratch
to fit proportionally on the provided A- and B-size drawing page templates (you
can use your own page if preferred). Components are provided for equipment racks
(EIA and ETSI) and test equipment, system block diagrams and conceptual
drawings, and for schematics
...
"Back
in the 1990s, observers predicted that the
single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) would be the nanomaterial that pushed silicon
aside and created a post-CMOS world where Moore's Law could continue its march towards ever=smaller
chip dimensions. All of that hope was swallowed up by inconsistencies between semiconducting and metallic
..."
NI AWR Design Environment technologies and
features will be highlighted in activities at EDI
CON USA 2016, being held September 20-22 in Boston. In its first year in the U.S., EDI CON brings
the high frequency electronic and high speed digital design communities together to address the engineering
and manufacturing issues that face today's design engineers
...
"TeleWorld
Solutions launched an online marketplace aimed at matching property owners with carriers looking to
deploy small cells. SmallCellSite.com, which
is scheduled to go live this morning, uses an interactive mapping and photo-based interface enabling
property owners to upload listing information, receive suggested pricing based on algorithms, and market
their space to major carriers. Operators can use the site to search for property
..."
Part 3
of this 3-part "The Wavelength Factor" series, titled "Choice of Frequency Bands
for Civil Defense and U.H.F.," appeared in the August 1952 issue of QST. Part 2 appeared in
the February edition. In this series, author Yardley Beers reviews transmitter and receiver powers,
antenna gain, and system range that can be expected based on the presented equations
...
No problemo, Merkel's providing lots of new potential engineers
with refugees. "Between 2016 and 2026, Germany will need 100,000 more
engineers in electrotechnology, electronics, and computer technology than will graduate
from that nation's universities and technical colleges. The report, published by the German Association
for Electrical, Electronic, and Information Technologies (VDE), bases this estimate on employment figures
obtained for the period beginning in 2005 and ending
..."
September
20, 2:00 PM ET. Manual testing of the passive RF components of an In-Building (DAS) antenna system can
be a lengthy and expensive process, particularly if retesting becomes necessary. The manual testing
process used for tower work does not scale well for the much more complex DAS installations. Automation
of the field
RF testing process can dramatically reduce common testing errors, cut testing time up to 90%, virtually
eliminate mislabeled traces
...
"In a vision shared by innovators, entrepreneurs, and planners
in both defense and civilian contexts, the skies of the future will be busy with UAVs. Unseen but central
to the realization of this vision is that
wireless communication within and between these future fleets of UAVs should be
reliable and resistant to both unintentional and ill-willed interference. According to Josh
..."
As you can
see by these 1930s vintage electronics-themed comics from an edition of QST magazine, only the technology
has changed - not the style of humor. Both were drawn by the fabled
Phil Glidersleeve
(aka 'Gil'), W1CJD. Enjoy
...
This looks like a variation of the soup can & string phone
system! It is actually a pretty cool radar demo system. Pasternack, a leading provider of RF, microwave
and millimeter wave products, unveils the brand new
PEM11000-KIT and PEM11002-KIT radar demonstration kits covering the popular 2.4
GHz ISM band with no special licensing required. These demonstration kits offer a convenient educational
resource to study
...
"A research team has
developed a printing technique for forming electronic circuits and thin-film transistors (TFTs) with
line width and line spacing both being 1 μm. Using this technique, the research team formed fully-printed
organic TFTs
with a channel length of 1 μm on flexible substrates, and confirmed that the TFTs operate at a practical
level ..."
Writing for
IMS ExpertServices, Wendy Pearson, of the Pearson Research Group, offers this third
installment in a series of articles advising people new to the expert witness realm on how to prepare
for the process. Being an authority in your professed field is not always enough to assure success in
the courtroom - or even for making it as far as a courtroom. Part 3 discusses "case
law," which is where courts cite precedence by higher courts when deciding cases. Whether or not
you consider it a legitimate tactic, your duty as an "expert" includes being aware of applicable instances
and being prepared to reaffirm or discredit its use to the advantage
...
"Graphene
is a wonder material: The carbon honeycomb is just an atom thick. It's great at conducting electricity
and heat; it's strong and stable. But researchers have struggled to move beyond tiny lab samples for
studying its material properties to larger pieces for real-world applications. Recent projects that
used inkjet printers to print multi-layer
graphene circuits ..."
"It is anybody's
guess as to what modulation system the amateur of 1975 will be using." That forward-looking line appeared
in this 1947 QST magazine infomercial by the National Company. The writers probably had no real idea
how different electronics would be 25 years in the future, especially since
John Bardeen et al would not invent the transistor until two more months
(December 1947) after the publication of this issue. In their traditional style, this full-page
advertisement was heavy on text and light on images. The company invested in customer education with
the hope being a well-informed and appreciative hobbyist would reward them with patronage.
"Antennas
used in radars are often required to rotate to provide a 360 degree view of the surroundings. Traditionally
this is achieved by physically rotating the antennas to provide a complete view. Over time physically
rotating antennas were related by
phased array antennas. Phased array antennas are flat panels made up of miniature
transmitters that each emit
..."
"Applying
an electric field to some materials causes their atoms to 'switch' their electric polarization from
one direction to another, making one side of the material positive and the other negative. This switching
property of 'ferroelectric' materials allows them to be used in a wide range of applications. For example,
ferroelectric capacitors are used
..."
Take a break and work this week's
RF Engineering-themed
crossword puzzle. All the words are pulled from a hand-built list of terms, names, and abbreviations
that have only to do with science, mathematics, and engineering. If you want a crossword with names
of movie stars and obscure countries, try the local newspaper
...
Folded dipole antennas, as the name suggests, are about half
the length of a regular dipole, and work just as well for many applications. I have had one attached
to my FM radio receiver for many years and it does a great job pulling in stations from as far away
as Toronto, Canada, and Detroit, MI (I'm located in Erie, PA). Receiver
sensitivity and oscillator stability has been able to obviate the need in most cases for super performance
antennas in modern receivers, as evidenced by ear bud wires and even conformal patch antennas in smartphones
sufficing in lieu of a 'real' antenna
...
The free whitepapers,
pamphlets, books, magazines, and chapter examples listed here are a small sample of a lot of new items
that are offered for FREE through TradePub. The publishers make them available to qualifying people as a promotional
campaign for their full line of offerings. Note: I earn a few pennies (literally)
when you download one of these or the many other pubs available, so please
....
I'm having a hard time feeling a sense of loss about this one.
I like SpaceX and wish them well, but
Facebook - no so much
...
"Researchers at Penn State and the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory are pushing the limits of electron microscopy into the tens of picometer
scale, a fraction of the size of a hydrogen atom. The ability to see at this subatomic level is crucial
for designing
new materials with unprecedented properties, such as materials that transition from
metals to semiconductors or that exhibit superconductivity
..."
Mark
A., of Carpentersville, Illinois, is a winner in the August
Book Drawing. Mark wisely selected
The Art and Science of Ultrawideband Antennas, by Hans G. Schantz
(Graciously provided by Artech House). Each month I randomly draw one or two names from the
list of people who contact me during the period and offer to ship a free top tier engineering book to
them. ...
"The
DoD's Electromagnetic Spectrum Strategy outlines goals for accommodating the ever growing number of
military devices—from UAVs to embedded sensors and smart devices of all kinds.
HERMES, which stands for Hyper-wideband Enabled RF Messaging, was started in 2014
to find way to solve jamming and signal fratricide problems with wideband spread-spectrum communications
..."
Imagine if this happened to the ISS crew module! "A tiny piece
of debris has punched a gaping hole in the
solar panel of one of its Earth observation satellites. ESA says a tiny particle
has knocked a gaping hole in a solar panel on one of its Earth observation satellites. This image shows
Sentinel-1A's solar array before (left) and after
(right) the impact of a millimeter-size particle on the second panel
..."
The
first facsimile
(fax) machines for home use were receive only, and got their data not
from the telephone line but from a commercial broadcast radio receiver. Radio Corporation of America
(RCA) and Finch Telecommunications were two of the earliest entrants into
the realm. As opposed to modern digital fax machines, these analog systems used a scanning raster light
beam and a photodetector to read and encode the original document image, and then a complimentary scanning
method on the receiving end literally burned the image into special
...
"Aalto
University's Radio Science and Engineering researchers have developed a method that allows
antennas to make
the shift from the analogue to the digital world. The antennas currently in use are mostly based on
technology developed half a century ago. 'Traditionally one antenna works with either one or a few different
frequencies. Now we can take advantage of advanced digital electronics and combine several small antenna
elements to work ..."
Triad RF Systems has introduced the
TTRM1010 - 30-3000 MHz, 3 W,
bi-directional amplifier. The TTRM1010 is a bi-directional SSPA for small to medium size UAS applications.
In addition to its broad frequency range it also contains internal DC conversion circuitry that allows
it to be powered by an input voltage range of 9-36 VDC. This class A GaAs module is designed for
both military and commercial applications. It is capable of supporting any signal type and modulation
format, including
...
"A
device made of bilayer graphene, an atomically thin hexagonal arrangement of carbon atoms, provides
experimental proof of the ability to control the momentum of electrons and offers a path to electronics
that could require less energy and give off less heat than standard silicon-based transistors. It is
one step forward in a new field of physics called
valleytronics. "Current silicon-based transistor devices rely on the charge of electrons
..."
Westinghouse's motive for dubbing the Model WR-8 the 'Columnaire'
is apparent when you see a photograph of it. This model also had a -R version with remote control. The
remote, though, has a cable attached to it; it's not wireless like today's remotes. The Radio Service
Data Sheets for it and the Crosley Model 120 Senior 'Pliodynatron' superheterodyne receivers
...
"The fastest electronic devices
currently send information at speeds of several gigahertz, a billion oscillations per second. Some fiber-optic
cables feature frequencies approaching a terahertz, a thousand billion oscillations. But the need for
speed is never-ending, and researchers are beginning to experiment with how technology might move information-carrying
electrons even faster. The next benchmark is the
petahertz ..."
