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3 of the December
2017 homepage archives.
Sunday 31
 At least 10 clues in this
crossword puzzle with an asterisk (*) are pulled
from this past week's (12/25 - 12/29) "Tech Industry Headlines" column on the RF
Cafe homepage (see the Headline Archives page for help). For the sake of all the
avid cruciverbalists amongst us, each week I create a new technology-themed crossword
puzzle using only words related to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry,
physics, astronomy...
Friday 29
 Given that this is the afternoon of the last
workday of 2017, this is a good time to kick back and enjoy a couple more
electronics-themed comics from vintage Popular Electronics
magazines. RF Cafe officially does not recommend that anyone try using the temporary
solution for a too-short antenna cable shown in the one comic...
 "Congressional approval today of legislation
to reform America's outdated corporate tax system is a welcome and long-overdue
win for the U.S. semiconductor industry and a major step toward sustaining U.S.
leadership in semiconductor research, design, and manufacturing. The bill includes
several important provisions that SIA has long supported to improve the global competitiveness
of U.S. semiconductor companies ..."
 Lithium niobate is used today as the substrate
for surface acoustic wave (SAW) filters, oscillators, optical waveguides, and many
other applications. It, along with barium niobate, was used experimentally by RCA
for storing
holographic optical images that can be read out later using a
laser. This 1972 issue of Popular Electronics included a brief news item
referencing the work being done. I could not locate any information that indicates
any significant commercialization of the process. Patent US3799642 was awarded ..."
 RWW
consists of five related conferences that focus on the intersection between wireless
communication theory, systems, circuits, and device technologies. This creates a
unique forum for engineers to discuss various technologies for state-of-art wireless
systems and their end-use applications. RWW2018 will be held at the Hyatt Regency Orange County in Garden
Grove, California, 14 - 17 January 2018. The venue is located in the sun-splashed
southern...
 "Electronics enthusiasts like being able
to make things themselves. In IEEE Spectrum's Hands On column, we've detailed how
readers can make their own solder reflow ovens, conductive ink, and synthetic aperture
radars. But making DIY integrated circuits seemed impossibly out of reach. After
all, building a modern fab is astronomically expensive: For example, in 2017 Intel
announced it was investing $7B to complete a facility for making chips with 7-nanometer-scale
features. But Sam Zeloof was not deterred. This 17-year-old high school student
has started making chips in his ..."
Thursday 28
Expanding the popular and proprietary Linx WRT line, the
dual-band WiFi WRT antenna supports legacy 2.4 GHz WiFi and
newer 5.8 GHz band applications, in a single, compact antenna. The dual-band
WiFi WRT antenna has a low profile and tamper resistant design that is perfect for
challenging applications such wireless vending, security, traffic, and power equipment.
Installing through a small hole in the enclosure the dual-band WiFi WRT antenna
has an integrated closed-cell PSA seal, protecting critical equipment from harsh,
external elements. The dipole...
 "In 2013, venture capitalist Chris Olsen,
a former partner at Sequoia Capital, left
Silicon Valley to move to Ohio, where he'd just started Drive
Capital. Even his movers thought he was nuts for leaving California for Ohio. 'They
were like, 'Oh, sorry, man,' ' he says. Just a year or two earlier, Olsen would
have agreed with them. When I was at Sequoia, he says, 'We passed on a company that
was in Petaluma because that was too far from Silicon Valley.' Then, in 2011, one
of his fellow Sequoia ..."
 The April 1969 issue of Electronics
World magazine featured a collection of ten articles dealing with
filter design and application, authored by experts in the field.
This one discusses which filter types - lumped element (inductors and capacitors),
distributed element (stripline, microstrip, etc.), waveguide, cavity - are best
fitted for use based on the intended application. Power handling, rejection requirements,
inband insertion loss, physical size, cost, stability over time, temperature, vibration,
and moisture as common considerations. Sometimes the decision comes down to designer
preference, manufacturing complexity, desire ...
 Aethercomm designs and manufactures RF and Microwave
amplifier modules, subsystems and systems. The majority of our work is custom. The
reliability and effectiveness of thousands of Aethercomm products has been tested
and proven in combat, helping to protect and save the lives of our warfighters.
Aethercomm is looking to fill a Senior Firmware Design Engineer position. Essential
Duties and Responsibilities include the following: Develop firmware & digital
circuit for power amplifiers and other electronics which could include FPGAs, CPLDs...
 "As expected, members of the 3GPP ratified
the Non-Standalone (NSA)
5G New Radio (NR) specification for what will form the basis of
commercial 5G products, capping off months of meetings and work to get consensus.
The industry agreed earlier this year to accelerate the timeline so that at least
part of the 5G standards work would be complete by the end of this year rather than
having it all come due next summer. While some folks were skeptical about getting
all the work done by now, many industry leaders were confident it would get done ..."
Wednesday 27
 Lloyd Hill joins the prestigious list of former
and current USAF radar techs Lloyd went through tech school at Keesler AFB, MS -
as did we all - in 1980. Since retiring as a Technical Sergeant, Lloyd has been
working for the National Weather Service (NWS). He is identified in this historical
document as one of the founding members of the NWS's first
Weather Forecast
Office in Huntsville, Alabama.
 As of this day (December 27), we are approaching
the December 30 date whereon in the year 1953 the first commercially available color
television set - the Admiral C1617A - went on sale. Mac McGregor and his repair
shop technician, Barney, had been
servicing color TVs since at least February 1955 as printed in
a Radio & Television News story titled, "Barney Takes on Color." This
particular edition laments the increasing cost of servicing color television sets
as they get increasingly complex. Mac and Barney agree that one of the reasons for
service cost is having to work with the newfangled printed circuit boards. Those
early PCBs...
Since 2001,
Antenna Test Lab Co has evaluated countless antennas and RF transmitter
products. With a fully anechoic chamber, antennas can be quickly developed and RF
products refined and deployed. Mounting surfaces like drywall, glass, wood, and
even curved metal  simulated automobile available. The price for
a standard resolution
2D or 3D field pattern plot is only $450
- for a passive or radiating antenna. That is an incredible deal!
 5G and LTE are major topics in the daily news
headlines, magazine articles, books, and seminars. I could have easily included
twice as many articles in the following list with "5G" in the title. Items move
onto and off of all homepages quickly, so even if you visit Microwave &
RF, Microwave Journal, Microwave Product Digest, High
Frequency Electronics, et al, regularly, you might have missed something in
the list below.
-
Coexistence of LTE and Radar Systems, by D. McCarthy & S.
Heuel
-Making the Jump to Wide Bandgap
Power, by M. Slovick
-
5G: Is it Ready for Take Off?,
by J. Kimery <more ...>
 "The amount of
electronic waste produced worldwide - the refrigerators, televisions,
computers, smartphones, and other devices thrown out or recycled - increased to
49.3M tons over the last year, up from 46.1M tons in 2014, according to a new report
from the United Nations. But only around a fifth of that digital debris was collected
and the precious metals inside recovered through formal recycling programs, even
though that percentage increased from 15.5% in 2014. The rest falls ..."
Tuesday 26
 Update:
Epic snowstorm hits Erie! More than 60" just since Christmas Eve!
We had 21" of snow here in Erie, PA, on Christmas day! That's a record breaker
even for us. We just got back from visiting the kids in North Carolina and had nearly
30" total to clear in the driveway (not including drifts). It was kind of spooky
watching on the webcam while the snow pile up. Thank goodness for snow blowers.
I normally shovel by hand. but not this time. Going away in the winter in Erie is
not smart.
 Filters has always been one of my favorite
topics. I gained a real appreciation for and understanding of them when drudging
through the mathematics behind the curves in college courses. BTW, for anyone out
there thinking about taking up engineering as a career; i.e., getting an engineering
degree, it is vitally important that you fully comprehend the concept of Laplace
and Fourier transforms because when you get to the point that you need to employ
them in your primary classes, having to struggle with the basic math while learning
to apply it to circuits, mechanics, etc., will almost surely cause you to fail...
Triad has released the
TTRM1190, a wideband GaN BDA that operates from 30 MHz to
2700 MHz and produces over 8 W of TX power. One of the smallest BDAs in
the industry measuring only 3.25 x 2.12 x 0.53 inches, this feature rich BDA is
also one of the most efficient. While producing 8 W of RF power, it only consumes
24 W of DC power. It also produces over 2 W of linear 16 QAM with < 9%
EVM. In order to operate on various existing platforms, the unit features a wide
DC input range of +11 to +28 VDC. Switching between TX and RX at less than
1 μsec can be performed manually...
 "Holographic beamforming (HBF), a communications technique that
is claimed to be superior to MIMO and digital beamforming, is being brought to market
by Pivotal Commware Inc., a company that has secured $17M in a Series A round of
investment. Pivotal Commware was founded in 2016 as a spin off from Intellectual
Ventures Management LLC (Bellevue, Washington) and is an exclusive licensee of IV's
metamaterials technology for use in terrestrial communications markets such ..."
Monday 25
 A linear series-pass voltage regulator is
about as simple a circuit as you can devise that will provide a reasonable degree
of consistency. With as little as a Zener diode, a transistor, and a biasing resistor.
The small parts count does not allow for temperature compensation, variable output
voltage adjustment, overcurrent protection, etc., but for most instances it gets
the job done. The disadvantage of a
linear series-pass voltage regulator is that the larger the difference
between the input and output voltage, the greater the inefficiency. That is because
the total power dissipated by the circuit is the product...
 After seeing this on a news website, I decided
to risk embarrassing myself by taking the Australian Secret Intelligence Service's
(ASIS) online preliminary spy qualification test. To gain entrance to the interviewer's
office, you must first complete a number sequence on the elevator buttons. That
was piece of cake; after all, I am an engineer don't you know! Things got
really interesting from there. I soon began harkening back to the observation skills
exhibited by Jason Borne and other über spies of filmdom. Surely nobody is
that aware and able to remember many details of his surroundings. Evidently,
real-life spies can. Click the thumbnail image above to see how I did...
 "Researchers from North Carolina State University
have found that the transfer of triplet excitons from nanomaterials to molecules
also creates a feedback mechanism that returns some energy to the nanocrystal, causing
it to photoluminesce on long time scales. The mechanism can be adjusted
to control the amount of energy transfer, which could be useful in optoelectronic
applications. Felix N. Castellano had previously shown that semiconductor nanocrystals ..."
Sunday 24
 Along with the standard fare of all tech-related
words and clues, a holiday message to the RF Cafe faithful ;-) is integrated into
this week's crossword puzzle. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Friday 22
Saelig Company has announced the
TekBox TBST120/60/60/2
Shielded Tent which provides an economical RF/EMI-attenuated environment for
a variety of bench-top "EMI quiet" applications. The TBST-120/60/60/2 is a compact
shielded tent, designed to suppress interference from ambient noise during EMC pre-compliance
measurements. With outer dimension of 4' x 2' x 2' it can accommodate pre-compliance
test equipment such as LISNs or TEM...
 This 1935 article found in Short Wave
Craft magazine quotes the
DJC radio station engineer as saying that they transmitted with
only 5 kW into the farm of directional antenna arrays, and that it was sufficient
to provide what was evidently very high quality reception to many remote regions
of the world. Adolph Hitler had become "Führer und Reichskanzler" the year
before, with plans already in the works to dominate the world. Troops invaded Poland
on September 1, 1939, officially beginning WWII. DJC's global reach was used extensively
for propaganda during the war...
 "Each year, the 'residents' of McMurdo Station,
Antarctica, celebrate Christmas by singing and sharing
Christmas Carols via HF - using a non-Amateur Radio frequency
just above 40 meters - for those at remote Antarctic field camps. They'll be doing
it again in 2017, on Saturday, December 23, at 2300 UTC. 'Multiple stations are
involved, each with different equipment,' explained Nathaniel Frissell, W2NAF, an
assistant research professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology who has been
part of the chorus in the past. 'McMurdo Station and ..."
Aethercomm designs and manufactures RF and Microwave
amplifier modules, subsystems and systems. The majority of our work is custom. The
reliability and effectiveness of thousands of Aethercomm products has been tested
and proven in combat, helping to protect and save the lives of our warfighters.
Aethercomm is looking to fill a RF Test Engineer position. Essential Duties
and Responsibilities include the following: Monitor creation and maintain quality
control of test documentation, test reports and documentation organization...
 "A
quantum material that mimics a shark's ability to detect the minute
electric fields of small prey has been shown to perform well in ocean-like conditions,
with potential applications from defense to marine biology. The material maintains
its functional stability and does not corrode after being immersed in saltwater,
a prerequisite for ocean sensing. Surprisingly, it also functions well in the cold,
ambient temperatures typical of seawater, said Shriram Ramanathan ..."
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