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Monday 19
 Here is another one of those advertisements
that you would probably never see in today's
electronics magazines, but its theme was fairly prevalent up through
about the 1970s. There is fundamentally nothing offensive about it; men have always
endeavored to gain the favor of women. However, society has since been bullied by
name-calling, finger-pointing, full-of-themselves celebrities and media into being
afraid to acknowledge innate, harmless propensities of everyday people. The natural
has been
 This e-book probably applies to most RF Cafe
visitors. "Electrical and Electronics Engineers - Occupational Outlook" is
available as a free download. "Considering a career as an electrical and electronics
engineer? These professionals design, develop, test and supervise the manufacturing
of electrical equipment, including motors, communication systems and power generation
equipment. This guide provides all the necessary information and resources to get
started. Find out everything you "
 Long-time EDN columnist
Martin Rowe just published a short piece about the issue of storing
archival data. His example included family photos and movies as well as data files
from vintage software. Mr. Rowe points out that most programs only open files
from a couple generations back, so unless you are diligent about re-saving files
in newer versions as they are released, you could find yourself having to keep or
re-acquire (try eBay) older versions if you want to access your information. Go
back into the 1990s and you'll need an OS that can run 16-bit software
 At IMS 2017, everything RF has introduced
the most powerful
website builder tool for product driven engineering companies.
You no longer need to go to a developer or agency and spend large amounts of money
to get your website developed. BuildBot.io starts at only $100 / month and enables
you to build a powerful website where you can add your complete product catalog,
press releases / news stories, events, distributors, application notes and white
papers and much more. Lead generation is also built in to the platform, allowing
you
 'All-wave' radios were all the rage in the
1930s. Such technological marvels (they truly were back in the day) gave listeners
access to not just local commercial broadcasts, but to radio stations around the
world. Farm families and suburb dwellers suddenly became nouveau cosmopolitans.
It was akin to how the Internet, aka the 'Information Superhighway,' provided on-demand
access to stored data in the 1990s. 'Onramps' like RF Cafe provided organized, classified
venues for the teeming masses. But, I digress... Not only were new radios being
designed as all-wave, but tuning
 "In the semiconductor industry, there is
currently one main strategy for improving the speed and efficiency of devices: scale
down the device dimensions in order to fit more transistors onto a computer chip,
in accordance with
Moore's law. However, the number of transistors on a computer
chip cannot exponentially increase forever, and this is motivating researchers to
look for other ways to improve semiconductor technologies. In a new study published
in Nanotechnology, a team of researchers at SUNY-Polytechnic "
Sunday 18
 This week's tech-themed
crossword puzzle, as is the case every week, contains only words
pertaining to engineering, amateur radio, science, physics, mechanics, mathematics,
etc. If you want to exploit your knowledge of movie star names, obscure towns in
obscure countries, movies, literature, television shows, or clothing designers,
then you will need to find yourself an edition of the NY Times or
the Boston Herald
Friday 16
 There's not a much better way to wrap up a
work week than to read through a short
technohumor (I just made up that word)
novel by Carl Kohler or John T. Frye. Reading a few technocomics
(another made-up word) by various illustrators is
a great resource, too. This story, which appeared in a 1970 issue of Popular
Electronics, is another episode in the life of technotinkerer
(a "Maker" in today's lingo) Kohler
(who also drew a lot of the technocomics) and his
skeptical helpmeet (for good reason) 'Friend-Wife,'
as he unveils his repurposed homebuilt UNIversity computer
 "Huawei has successfully completed testing
the second-phase of
5G radio technology in China. During the C-Band test in the Huairou
District of Beijing, Huawei adopted 5G New Radio (5G NR), Massive MIMO and other
technologies using the entire available 200 MHz bandwidth to achieve over 6 Gbps
of single-user downlink throughput and over 18 Gbps of cell peak rate. The world's
first Huawei 5G test terminal, utilized for radio technology verification, enabled
more than 100 channels of on demand 4K UHD video from a single 5G base "
 Queen's University Belfast researchers have
discovered a way to create and move extremely thin
electrically conducting sheets inside a solid, possibly leading
to movable ephemeral transistors. The material concerned is the 'improper' ferroelectric
Cu-Cl boracite Cu3B7O13Cl. Within this material, even a single crystal of this material,
multiple electrostatic domains - regions in which electric charges are aligned -
can be created. The boundaries between these domains - the domain walls, which are
2D sheets a few
 For more than a decade, RF Cascade Workbook
2005™ has been the de facto standard for spreadsheet-based RF system cascade
analysis.
Wireless System Designer™ is the next phase in the evolution.
If you know how to use Excel and you know anything about cascaded system
calculations, then you know how to use Wireless System Designer™. This
is significantly easier and faster than using the multi-thousand dollar simulators
when a quick system analysis is all that is needed. An intro video takes you through
the main features
 "Germanium is beginning to replace gallium
arsenide (GaAs) for fast
radio frequency transistors that are less expensive and also compatible
with silicon and CMOS. At the 2017 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits in Japan
earlier this month, European research institute Imec presented a pair of papers
showing gate-all-around (GAA) transistors that outperform standard CMOS below the
10-nm node plus have source/drain contacts with billionth-of-an-ohm resistance.
The super fast sub-10-nm SiGe GAA transistors used strained Ge "
Thursday 15
 'DXing' is amateur radio shorthand for
long distance communications. While there is no formal exact distance beyond which
an operator has officially made a 'long distance' contact, a generally accepted
range is maybe 50 miles or so. To some extent,
DX is relative to the equipment and power being used. For instance
if you have a maximum legal transmitter output power of 1500 watts and an optimally
sited, mounted and tuned, high gain antenna, with low loss transmission cable, and
super sensitive receiver, etc., and make a successful contact 100 miles away, no
one would
 "The Army is 'taking a hard look' at its
flagship tactical communications network after receiving more negative reviews from
the field, said Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley. He listed several issues plaguing
the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, known as
WIN-T: it is too complex to operate in combat conditions, it is
not as transportable as it needs to be, and it is not completely secure from cyber
intrusions. This is clearly bad news for the Army, as deployed soldiers depend on
WIN-T for voice and data communications around the world "
 Withwave's
Vertical Launch
Connectors are specially designed for solderless vertical PCB launch on test &
measurement board. These connectors have excellent electrical transition performance
up to 50 GHz as well as reduce installation time by eliminating soldering.
DC to 50 GHz, 2.4 mm type (female, male), excellent
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installation on designed substrate
 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 help yourself
 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!
 "Europe's
Galileo SatNav system has received a boost with the addition of
two new satellites to its existing network. The total number of satellites in the
Galileo Network is now 16 (including these two). These two satellites are part of
the the four Galileos that were launched by Ariane 5 on 17 November. The new satellites
will now accordingly broadcast timings and navigate signals worldwide while also
picking up distress calls across the planet. The growing number of Galileo users
around the world will draw immediate benefit from the "
Wednesday 14
 As mentioned often here on RF Cafe,
especially with an ever-increasing amount of devices and appliances with "no user
serviceable parts inside," the demand for electronics technicians is as great today
as it was decades ago. Associated equipment is significantly different now and a
lot more of it consists of swap-out modules and assemblies rather than performing
repairs in the field. However, there still exists a significant amount of
legacy electronics everywhere, and it all needs to be maintained
until upgrades are installed. There
 "NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate
(STMD) has awarded rides for three small spacecraft on the agency's newest rocket,
and $20,000 each in prize money, to the winning teams of citizen solvers competing
in the semi-final round of the agency's
Cube Quest Challenge. The three winning teams secured space to
launch their CubeSats on Exploration Mission-1, the first integrated flight of NASA's
Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft. Once deployed, the CubeSats will
vie for a share of a $5 million prize in the first-ever competition in deep "
 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.
Anatech has introduced 3 new products for your convenience: a 6000 MHz stripline
bandpass filter with SMA connectors, a 105-115 MHz
user-tunable VHF filter with TNC connectors, and a WiFi cavity
bandpass filter SMA connectors
 Friends, former employees, and fellow lovers
of all things electronic, we are gathered here today to remember and honor our lifelong
friend and enabler of our hobby and passion,
Radio Shack - once a Tandy company, as we are familiar with it.
Radio Shack has lingered in failing health for a decade, all the time keeping a
brave face on its dwindling number of stores. Caretakers attempted a variety of
infusions and transplants in an attempt to save the American stalwart electronics
retailer. Alas, a confluence of poor management
 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. Whitepaper topics include careers, manufacturing,
and engineering, while magazine titles include Microwaves & RF,
Military & Aerospace Electronics, and Microwave Product Digest
 "Researchers based in Belgium and Finland
have used silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates to improve the
electrical isolation of p-type gallium nitride (p-GaN) high-electron-mobility
transistors (HEMTs). The team, from imec and KU Leuven in Belgium and Okmetic Oy
in Finland, sees electrical isolation as being vital for monolithic power circuits
such as half-bridge layouts with transistors biased at significantly different levels.
Such isolation is difficult when devices are placed on a common conductive substrate "
Tuesday 13
 If you have of know a young'un who is trying
to decide on a career path, you might want to download this
STEM 101 - Intro to Tomorrow's Jobs e-book - for free via
your Facebook or LinkedIn account. "Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)
jobs are the way of the future. These fields employ the world's top innovators to
solve the problems of today for a better tomorrow. If you want to pursue a career
in STEM, look no further. This Career Outlook will show you the wages, employment
opportunities "
 What were some of the top issues of the radio
and television industry 50 years ago? In a lot of respects, the same things that
concern it today. A ready supply of
service technicians was a concern that was taken seriously by
the Electronics Industry Association (EIA). While there are not many local repair
shops for electronics products nowadays, there is still a huge demand to techs who
are willing and able to do the hard work of keeping the world's communication infrastructure
operational - climbing towers, repairing cell equipment (BTS units, network computer
racks, landlines, etc.). Now, as then, good pay
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
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applications. It is capable of supporting any signal type and modulation format,
including but not limited to 3-4G telecom, WLAN, OFDM, DVB, and CW/AM/FM. The latest
device technologies and design methods are employed
 ConductRF is continually innovating and developing
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Quasiparticles Could Lead to Faster
Circuits, Higher Bandwidths
 "Zhe Fei pointed to the bright and dark vertical
lines running across his computer screen. This nano-image, he explained, shows the
waves associated with a half-light, half-matter
quasiparticle moving inside a semiconductor. 'These are waves
just like water waves,' said Fei, an Iowa State University assistant professor of
physics and astronomy and an associate of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory.
'It's like dropping a rock on the surface of water and seeing waves "
Monday 12
 The 2017 Electromagnetic Spectrum Summit,
June 20-21, in Alexandria, Virginia, will focus on emerging concepts, technologies
and challenges that exist within the ever-growing domain of
electromagnetic spectrum operations.
As EW warfighting continues to evolve in complexity, it is clear that EW systems
must work collaboratively across multi-domains. Management and manipulation of the
EMS by the DoD allows our nation to gain
 This nomogram (aka nomograph) provides a
'simple' method for determining the
coupling coefficient (ke) of air core transformers
for RF circuits where the operational wavelength is much longer than the physical
length of the transformer. Modern circuit simulators can calculate such quantities
at the blink of an eye, but in 1969 there was no simple method for doing it. In
fact, a lot of design work back in the day was done using nomograms because given
all the impreciseness of circuit layout and component tolerances, there were enough
tunable elements provided
The Electronic Design Innovation Conference and Exhibition (EDI CON) USA, the
first industry event to bring together RF/microwave and high-speed digital design
engineers and system integrators, announced today the addition of the
European Radar Summit to its conference program at the Hynes Convention
Center, September 11-13 in Boston, Mass. EDI CON USA 2017 is building on its inaugural
2016 conference with multiple parallel tracks covering RF/microwave, high-speed
digital and EMC/EMI topics. The conference features extended tutorials and short
courses on
Cheaper, Easier Resistance Standard
Ohm on a Chip
 "Researchers at the U.S. National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Carnegie Mellon Univ. in Pittsburgh, Pa., have
deposited a graphene film on silicon carbide to produce a
quantized ohm-on-a-chip. The advance, several years in the making,
promises a practical device for measuring electrical-resistance that is easier and
less expensive to make, and less demanding to operate, than the current generation
of standards fabricated from GaAs and AlGaAs. Both the graphene and the GaAs/AlGaAs
standards depend on "
 A team of researchers at the Israel Institute
of Technology has developed a new capacitor with a metal-insulator-semiconductor
(MIS) diode structure that istunable by illumination. The capacitor, which features embedded
metal nanoparticles, is similar to a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) diode, except that
the capacitance of the new device depends on illumination and exhibits a strong
frequency dispersion, allowing for a high degree of tunability. This new capacitor
has the potential to enhance wireless capability
Sunday 11
 This week's crossword puzzle has a wireless
technology theme with words which are terms you will find in news stories and text
books. Avid cruciverbalists amongst us appreciate that 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. Enjoy
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