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3 of the April 2018
homepage archives.
Tuesday 10
 If you grew up in the era of rooftop television
antennas, then there is a good chance you are familiar with the electromechanical
antenna pointing systems that were often installed as well. Alliance, Channel Master,
Cornell Dubilier, Radio Shack, RCA, Winegard, and others made low cost, light-duty
rotators for television antennas. Ham radio antenna rotators were/are
more robust in order to handle higher weight and wind loads. Many television antennas
also cover the FM radio band (88-108 MHz), allowing them to do double duty.
Being an unapologetic technology renaissance man, I recently purchased (on eBay)
a vintage Alliance Model U-100 Tenna-Rotor that was unused in the original...
 everythingRF recently started covering the DAS
and Wireless Infrastructure categories on their extensive searchable database of
companies. Category examples are
RF signal
tappers, multicouplers,
base station antennas,
tower mount amplifiers,
microwave
backhaul radios, and
repeaters.
Please contact everythingRF for assistance if needed...
 A lot of innovation went into perfecting
telegraph keys. The earliest keys were the familiar "straight
key" tapping type where the operator uses a single finger to close a set of contacts
that "keyed" the transmitter for a burst of RF energy. The length of each "dit"
or "dah" was determined by the operator's dwell time. It didn't take long for someone
to improve on the scheme by designing keys that assured an adjustable, constant
length for a dit or a dah. Poor quality transmitters with lousy rising and falling
edge signatures at the beginning and end, respectively, of a CW pulse made matters
worse. Constant length bursts make it easier for...
 "What is Ethernet and why is it so much better
than current networks? How will it affect network architecture and what will the
impact be on the
automotive industry? Automation and connectivity are driving the
automotive industry forward, and in answer to the growing need for bandwidth, flexibility,
and cost-effectiveness, in-car networks are evolving. Ethernet is emerging as a
preferred choice. So, what is it and do we need it? Will it have an effect on network
architecture..."
 "The global fabless chip market was worth
27% of the world's IC sales in 2017, about $100B, in 2017, according to IC Insights.
The total was up 11 percent from about $90B in 2016. When organized by company headquarters
location it can be seen that US companies accounted for 53% of the market, as they
did in 2017. This figure is down from 69% in 2010, due in part to the acquisition
of Broadcom by Singapore-based Avago. Now..."
Monday 9
 The circuit drawings in this
Series Circuit Quiz are a little hard to read in a few places
because the original page used light red on top of a gray background. The magic
of image processing did a pretty good job of cleaning them up to where you shouldn't
have any trouble reading them. This quiz from Robert Balin appeared in the April
1966 issue of Popular Electronics. It is one of the easier, so don't tell
anyone if you score less than 100% ;-) ...
 SMSgt. John Pensko (ret.) contacted me with his service info as
a USAF radar tech. John served from 1976 through 1997, with duty ranging from line
Technician to Branch Chief and Career Field Manager. Was was exposed to a very wide
assortment of equipment including mobile and fixed ground-based primary radar, IFF
secondary radar, video mappers, UHF and VHF radios. It is one of the most extensive
lists of assignments ever received! John says he will be sending photos - stand
by...
 Rohde & Schwarz has published an app
note titled, "Design for EMI Testing," available as a free download. "Today,
R&D engineers face challenging time-to-market goals. Extending the product development
schedule and delaying the product launch can prove to be extremely costly in terms
of opportunity cost and lost market share. Nearly 50 % of products fail EMC compliance
the first time. Every day spent on debugging, isolating and correcting the EMI problem
increases the time to market. The time lost could have been used to work on another
project or on..."
 NuWaves Engineering, located in Middletown,
Ohio, currently has an opportunity for an
RF Engineering Technician. This position is part of the product
development team and supports testing and documentation processes in the design
of new products, such as, RF power amplifiers, upconverters, downconverters, RF
filters, and low noise amplifiers. Individuals in this position take direction from
engineers, project managers, senior-level technicians to test, characterize, and
troubleshoot electronic circuits and systems...
 At Axiom Test Equipment we provide high-quality services and affordable
solutions such as test equipment rental, test equipment sales, and test equipment
repair. These examples of test equipment specials are a very small sample of our
extensive stock available for rental or for purchase. Axiom Test Equipment can also
perform repair and calibration of your gear. Contact us today with your needs...
 "Four agencies looking to band together to
create a combined
radar system want more information from commercial spectrum users
and the public on their plan for the project. Just over a year ago, the Federal
Aviation Administration, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security
and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration unveiled an idea to combine
surveillance, air safety and weather radar applications into a single, spectrum-conserving
'system of systems..."
Sunday 8
 Each week, for the sake of all avid cruciverbalists
amongst us, I create a new
technology-themed crossword puzzle using only words from my custom-created
lexicon related to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy,
etc. Words for clues having an asterisk (*) after them are part of this week's Easter
theme. You will never find among the words names of politicians, mountain ranges,
exotic foods or plants, movie stars, or anything of the sort. You might, however,
see someone or something in the exclusion list who or that is directly related to
this puzzle's theme...
Friday 6
  There are lots of funny T-shirts around, but
you don't often find ones with an
electronics theme. Here are a couple. "Electronics Technician: 1. A person who solves
problems you can't, 2. One who does precision
guesswork based on unreliable data provided by those
of questionable knowledge." Also, "I only give negative feedback." And, although not entirely proper
(should be "Electronics") "Happiness Is Being an Electronic Engineer."
 "As newer satellite ventures are getting
underway, an old standby -
Iridium Communications - just celebrated the successful launch
of the fifth set of 10 Iridium Next satellites into orbit. The launch on Friday
was conducted by SpaceX, which just a day before received FCC approval for its own
satellite system, albeit one that uses far more satellites - 4,425 to be precise.
SpaceX designed its system with the primary purpose of providing broadband service
directly to end users, particularly individual households and small businesses.
That's not the same base that..."
 You just never know what names you will find
in vintage electronics magazines. Incredibly - assuming of course that this is who
 it likely is - I ran across
Steve Wozniak (aka "Woz"), later to be co-founder of Apple Computer,
in this November 1966 issue of Popular Electronics. "Woz" first met Steve
Jobs five years later in 1971 while working at Hewlett Packard. If this is "Woz,"
he, having been born in 1950, would have been a 16 year-old high schooler when his
entry was published. The article does not specify who is responsible for which quote.
Woz was a Ham radio..."
 Copper Mountain Technologies launches their
new FET1854 extenders with frequency range from 18 to 54 GHz. This
product is an addition to the existing CobaltFx mmWave frequency extension system
already used by many telecommunications and consumer electronics companies. With
the launch of the new FET1854 extenders, the CobaltFx system will allow engineers
to build a scalable and affordable 5G testing solution. Anchored by a 2- or 4-port
9 or 20 GHz USB vector network analyzer, CobaltFx includes extenders...
 Facebook,
LinkedIn, Twitter, Yahoo, credit car companies, retailers, maybe even your personal
bank account, power grids, corporate databases, government offices, are all vulnerable
to massive hacking. We read about it daily. This free whitepaper titled, "2108 Security Predictions"
gives a little insider view of just how bad things really are...
 "An exuberant Jensen Huang, who gave a keynote
and popped up on stage during various events at Nvidia's 2018 GPU Technology Conference
(GTC) held in San Jose, California last week, repeatedly made the point that due
to extreme advances in technology, graphics processing units (GPUs) are governed
by a law of their own. 'There's a new law going on,' he says, 'a supercharged law.'
Huang, who is CEO of Nvidia, didn't call it Huang's Law; I'm guessing he'll leave
that to others. After all, Gordon Moore wasn't the one who gave Moore's Law its..."
Thursday 5
 "If whatever signal remains has reached anyone,
it clearly hasn't inspired a reply." - Jill Tarter, SETI, regarding, 'We joke that
the first message extraterrestrials will pick up is I Love Lucy; it was among the
first big broadcasts. But Lucy's light-speed antics are pretty garbled by now."
Spring 2018 issue of
Popular Science magazine...
NuWaves Engineering, located in Middletown,
Ohio, currently has an opportunity for an
RF Design Engineer. This position presents the opportunity to
apply expertise in RF engineering to support NuWaves' primarily DoD projects, ultimately
supporting the U.S. military. Opportunities exist within the Engineering Services
and Product Solutions domains across the company to increase knowledge, grow leadership
skills, and continuously improve the business system. Please contact us today if
you qualify...
 In July 1966, Popular Electronics
magazine invited its readers to submit examples of ridiculous statements made by
people supposedly "in-the-know" about electronics and/or technical subjects. Space
was allotted to it in four later issues, all of which I will eventually post. This
initial request included a couple of the editor's favorite lines. Some of them seem
to be more like the speaker punking another person rather than not really knowing
any better. See if you agree...
 Copper Mountain Technologies develops
innovative and robust RF test and measurement solutions for
 engineers all over the world. Copper Mountain's
extensive line of unique form factor
Vector Network Analyzers
include an RF measurement module and a software application which runs on any Windows
PC, laptop or tablet...
 Axiom test Equipment's Newest Blog is titled
"Taking Proper Measure to Ensure Safer Products." The blog addresses
electrical safety testing, specifically how basic EST functions such as AC high-potential
(hipot) testing, DC hipot testing, and insulation resistance (IR) measurements can
help to identify and eliminate manufacturing problems before they become too widespread
in production or even become part of shipped products. Performing EST as part of
manufacturing production can provide a great deal of insight into...
 "Physicists have identified a
new state of matter whose structural order operates by rules more
aligned with quantum mechanics than standard thermodynamic theory. In a classical
material called artificial spin ice, which in certain phases appears disordered,
the material is actually ordered, but in a 'topological' form. 'Our research shows
for the first time that classical systems such as artificial spin ice can be designed
to demonstrate topological ordered phases, which previously have been found only
in quantum..."
Wednesday 4
 "Heisenberg's uncertainty principle posits that there is a fundamental
limit to the precision with which so-called complementary variables, such as position
and momentum, can be measured. That is, the more accurately the speed and direction
(and thus the momentum) of a quantum particle are known, the less certain we can
be about its position. Remarkably, this intrinsic limitation can be relaxed when
measurements extract periodic functions of position and momentum with a characteristic
length and momentum scale..."
 The manned space program has unarguably provided
mankind with many new and innovative tools, medicines, electronics, materials, physics,
materials, appliances, and mathematics. Known officially as "spinoffs," products
include items like the portable heart defibrillator unit, the portable vacuum cleaner,
freeze-drying food processors, powdered lubricants, memory foam, quartz clocks and
battery-powered tools. Many
NASA inventions have not found an application in your basement
or garage, however, because their purpose is too specialized. Take, for instance,
the ZeRT, or Zero Reaction Tool...
 "Technique could prevent overheating of laptops,
mobile phones, and other electronics. Plastics are excellent insulators, meaning
they can efficiently trap heat - a quality that can be an advantage in something
like a coffee cup sleeve. But this insulating property is less desirable in products
such as plastic casings for laptops and mobile phones, which can overheat,
in part because the coverings trap the heat that the devices produce. Now a team
of engineers at MIT has developed a polymer thermal conductor - a plastic material
that, however counterintuitive, works..."
 Robert Balin created scores of
electronics-related quizzes for Popular Electronics magazine.
Having appeared in the December 1965 issue, some of the subjects are a bit dated,
but hey, this is an electronics history quiz. I got 80% - yeah, sort of pathetic,
but I don't recall ever hearing of Heising and I couldn't figure out what item "A"
was (hint: it's a TV iconoscope...
 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 three new filter
designs: a 120.5 MHz bandpass filter with N type connectors, a 36 MHz
crystal notch filter with SMA connectors, and a 1-200 MHz 3-way power divider
with SMA connectors. Contact Anatech today...
 "How much data customers are using and how
customers are paying for that
data are perennial questions in the wireless industry. Thanks
to a partnership between FierceWireless and Strategy Analytics, we hope to shed
some light on the situation. The data below, from Strategy Analytics' AppOptix service,
show how often Android wireless users stray from cellular networks and onto Wi-Fi
networks - and how that differs among customers of Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and
Sprint. But perhaps more interestingly, Strategy..."
Tuesday 3
 "Russian ships are skulking around
underwater communications cables, causing the U.S. and its allies
to worry the Kremlin might be taking information warfare to new depths. Is Moscow
interested in cutting or tapping the cables? Does it want the West to worry it might?
Is there a more innocent explanation? Unsurprisingly, Russia isn't saying. But whatever
Moscow's intentions, U.S. and Western officials are increasingly troubled by their
rival's interest in the 400 fiber-optic cables that carry most of world's calls,
emails and texts, as well as $10 trillion worth of daily..."
 Here is a timeless subject for anyone routinely
subject to exposed high voltages. Most RF Cafe visitors already know that technically,
it is the amount of electric current through the body that determines severity of
electric shock, not the voltage. However, we also know that voltage
does play a role because a certain voltage, per Ohm's law, is needed to induce a
commensurate current. The body's resistance is determined primarily by perspiration
(salt and water) and the path between contact points (e.g., across adjacent skin
areas or hand-to-hand via the heart). MIL-STD-883 and JEDEC* have decided that the
proper Human Body Model (HBM) for testing semiconductor...
 RF/Microwave Training Webinar Series Title:
RF and Microwave Filters. Date: April 11, 2018. Time: 11am ET.
Sponsored by: National Instruments. Presented by: Dr. Bob Froelich. Description:
This webinar introduces the student to core filter concepts, parameters, and topologies.
Lowpass filters with lumped elements using filter tables, transformation to bandpass,
the importance of Q, impedance inverter concept, coupled-resonator filters, and
more. This is a perfect compliment to my newly published page on
filter
denormalization...
 "The FCC has proposed to promote more flexible
and intensive use of the
4.9 GHz band, a segment of spectrum that is currently designated
for public safety communications. They are now asking for proposals, technical in
nature, to encourage greater use of and investment in this public safety band, drawing
on input from the public safety community and other potential users. The Commission's
goal is to promote increased public safety use of the band and protect users from
harmful interference while opening the spectrum to additional uses that will encourage
a more robust market for equipment and greater..."
Monday 2
 This entire page has been reworked to make
the denormalization
of prototype lowpass filter component values much easier to understand. I have received
numerous questions about the process over the years, particularly regarding the
swapping of capacitor and inductor values for highpass transformations. Bandpass
and bandstop transformations can be equally confusing. The original page pretty
much regurgitated the kind of presentation made by many textbooks, but this new
format should make amply clear the transformation from normalized lowpass component
values...
 Many RF Cafe visitors are new and experienced
entrepreneurs competing with the big boys for a piece of the pie. Big corporations
have professional sale and marketing people on staff or retainer who write these
kinds of books.  RevResponse is offering these two free e-book
titled, "The
7 Things You Need to Know for Effective Sales Forecasting," and "The Sales Forecasting
Acceleration Guide." Maybe one of one of these e-books will help even the playing
field for you. They are both free for downloading...
 If you have never seen an old-fashioned television
tuner - particularly a color TV tuner - you have missed a truly impressive bit of
electromechanical ingenuity. I include it here for you to marvel over, not because
you are likely to need the information (although some RF Cafe visitors still use
and/or service such things). Unlike a simple parallel plate capacitor tuner used
by many radios, the TV tuner contains inductors, capacitors, resistors, tubes (or
transistors), and many switch contacts (which provide ample opportunity for intermittent
or no electrical contact when they inevitably get dirty). If a radio is a multi-band
job, it nearly always has a separate switch or switch bank to select a particular
band. The band...
 The 19th annual
IEEE Wireless and Microwave Technology Conference (WAMICON 2018) will be held in Clearwater,
Florida on April 9th and 10th, 2018. The conference will address up-to-date multidisciplinary
research needs and interdisciplinary aspects of wireless and RF technology. The
central theme of WAMICON2018 will be "mm-Waves and Internet of Things (IoT) for
Commercial and Defense." We welcome submissions on all aspects of mm-wave and IoT
related technologies including antennas, passive and active circuits, communication
theory, and system concepts...
 RF Superstore launched in 2017, marking the
return of Murray Pasternack, founder of Pasternack Enterprises, to the RF and microwave
Industry. Pasternack fundamentally changed the way RF components were sold. Partner
Jason Wright manages day-to-day operations, while working closely with Mr. Pasternack
to develop RF Superstore into a world class RF and
microwave
component supplier. We're leading the way again!...
 "Researchers at Fraunhofer IPMS have created
a wireless,
battery-free RFID sensor that can monitor the temperature and
deformations on metallic rotating parts such as shafts or spindles. Prudent operators
of highly automated production facilities keep a close eye on the condition of their
equipment and machinery. Early identification of faulty processes or premature wear
on tools can prevent damage to machines and production losses as well as optimize
operational procedures. Integrating sensors on tool shafts or spindles is not very
easy. It takes great effort to integrate cables or batteries..."
Sunday 1
 Each week, for the sake of all avid cruciverbalists
amongst us, I create a new
technology-themed crossword puzzle using only words from my custom-created
lexicon related to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy,
etc. Words for clues having an asterisk (*) after them are part of this week's Easter
theme. You will never find among the words names of politicians, mountain ranges,
exotic foods or plants, movie stars, or anything of the sort. You might, however,
see someone or something in the exclusion list who or that is directly related to
this puzzle's theme...
 Watch the ground track of the
Tiangong-1 satellite, due for a fiery plunge to Earth Sunday afternoon,
on this real-time map. The thumbnail is a screen capture of it passing almost directly
overhead here in Erie, Pennsylvania this morning. It looks like we're out of danger
for now. Check on your own degree of peril. It's amazing to watch how quickly the
bird moves
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