Friday 10
  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! Be sure to check out
the whitepapers on antenna testing topics.
 RF Cafe visitor Cris Schulze saw the Design News
article I linked to titled, "EMI Emissions
Testing: Peak, Quasi-Peak, and Average Measurements," and has given permission to
reprint his brief response to it (originally posted on LinkedIn). The included notebook
image includes an excerpt from Wikipedia's quasi-peak detector page, and he illustrates
a block diagram of the test chain with de Forest's audion circuit that provides
the fast rise-time and slow fall-time that characterizes it. A table of actual test data
compares quasi-peak measurements to average measurements ...
 Hughes Aerospace Division (now part of Boeing
Satellite Development Center) built the
Syncom satellites for NASA in the early 1960s, at the dawn of the space communications
era. Syncom is short for Synchronous communications,
so named because it was the first operational satellite placed in a geosynchronous orbit.
It was a big deal because its stationary positioning meant that not only was it constantly
in view of earth-based communications stations, but earth-based antennas did not need
to have expensive, sophisticated tracking systems to access the satellite. Once the Gold
Rush had panned out (pun intended) in California, the booming aerospace industry was
one of the largest attractions for the state. Hughes' advertisement in this 1965 issue
of Electronics magazine targets circuit designers who were thinking of "high"
in terms of getting a satellite high into outer space in geosynchronous ...
  Since 1961, MECA Electronics manufactures an extensive
line of RF &
microwave components for in-building, satellite, radar, radio, telemetry, mobile
radio, aviation & ATC. Attenuators, directional & hybrid couplers, isolators &
circulators, power dividers & combiners, loads, DC blocks, bias-Ts and adapters &
cables. MECA has long been the 'backbone' of high performance wired and air-interfaced
networks. Please visit MECA today to learn how they can help with your projects ...
With more than 780 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
...
 "The US should begin planning a next generation
electron-ion collider (EIC) to study the structure of protons and
neutrons in unprecedented detail. That is according to a 15-strong committee of the National
Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Its 115-page report, commissioned by
the US Department of Energy (DOE), says that an EIC with high energy and luminosity as
well as highly-polarized electron and ion beams 'would be unique to greatly further our
understanding of visible matter.' The science that can be addressed by an EIC is compelling,
fundamental ..."
Thursday 9
 "AI has the potential to take much of the dull
complexity out of designing
custom circuit boards. While anyone can learn how to design a circuit
board, it takes a skilled engineer to design a circuit board that is both well optimized
and unlikely to melt, explode, or cause whatever it's controlling to melt or explode.
Skilled engineers tend to be busy and expensive and on the ornery side, especially if
you ask them to do things that don't take full advantage of how brilliant they are. JITX
is a startup founded by a team of electrical and mechanical engineers from UC Berkeley
that's building AI with the goal of designing optimized circuit boards in hours instead
of weeks ..."
 Establishing a
good ground connection is more important than ever with all the vulnerable electronics
devices connected to house wiring for the Internet of Things (IoT). The old saying of
"Ground is ground the world around" is only true if you actually have a good path to
that ground potential. This article discusses methods for determining whether or not
you have a low resistance ground interface, and how to establish one if needed. However,
that is only the below-grade part of the equation [ground rod(s) and possibly conduction-enhancing
chemicals]. Installing a low resistance and equally important low inductance path above
grade to the below grade component(s) is essential for maximum protection. Lightning
is a transient phenomenon, so the di/dt part of the v(t) = L * di/dt equation governing
voltage across an inductor ...
  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. RF coaxial connectors & adapters, coaxial cable & cable
assemblies, surge protectors, attenuators. Items added daily. Free shipping on orders
over $99. We're leading the way again!
 Factory automation has long been a point of contention
between labor groups interested in retaining manual labor jobs and management groups
interested in increasing production output rates and lowering operational costs. That
beer bottle inspection job once performed by Laverne & Shirley at the Shotz Brewing
Company is today handled by computer-controlled, networked robots. Ever-advancing technology
has significantly enhanced the ability to
monitor and control processes that help reduce scrap, remove workers from dangerous
environments, and create higher quality goods. YouTube is full of videos showing factory
automation for all sorts of tasks from forming springs to machining intricate surfaces
to performing final inspection measurements on electronic, mechanical, and pharmaceutical
products. In the last decade the Internet of Things (IoT) philosophy ...
 Orwill Hawkins, of
LadyBug Technologies,
has a useful article in High Frequency Electronics (HFE) magazine titled, "USB Power Sensors for Statistical Pulse Measurements." It say in
part, "Statistical pulse measurement capability is just one of the many features these
new sensors can deliver to the engineer at a modest cost. This article will discuss the
benefits and explain the methodology used to make statistical pulse measurements in two
state pulse waveforms. Its purpose is to explain to the user the methodology in making
the measurements so that the user can make better measurements with confidence." A chart
of term definitions is given, some of which will make you think you are sitting in a
dentist's chair (you'll see what I mean) ...
 "Nanowire networks produce all-optical logic gates. All-optical computing promises to replace sluggish
electrons with photons zipping along at light speed in digital logic. But despite years
of effort and some progress in related areas such as plasmonics, such computing has remained
largely just a promise. All-optical computing still needs some tools to make it into
a reality. One key component of this toolbox will likely be all-optical logic gates,
and researchers at Aalto University in Finland announced they have been able to fabricate
such gates from nanowires ..."
Wednesday 8
 John Gill published many
electronics-themed crossword puzzles in Electronics World magazine in the
1950s and 1960s. Unlike the weekly RF Cafe engineering crossword puzzles, some of the
words used herein are not directly related to science, engineering, mathematics, etc.
You will find the level of difficulty much less than that of a Sunday edition New
York Times crossword, but there are some challenging clues, particularly given the
era that it was created. Bon chance ...
With expertise in PCB assembly, Asian Circuits has grown to become a one-stop
electronic contract manufacturer for complete PCB assembly services.
Corporate headquarters in Sacramento, CA, and manufacturing facilities in Shenzhen, China,
provides the most affordable prices for the procurement of high-quality electronic components
from local suppliers, and the manufacturing of Printed Circuit Boards through highly
efficient production processes. All its processes and operations are in accordance with
ISO9001 standards and in compliance with the IPC-A-600 and IPC-A-610 Acceptability of
Printed Boards Standards. A highly skilled workforce in PCB manufacturing and
circuit
card assembly has assured our continued growth and overall success
...
 John Dunn has a useful article on EDN
titled "Making
Impedance Measurements in SPICE." The collection of test instruments in the Multisim
SPICE  version that I've been using
does not include an impedance measurement tool. However, one can make such a tool using
the Bode analyzer, an AC current source, and a current probe. Three impedance measurement
examples are seen in the following sketch. This works by using the IN port of the Bode
analyzer to monitor the input current to the test subject while the OUT port monitors
the resultant voltage. The analyzer delivers a display of the ratio of OUT divided by
IN which is the test subject's impedance ..."
 Tunnel diodes came onto the commercial, military,
and aerospace scene in the late 1950s. Exploiting the phenomenon of quantum-mechanical
tunneling, the device exhibits a negative resistance region which makes it suitable for
amplifier and oscillator applications. It also permits operation into the tens of gigahertz
realm, which was new ground at the time. X-band and above was the exclusive realm of
laboratory-based experiments using klystrons and exotic chemical oscillators (pseudo-maser
- microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). Tunnel diodes quickly
became a part of miniaturized radar units, battery-powered communications systems, undercover
(spy) operations, and many other applications ...
 Advanced Test Equipment Rentals (ATEC) today
announced this year's San Diego Test Equipment Symposium (SDTES), the annual test and measurement
showcase held in California, will take place on Tuesday, October 16th. Following last
year's success, SDTES 2018 is expected to have more attendees, exhibitors and presenters
than ever. Guests can expect manufacturer product demos, presentations on today's hot
industry topics, networking opportunities, and more. The San Diego Test Equipment Symposium
is a yearly event in which leading test and measurement equipment manufacturers exhibit
their latest technologies. Industry experts in the fields of EMC, communications, electrical,
power, and a variety ...
 "A UCF physicist has discovered a new material
that has the potential to become a building block in the new era of
quantum materials, those that are composed of microscopically condensed
matter and expected to change our development of technology. Researchers are entering
the Quantum Age, and instead of using silicon to advance technology they are finding
new quantum materials, conductors that have the ability to use and store energy at the
subatomic level. Assistant Professor Madhab Neupane has spent his career learning about
the quantum realm ..."
Tuesday 7
 Electrical noise problems in automotive environments
is almost never a problem now that most forms of communications therein are fundamentally
immune to ignition and even computer interference. We relics who still listen to AM radio
still sometimes suffer noise from lightning static, extreme arcing from electric service
connections, and, yes, even from
ignition sources. In fact, occasionally while listening to AM radio in my 2011 Jeep
Patriot I will detect a whine that is proportional to engine speed. It is not annoying
enough to warrant going to the trouble of chasing down and mitigating the source; I can
live with it. This 1966 Popular Electronics article presents a very thorough
treatise on ignition noise causes and cures. The techniques are still applicable to modern
vehicles ...
 "EU-funded researchers have developed a
smart wireless technology that efficiently manages radio-frequency
spectrum resources and avoids transmission bottlenecks. The new system, which also prevents
selfish attacks by secondary users, could be used in military and commercial wireless
applications. The growing popularity of wireless networks has highlighted the need to
increase network capacity and efficiency. Cognitive radio-based networks have attracted
increased attention and have been studied in depth to overcome the problem of spectrum
scarcity in next-generation wireless communication systems ..."
 Reactel
has become one of the industry leaders in the design and manufacture of
RF and microwave filters, diplexers,
and sub-assemblies. Through a continuous process of research and development, they have
established a full line of filters of all types - lowpass, highpass, bandpass, bandstop,
diplexer, and more. They offer the generally known tubular, LC, cavity, and waveguide
designs, as well as state of the art high performance suspended substrate models. Established
in 1979. Please contact Reactel today to see how they might help your project ...
 Anatech Electronics, Inc. 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 174 MHz surface mount ceramic bandpass filter, a surface mount
35.0 MHz IF SAW filter, and a 113 MHz bandstop / notch filter with N connectors.
Custom RF filters designs are used when a standard cannot be found, or the requirements
are such that a custom approach is necessary ...
 Thanks to the hard work of Dan S., a longtime
friend and former project manager to whom I reported, my Smith Chart™ for Excel™ spreadsheet
is now available for Apple products users.
Smith Chart™ for Numbers™ will run on iPhones, iPads, and Mac computer in their native
OS without needing a Windows emulator. The download is free. Rumor has it that Dan is
also working on porting my
RF Cafe Calculator Workbook™ to Numbers as well. Stay tuned ...
 "Researchers have developed a small silicon-based
device that can turn waste heat dissipated by electronics into a power source.
Converting heat that dissipates from electronic devices into usable
power is a Holy Grail of sorts for energy-harvesting designers. After all, it would allow
these devices - even electric cars - to be their own sources of power. Now, researchers
at the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Sandia National Laboratories appear to be closer
to reaching this goal with the development of a tiny silicon-based device that can turn
so-called waste heat into DC power ..."
Monday 6
 "Anyone who has ever taken an Uber ride knows
it's convenient and very popular so one man in St. Joseph County has found a way to make
ride sharing more scenic. Timothy Hochstedler calls it
Amish Uber. He is adding some horsepower to ride sharing. The newest
taxi service in Colon has four wheels, four legs and good gas mileage. Inside his horse
and buggy, people share a ride and Hochstedler gets to share some stories. Everyone's
happy. 'Uber is a cool thing, every single year something new comes in and Uber is hot
right now, so we have the Amish Uber. We can deliver people to their front door steps ..."
  Electro-Photonics is a global supplier of
RF & microwave components.
Their products include SMT hybrid and directional couplers, wire bondable passive components,
mounting tabs, filters, transmission lines, and very useful test boards for evaluating
components (spiral inductors, single-layer capacitors). The Electro-Photonics team can
support your small R&D design requirements with RF & Microwave test fixtures
and save you valuable design and characterization time. Please take a moment to visit
Electro-Photonics' website and see how your project might benefit
...
 Here is an editorial excerpt from a 1965 issue
of Electronics magazine that could be from a contemporary news publication:
"If U. S. manufacturers continue to abandon their engineering and production for
Japanese products, they are headed for oblivion because they cannot compete with
the purely merchandising organizations such as Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Montgomery
Ward* which buy Japanese products too." Of course you could easily substitute South Korea,
China, Taiwan, or any other now-prominent technology company in place of Japan. American
economic "experts" assured us in the 1990s that we no longer needed to manufacture anything;
rather, we would become a service and retail economy. That worked out real well, eh? ...
 Gallium Nitride (GaN) has become a big deal in
the RF and power electronics worlds due to its ability to survive high temperatures.
Fairview Microwave has a good article titled "GaN's Role
in 5G" on the Microwave Product Digest (MPD) website. "The race to 5G appears to
have picked up speed, particularly in the United States where major telecommunications
companies such as AT&T and Verizon have made announcements to launch 5G services
by the end of 2018. Advanced LTE (LTE-A) is already expanding rapidly with upgrades to
current base stations (BS). Field trials for LTE-Pro (aka 4.5G) are in full swing with
download speeds already reaching 1 gigabit per second (Gbps). Fixed wireless access (FWA)
technology has already been through significant ..."
 Triad RF Systems has introduced the all new
TA1017, which is a
50 watt, L- and S-band power amplifier that offers impressive power in a small
and lightweight package, making it ideal for DBV-T applications. The TA1017 is also an
excellent choice for LTE, WiFi, and any other L- or S-band application where small size
and high output power are essential. This class AB GaN module is designed for both military
and commercial 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 to offer high power ...
 "Engineers at UCLA have designed a
graphene-based photodetector that is sensitive and can work anywhere
in the electromagnetic spectrum from ultra-violet to microwaves. The work is published
in Nature Light Science & Applications in the paper 'Gold-patched graphene
nano-stripes for high-responsivity and ultrafast photodetection from the visible to infrared
regime,' whose title explains just about all you need to know. Photo-carrier generation
is mostly confined to the graphene stripes and conduction mostly to the gold patches,
meaning that the structures gets the broadband optical absorption ..."
Sunday 5
 For the sake of all the avid cruciverbalists amongst
us, each week I create a new
technology-themed crossword puzzle using only words from my custom-created list related
to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc. At least 10
clues with an asterisk (*) in this technology-themed crossword puzzle
are pulled from the past week's (7/30 - 8/3) "Tech Industry Headlines" column on the
RF Cafe homepage. 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 directly related to this puzzle's theme,
such as Hedy Lamar or the Bikini Atoll, respectively. Enjoy! ...
Friday 3
 Popular Electronics' master quizmaster Robert P.
Balin created this "Electronic
Measurements Quiz" to test your ability to match the indicated component with one
of the commonly associated parameter units. For instance, if a carbon resistor was illustrated,
you would choose, if offered as an option, the temperature coefficient of resistance
unit of ppm/°C. I erroneously swapped the units for item A and item H (80% score). Oh
well, there goes the cumulative quiz GPA. Maybe you will do better ...
 "Nearly two decades ago when
Wi-Fi was a nascent technology, a limited amount of mid-band spectrum
(2.4 to 2.483 GHz) was made available for unlicensed use. Subsequently, as the number
of devices increased the 5 GHz band was also made available to Wi-Fi. Now, more than
eight billion Wi-Fi devices are in use around the world, and that number is expected
to reach nearly 12 billion by 2020. Users have come to rely on Wi-Fi as the primary means
for internet access, in part because it is often their most affordable option and in
part because Wi-Fi offers performance that is well suited for current and emerging applications.
The increasing number of Wi-Fi devices combined with growing ..."
 EMI emissions testing is an area of RF measurement
 that causes
confusion in even seasoned professionals - maybe not so much the terms themselves as
determining how they are to be made in order to determine compliance with the multitude
of specifications for various formats of WiFi, Bluetooth, cellular, etc. That is why
there as so many specialty service ready to do it for you. Dorine Gurney, of Tektronix,
has a brief piece on the EDN website offering her experienced insight. "EMI emissions
testing is critical to bringing a product to market. Most electrical and electronic products
require regulatory compliance testing, which must be performed in an approved test lab.
Such testing can be expensive, especially if the product fails. A failed test can result
in lost time to market and cost overruns. To minimize unwanted trips to the test lab
prior to compliance tests, you can measure EMI emissions from your product.
..."
 According to sources I can find, it wasn't until
the early 1970s that most (>50%) of homes in America had air conditioning. Many homes
on my boyhood street, including ours, didn't get their first window unit until the late
1960s. We suffered through some pretty miserable hot, humid summers just a few blocks
from the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis, Maryland. Going into stores - especially grocery
stores, was a great relief from the oppressive heat. The A&P frozen foods aisle,
with the open freezers, was my favorite spot. It's kind of gross, in retrospect, to imagine
all the sweat that dripped off people and onto the icy packages lying in the freezers.
Electronics service shops of the era definitely required
air conditioning to keep all the vacuum tube TVs and radios cool while troubleshooting
and aligning them ...
RF Cascade Workbook 2018 is the next phase in the evolution of RF Cafe's long-running
series, RF Cascade Workbook. It is a full-featured RF system cascade parameter
and frequency planner that includes filters and mixers for a mere $45. Built in MS
Excel, using RF Cascade Workbook 2018 is a cinch and the format is entirely
customizable. It is significantly easier and faster than using a multi-thousand dollar
simulator when a high level system analysis is all that is needed. An intro video takes
you through the main features ...
 "RF gallium nitride (GaN) market growth continued
to accelerate in 2017 and, with revenues growing at over 38% year-on-year, will exceed
$1B by 2022 (with defense sector demand slightly greater than commercial revenue), forecasts
the Strategy Analytics Strategic Component Applications (SCA) group report 'RF GaN Market Update: 2017–2022.' GaN is seeing adoption across a
range of RF applications. Growth is driven primarily by the rollout of commercial wireless
infrastructure coupled with demand from military radar, electronic warfare (EW) and communications
applications ..."
Thursday 2
 Thanks
once again to Bob D. for pointing out another great website for those of us who
appreciate the history of electronics. Mr. David
Knight, of the UK, has a collection of topics on both vintage components as well
as modern gear and techniques. Include are Nixie and other digital readout tubes (see
my recent
Experiment with Digital Readouts article), demodulators and rectifiers, converting
bikes to e-power, unusual valves (aka vacuum tubes), high power RF transmission (with
some cool photos of ionized gas in presence of coils), gas discharge tubes, and more.
It's worth a few minutes of your time ...
 "Thales Alenia Space, a Joint Venture between
Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), and SSL, a Maxar Technologies company, have signed a
consortium agreement to pursue the development and manufacture of Telesat's highly advanced
global
LEO satellite constellation and end-to-end system. In addition the
consortium, led by Thales Alenia Space, announced reports that they have been awarded
a contract by Telesat for a System Design and Risk Management Project for the Telesat
LEO constellation. Following a highly rigorous process involving leading satellite manufacturing
companies ..."
 This might be one of the first advertisements
for
Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) test and measurement (T&M) products to appear in
a U.S. publication (December 13, 1965 Electronics). A brief search for earlier
instances did not turn up anything prior to 1965. Please contact me if you have seen
one. R&S, as you probably know already, is now a major player in the communications
T&M world. Hewlett Packard (HP) of course was one of the largest - if not the
largest - maker of spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, noise figure test sets, modulation
generators and analyzers, signal generators, o-scopes, etc., up through about the 1980s
- maybe into the 1990s. Once the cellular and wireless everything markets took off, Rohde &
Schwartz test equipment (TE) began ...
 You might have heard of Pixie tubes and Nixie
tubes from the era preceding light emitting diodes (LED's), but how about
Elfin tubes? They were considered the next stage in the evolution of digital display
devices. This article from a 1969 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine provides
an introduction to Elfin tubes. The images are from a listing on eBay (at this time)
offering to sell MG-19B Elfin Readout tubes for $10 each, in case you want one for a
conversation piece or for a project. Elfin tubes are fairly accessible if this guy depletes
his supply. I grabbed a shot of the tube and datasheet in case they disappear someday ...
 "Visualizing antenna patterns on a map can be
 helpful in
design - this latest blog post from Rick Gentile discusses several methods on how to
do that via MATLAB. I have covered many aspects of modeling antenna elements and antenna
arrays in 'Algorithms to Antenna: Achieve System Performance Goals with Less Hardware'
and 'Algorithms to Antenna: Designing an Antenna Array.' The focus to date has been on
evaluating an antenna-array design based on the beam pattern of the array. For some projects,
it's also helpful to visualize the antenna pattern on a map. I would like to introduce
you to a few examples that show how these patterns can be displayed on a map in MATLAB ..."
 "Researchers in Computer Science Department of
the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the Hiroshi Fujiwara Cyber Security Research
Center at the Technion have successfully discovered a
'severe' breach in Bluetooth communication technology. This was done
as part of Lior Neumann's master's thesis, supervised by Prof. Eli Biham, head of the
Hiroshi Fujiwara Cyber Security Research Center. Bluetooth technology, developed in the
1990s, quickly became a popular platform. Unlike Wi-Fi, Bluetooth is not based on a network
connecting several devices to one another but rather on the individual pairing of two
devices (e.g. a headset and a telephone). This method allows ..."
Wednesday 1
 "Swedish automobile manufacturer Volvo Cars has
become the first car-maker to equip its vehicles with
eCall devices. The European eCall regulation, which came into effect
from April 1, requires all new car and light van types sold in the EU to be fitted with
the emergency systems. The eCall device in Volvo vehicles is manufactured by ACTIA Nordic
in Sweden and has been successfully tested by NavCert's eCall Laboratory in Germany.
The readiness of automotive suppliers and technical services to equip the vehicles was
partially due to actions taken by the European GNSS Agency (GSA) and the European Commission's
Joint Research Centre, who launched ..."
 Saelig Company has introduced the ABI
BoardMaster-RM Universal PCB Test Solution - a unique, versatile,
self-contained, and easy-to-use PCB test system, now housed in a convenient 19" rack
case. It is an all-in-one unit featuring a comprehensive set of test instruments, complete
with a built-in Windows 10 PC and special software for testing and fault-finding on almost
any kind of PCB and assembly. Numerous valuable investigation methods are provided, such
as V/I testing and digital / analog IC test, to speed up PCB repair and get equipment
back in operation ...
 Rudy Ramos has a useful article on the Design
News website that reviews which
types of capacitor are most suitable for power conve rsion applications.
With so many different kind of dielectrics to choose from, advice from the voice of experience
is invaluable. "Capacitors can provide vital ride-through (or hold-up) energy or mitigate
ripple and noise in power-conversion circuits. Choosing the right type can profoundly
affect a system's overall size, cost, and performance. With their low equivalent series
resistance (ESR), which allows for good ripple-current handling as well as high surge-voltage
ratings and self-healing ..."
 When I saw this first
electronics-themed comic in the May 1959 issue of Electronics World, my
first thought was how most people today probably cannot relate to the task of installing
and adjusting a rooftop antenna for televisions. Ditto for FM antennas. Most people who
still watch TV use cable, although some have satellite TV. Then I thought about how Ham
radio operators are the last vestige of civilians who rely on antennas and over-the-air
radio communications (other than the world's 4.5 billion cellphone users who don't realize
their phones are radios). Television antenna design and installation was never a high-tech
sport for typical homeowners as it is for Amateurs; it was just a necessary nuisance.
Finally, it occurred to me than for a growing number of Hams ...
 "Researchers at Aalto University in Finland have
developed the first
binary calculator that entirely uses light instead of current. The
interdisciplinary team have shown how a new type of nanowire-based nanostructure enables
light to perform logic functions, allowing simple addition and subtraction operations.
The study, published in Science Advances , is the first to demonstrate nanoscale all-optical
logic circuits. 'We're able to perform binary number calculations and show, for instance,
how this nanostructure can carry out these functions just like a simple pocket calculator--except
that instead of using electricity, the nanostructure uses only light in its operation,'
said Dr. Henri Jussila ..."
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