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3 of the June 2018 homepage archives.
Wednesday 20
Future Quantum Technologies May
Exploit Identical Particle Entanglement
 "Usually when physicists perform quantum entanglement
between particles - whether it be qubits, atoms, photons, electrons, etc. - the particles
are distinguishable in some way. Only recently have physicists demonstrated the feasibility
of generating entanglement between particles that are completely identical. Interestingly,
this entanglement exists just because of the indistinguishability of the particles, without
any interaction between them. Now in a new paper, physicists have gone a step further,
showing that the entanglement between identical particles can be harnessed and potentially
used for quantum applications. The physicists, Rosario Lo Franco and Giuseppe Compagno..."
 Have you been living with a cracked smartphone
screen protector glass because you don't want to spend the money and/or time to have
someone else fix it? A few years ago I replaced the protective glass on my Samsung
Galaxy S4 phone in about an hour. I also bought a kit to replace the glass on my
daughter's S8. The S4 was a piece of cake, but the S8 takes longer because disassembling
it is a lot more work. There are plenty of how-to videos on the Web to help you through
the process. Kits are available for
iPhones, too, most for well under $50.
 Beam forming used to be primarily the realm of
radars and sonars, but in the last decade or so cellphone and WiFi small cell technology
has been using it to facilitate high traffic in dense user environments. Smart beam forming
systems can simultaneously scan wide areas in search of new targets while tracking active
targets. This article by Rick Gentile titled, "Algorithms to Antenna: Massive-MIMO Hybrid Beamforming,"
appears in Microwaves & RF magazine. It probably will not be long until
smartphones begin implementing some form of phased array antenna...
 Bell Telephone Laboratories was largely responsible
for designing and building a
communications system that was the envy of the world. Innovation on the part
of Bell engineers, manufacturing staff that produced the equipment, and
technicians who serviced the systems deserve the credit as do management types
who made funds and opportunity available to the aforementioned. As the number of
telephone service subscribers grew and reliability became even more vital to
business, law enforcement, and national defense, new methods had to be devised.
In the late 1950s, Bell introduced the concept of wireless microwave links at
11 GHz (X band)...
 "Printing an ultrathin layer of graphene on a
substrate and using direct-pulsed laser writing produced a structure for
electronic circuitry that can be worn and even washed. When professors
Sir Andre Geim and Sir Kostya Novoselov of the University of Manchester (UK)
discovered and isolated a single atomic layer of carbon for the first time - now
known as graphene - there was both praise and concern. Some comments were
similar to those which, decades before, accompanied the first demonstration of
the optical..."
Tuesday 19
 If you think the ISM (Industrial,
Scientific, and Medical) unlicensed bands were a relatively new spectrum allocation,
you might find this 1960 Electronics World news piece interesting.
Individual countries generally acknowledge the ISM emissions specifications set
forth by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which created the
bands in 1947. The 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz, and 5.8 GHz WiFi bands are well known to
most people. 24 GHz is gaining traction as current spectrum gets more and more
crowded and high bandwidth data channels are needed. Interestingly, the first
few ISM bands are integer harmonics of the lowest (6.78 MHz, center of band 1).
To wit: 2 * 6.78 = 13.56 MHz (band 2), 4 * 6.78 = 2 * 13.56 = 27.12 MHz (band
3), 6 * 6.78 = 2 * 13.56 = 40.68 MHz (band 4)...
 "Carbon nanotubes - cylindrical formations of
carbon atoms with incredible strength and electrical conductivity - hold great promise
for creating new micron-scale low-power electronic devices. But finding a way to build
a reliable computing platform based on the carbon material has been a major challenge
for researchers. Now, a team of mechanical and materials engineers at Georgia Institute
of Technology has devised a method for identifying performance variabilities in transistors
made from
carbon nanotube
networks. The new approach could help researchers..."
 I'm not clear on the distinction between a heat
sink and a heat spreader, other than maybe the former typically tends to have fins and
the latter does not. This MWJ article by Kevin Loutfy, with Nano Materials International
Corporation, titled, "Aluminum-Diamond Metal-Matrix Heat Spreaders for GaN Devices," describes
use of synthetic aluminum-diamond material (which his company manufactures) to raise
the operational temperature and reliability of high power GaN devices. Their
metal-matrix composite
(MMC) process was announced in 2011...
 Electronics repair shops - what's left of them
- probably don't experience the sort of problem illustrated in this story composed after
the manner of John Frye's "Mac's Service Shop" dramas. However, similar situations can
and almost certainly do crop up in many other customer service venues. The point of the
article is how easily, especially in the span of an entire year, seemingly minor oversights
repeated with regularity, can add up to
alarmingly large numbers. Actually, the phenomenon occurs for you with many
things when you bother to tally them up. Example: According to the U.S. census
Bureau's 2017 report, the average one-way commute time is about 26 minutes both
to and from work, or about 52 minutes per day. Allowing for two weeks of
vacation, two weeks...
 "Bolometers, devices that monitor
electromagnetic radiation
through heating of an absorbing material, are used by astronomers and homeowners
alike. But most such devices have limited bandwidth and must be operated at
ultralow temperatures. Now, researchers say they've found a ultrafast yet highly
sensitive alternative that can work at room temperature - and may be much less
expensive. The findings, published today in the journal Nature Nanotechnology,
could help pave the way toward new kinds of astronomical observatories for
long-wavelength emissions..."
Monday 18
 Some day in the not too distant future, a generation
of electronics enthusiasts will read magazines like Nuts & Volts, QST,
Make, and other hobbyist publications and be amazed at how crude our present
day methods for building
homebrew projects were. They might even feel sorry for us. Having digital
cameras, sophisticated graphics software, high resolution inkjet and laser
printers, and vinyl cutting machines for adorning chassis and panels are a
godsend here in twenty-teens compared to the film-based analog cameras,
chemical-based photo processing labs, and rub-on lettering and shape stencils...
 RIGOL Technologies announces a significant addition
to its oscilloscope portfolio with the introduction of the new
7000 Series Digital Oscilloscope. The 7000 Series delivers unmatched price/performance
capability in a mid-range oscilloscope. With 10GSa/sec Sample rate and up to 500M Record
Length the 7000 Series can deliver 20X Oversampling on a 500 MHz signal providing
unmatched signal resolution while still capturing a full 50 ms; significantly longer
than available in competitive products. The core of the 7000 Series Oscilloscope is RIGOL's
new UltraVision II architecture and its Phoenix chip-set...
 When this article on ionospheric and tropospheric
scatter radio communications was published in 1960, satellite communications
was in its infancy and only a very few subsea telephone and telegraph cables had
been laid between continents. Wideband communications was typically considered
to mean a few hundred kilohertz worth of data. Less than two decades had passed
since it was discovered that the theoretical prediction of cripplingly high
attenuation above a "smooth earth" would ultimately limit the usefulness of
over-the-horizon (i.e., not line-of-sight) HF, VHF, and UHF transmissions to a
few hundred miles. In fact, so thoroughly had the commercial broadcast
community...
 Sitting in the waiting room in the local Jeep dealership,
waiting for the technicians to do the annual inspection on the 2011 Patriot, I noticed
a 12 volt car battery sitting on a table. At first I assumed it was just a sales pitch
for a new battery, but then I noticed a bunch of small cables coming from its bottom
edge. As you can see in the photo I took of it, those cables are mobile device charging
cords with mating connectors for Apple, USB, and miniUSB ports. An Internet search did
not turn up any of these things, so maybe Mopar engineers came up with it. Times
sure have changed from when...
 "Intel's director of quantum hardware, Jim Clarke,
explains the company's two
quantum computing
technologies. Despite a comparatively late start, Intel is progressing quickly
along the road to a useful quantum computer. The company's director of quantum
hardware, Jim Clarke, came by IEEE Spectrum's offices on 9 May to prove it. He
brought with him samples of two technologies that show why the chip fabrication
powerhouse can make a unique contribution to the quest for exponentially-faster
computing. The first was a Tangle Lake, a specially packaged chip containing
49-superconducting qubits..."
Sunday 17
 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. 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, such
as Hedy Lamar or the Bikini Atoll...
Friday 15
 Since I don't have another Popular Electronics
electronics quiz for this week, hopefully these
electronics-themed comics will suffice as Friday afternoon relief at the end of a
tough work week. My favorite is the one with the Ham dude misinterpreting advice and
connecting his antenna to... well, you'll see. The other two are pretty good as well.
There is a yuge (a little NYC lingo) list of other technology-themed comics at
the bottom of the page...
 MilSatCom USA
series as it returns to Arlington, Virginia on June 27th and 28th 2018. With the FY18
National Defense Authorization Act (NDA Act) promising "Fundamental Reform of National
Security Space" as well as the Wideband Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) expected to conclude
in the first half of the year, MilSatCom USA will provide the perfect forum to address
pressing issues facing the future of US MilSatCom programmes. This year's conference
will return as the leading forum in the US with a specific MilSatCom focus
bringing together senior military, government and industry representatives from
US and allied forces...
 The
stacked halo antenna is a compact configuration for obtaining a nearly omnidirectional
radiation pattern with nearly 8 dB of gain. An ideal half-wave dipole antenna provides
2.15 dB, so adding 5 to 6 more decibels by merely stacking two halo antennas (which
are essentially curved half-waves) might seem like getting more than the sum of the parts.
That extra gain is obtained by concentrating the vertical radiation pattern lower to
the horizon as compared to a straight half-wave, even though the horizontal pattern loses
a bit of gain contribution from the translation to a nearly omnidirectional nature. There
is nowadays a plethora of information available on the Internet regarding stacked halo
antennas, but in 1965, this Popular Electronics article...
 Saelig Company announces the availability
of the Rigol
DS/MSO7000 series of oscilloscopes, 4-channel advanced specification oscilloscopes
with an excellent 10 GSa/s real-time sample rate. They come in four bandwidth versions
(100 / 250 / 350 / 500 MHz) as well as mixed-signal versions that offer 16 digital
debug channels. Based on Rigol's new UltraVision II architecture and innovative proprietary
Phoenix chipset these scopes offer 100Mpts memory depth (500 Mpts option)
and a very high waveform capture rate of over 600,000 waveforms per second. This
scope series integrates several independent instruments into one...
 "Researchers from from Purdue University, the
Technological University of Delft, Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Madison
have discovered that silicon has unique
spin-orbit interactions that can enable the manipulation of qubits
using electric fields, without the need for any artificial agents. 'Qubits encoded in
the spins of electrons are especially long-lived in silicon, but they are difficult to
control by electric fields. Spin-orbit interaction is an important knob for the design
of qubits that was thought to be small in this material, traditionally,' says Rajib Rahman,
research assistant professor in Purdue's School of Electrical and Computer
Engineering..."
Thursday 14
 Electric shock, depending on severity, can range
in damage from mere discomfort to body organ damage to instant death. If you have experience
an
electric shock, you know that avoiding another incident is top priority when
working around high voltages. My worse electric shock was either the time when I
got hit with a 3-phase 440 VAC supply on an industrial air compressor motor, or
the B+ vacuum tube plate supply on the air traffic control radar systems I
worked on in the USAF. Both were, thankfully, from finger to finger or finger to
forearm (no vital organs in the current path). I've been zapped a few other
times, but nothing severe enough to require being resuscitated. Neither have I
ever witnessed anyone else being shocked to the point of needing resuscitation.
There are probably some gruesome...
 Slideshow: "Lead times on components of all types,
from passives to semiconductors, are stretching out with no end in sight. As OEMs scramble
to get the parts they need, they are increasingly likely to turn to less reliable sources,
providing an opportunity for
counterfeiters.
'Shortages go in cycles,' said Robin Gray, chief counsel of the Electronic
Component Industry Association (ECIA). 'For years, it was tantalum capacitors
but not its many types of passives, including multilayer ceramic capacitors
(MLCCs), as well as certain semiconductors. A key takeaway is that when times..."
 ConductRF has a ready supply of
ruggedized VNA cables
to replace your tired and worn stock. "We have many standards for applications
at 18 GHz, 27 GHz and 40 GHz. Precision Ruggedized VNA Cables from ConductRF
offer RF Engineers great alternatives to costly OEM cables that are now past
their best days. Our torque resistant connector heads and phase stable
constructions ensure great performance for many tests to come. Features include
excellent low loss & VSWR, phase stability under flex, and nonconductive weave
outer protection..."
 As one born in 1958, it's hard to accept that
1960 news is nearly six decades old. I still find myself thinking of the 1970s and 80s
as just a few years ago. The first integrated semiconductor circuits were still being
developed in corporate and university laboratories in 1960. Fairchild announced a year
after this Electronics World article appeared their first commercial IC series,
named "Micrologic." Until then, an integrated circuit meant something like the compact
module of interconnected ceramic substrates with printed thick film resistors and miniature
discrete components. In other news, Raytheon was ready to deploy their giant ICBM tracking
radar system to deal with the emerging global nuclear war threat...
 Guerrilla RF Inc, a leading provider of high performance
MMICs, today launches a new frequency conversion family with the introduction of the
GRF7001, a
high linearity
mixer with integrated LO buffer. This device features low conversion loss
and may be used as an up or down converter. The GRF7001 inputs and outputs are
single-ended and internally matched to 50 ohms. The device implementation
requires an external image-reject filter on the RF port, and an IF bandpass
filter on the IF port. Pins 4 and 6 can be used for either RF or IF with
appropriate filtering in place. The integrated LO buffer is operated..."
 "MIT researchers along with scientists from Brigham
and Women's Hospital have developed a new way to power and communicate with devices implanted
deep within the human body. Such devices could be used to deliver drugs, monitor conditions
inside the body, or treat disease by stimulating the brain with electricity or light.
The implants are powered by
radio frequency waves,
which can safely pass through human tissues. In tests in animals, the
researchers showed that the waves can power devices located 10 cm deep in
tissue, from a distance of 1 meter. Even though these tiny..."
Wednesday 13
 MWJ and Rogers Corporation's John Coonrod will
be presenting a free webinar / infomercial titled "Material and PCB Fabrication Considerations for the Different Bands of
5G," on June 20 at 11:00 am ET. "Abstract: 5G technology is very different
than previous communication infrastructures and one noteworthy characteristic is
that 5G will use multiple bands of frequency for its applications. On the
surface, different bands of frequency may not appear that significant, however,
the choice of high frequency materials and PCB fabrication considerations can be
very different for applications at significantly different frequencies..."
 Wireless Transceiver Design: Mastering
the Design of Modern Wireless Equipment and Systems, by Ariel Luzzatto and Motti
Haridim, 400 pages, $81.64, published 2016. "[A]n accessible textbook that
explains the concepts of wireless transceiver design in detail. The
architectures and the detailed design of both traditional and advanced
all-digital wireless transceivers are discussed in a thorough and systematic
manner, while carefully watching out for clarity and simplicity. Many practical
examples and solved problems at the end of each chapter allow students to
thoroughly understand the mechanisms involved..."
 ConductRF
(Booth #1650 at IMS2018) is continually innovating and developing new and improved
solutions for RF Interconnect needs. See the latest
TESTeCON RF Test
Cables for labs. ConductRF makes production and test coax cable assemblies as well
as standard & precision RF connectors. Over 1,000 solutions for low PIM in-building
to choose from in the iBwave component library. They also provide custom coax solutions
for applications where some standard just won't do. Please visit
ConductRF
today to see how they can help your project!
 Do you have an FM radio in your cellphone? If
so, its antenna is the headphone or ear bud wires. You can buy an external FM antenna
that plus into the headphone jack. Do you remember the type of
line cord antenna described here? It was actually not a bad idea in many
situations. Although the appliance might look a bit scary, there is no direct
physical contact between the antenna wires and the house AC supply. Either a
capacitor with low impedance in the radio and/or television band was connected
to the plug blade or a capacitively coupled plate was placed around the AC wires
to pick up signals. 60 (or 50) cycle content on the antenna would be minimal and
rejected by the receiver front end filtering. Many of the problems people had
with this or any twin-lead transmission cable were due...
 Every couple
years a Crosley 03CB console radio shows up on
eBay. I keep a Saved
Search to get an e-mail when one becomes available, mainly to get an idea of how many
are still around. My research based on Newspaper.com issues of old newspaper advertisements
indicates the Crosley 03CB models were primarily sold in the PA, NJ, NY, DE, CT, OH,
and MD areas. Per the eBay listing: "Working condition, lights up and plays some stations.
Need some refinishing on the cabinet." If you are looking for a restoration project,
this would be a good subject for only $50. As can be seen from
my restored Crosley 03CB radio, the cabinet and electronics are very robust
and attractive. It's worth a look...
 "Yale scientists have created a new type of silicon
laser that uses sounds waves to amplify light.
A study about the discovery appears June 8 in the online edition of the journal
Science. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in translating
optical technologies - such as fiber optics and free-space lasers - into tiny
optical or 'photonic' integrated circuits. Using light rather than electricity
for integrated circuits permits sending and processing information at speeds
that would be impossible with conventional electronics. Researchers say silicon
photonics - optical circuits based on silicon chips - are one of the leading
platforms for such technologies, thanks to their compatibility..."
Tuesday 12
 "U.S. Navy shipboard electronics experts are pushing
forward with a project to design dynamic multi-mission radar antennas able to carry out
functions like surveillance, communications and EW)simultaneously. Officials of the Office
of Naval Research (ONR) announced a $9.5M order to the Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems
segment, on Wednesday for the
Flexible Distributed Array Radar (FlexDAR)
effort. In this order, Raytheon will demonstrate how combining every-element
digital beamforming, network coordination, and precise time synchronization can
enable multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) operation..."
 In my nearly 60 years of building model aircraft,
cars, boats, and rockets, working on cars, maintaining houses and yards, working with
electrical and electronic apparati[sic], and many other activities, I have inhaled and
had skin contact with
many types of chemicals (all legal, BTW). You probably have, too, if you are
near my age. At least by the 1960s the public was becoming aware of the dangers
of exposure to common household and workplace substances, but viewing older
pictures and films showing people working with no eye, ear, or skin protection
explains the all-too-common common sight of crippled and disfigured people back
in the days. In the early and mid 1970s I worked regularly with MEK until it was
removed due to being labeled as a suspected carcinogen...
 Farmers must be a lot smarter than we tend to
give them credit for being. These
math and
logic puzzles that appeared in the 1961 Old Farmer's Almanac are not a
duffer's task to complete. Be careful to consider units of measure based on the
venues. Puzzle I is a relatively simple trigonometry problem, although the
wording of the problem statement is very confusing; it took some head scratching
to figure out what was meant. Puzzle III required me to opt for a graphical
solution since I could not come up with enough independent equations for the
number of unknowns. If you look at the OFA page scan...
 everything RF is once again provide extensive
coverage of the International Microwave Symposium
(IMS) show. The 2018 venue is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from June 10th to the
15th. Details are posted on the everything RF website, but if you are roaming
the exhibition floor, please be sure to stop by Booth #536 to say hello!...
 "Privately funded UK venture
Tokamak Energy
has hit plasma temperatures hotter than the sun's core for the first time,
reaching 15 million degrees Celsius. The milestone was achieved using the ST40
device, the latest in a line of tokamaks the company has built in pursuit of
commercial fusion. Using a technique known as merging compression, the ST40
releases energy as rings of plasma that crash together and magnetic fields in
the plasma reconfigure - a process known as magnetic reconnection. Merging
compression involves high electric currents running through the internal
coils..."
Monday 11
 I wondered while reading this adventure
of Mac's Service Shop whether author John Frye held stock in the Allen Bradley
(now Rockwell) company (you'll understand why). This might be one of the
earliest instances of literary product placement in a techno-drama. That A-B
resistor is part of the "grasshopper" theme of this saga, which as always is
part fiction and part tutorial. Also discussed is the increasing level of
difficulty in servicing modern electronics as the transition from all
point-to-point wiring to use of printed circuit boards progressed. If Mac and
Barney thought PCBs and leaded transistors caused headaches, they would be
having brain aneurysms with today's integrated circuits sporting ultra fine
BGA's, some with more than 500 contacts...
 "Low power IoT network technology isn't much good
if it can't easily cross national borders, so DT and Vodafone have been looking into
that with the help of the GSMA. In fact the GSMA was the one to make the announcement,
claiming the two operator groups 'have successfully completed the first international
roaming trial in Europe using licensed
NB-IoT
technology.' NB-IoT is generally accepted to be the default LPWAN technology,
for which Vodafone has been one of the most active cheerleader, so it's no
surprise to see it involved in this. 'The success of these trials is an
important milestone..."
 Axiom Test Equipment allows
you to rent
or buy test
equipment, repair test
equipment, or sell or trade
 test equipment. They are committed to
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Axiom offers customers several practical, efficient, and cost effective
solutions for their projects' TE needs and is committed to providing superior
customer service and high quality electronic test equipment. Please check out
Axiom Test Equipment today!...
 The
TA1148 is a wideband 13 watt power amplifier that operates from 800 to
2500 MHz, offering up to 40 dB of gain across the band. This amplifier also
includes under/over voltage protection, reverse voltage protection, and is
extremely linear across the operating frequency band. The TA1148 is in stock and
available for same day shipping. 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 but not limited to 3 - 4G telecom, WLAN,
OFDM, DVB, and CW/AM/FM. The latest device...
 Here is another article from a vintage issue of
Popular Electronics magazine that I am posting for the benefit of Hams who happen
to be searching for information on
Swiss quad antennas. As with most topics, there are many sources on the Worldwide
Web (when's the last time you heard the Internet referred to as the WWW?) covering how
to build and tune Swiss quad antennas, but this one might have just the right slant on
things that the reader is looking for. It probably is not of great interest to most visitors,
but having it appear on the RF Cafe homepage guarantees that Google, Bing, and other
major search engines will pick it up within hours. Thanks for your indulgence ...
 "Walls often make up more than half of
indoor surface area, especially in residential and office buildings. In addition
to delimiting spaces, both for functional and social purposes, they also hide
infrastructure such as wiring and HVAC. However, they are generally inactive
structural elements, offering no inherent interactive or computational abilities
(other than at small attached silos, e.g., thermostats and light switches), and
thus present an opportunity for augmentation, especially considering their
ubiquity. Researchers have transformed walls into smart walls at relatively low
cost - about $20 per square meter - using simple tools and techniques..."
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