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2 of the March 2018
homepage archives.
Thursday 15
 "BAE Systems Australia today welcomed the
announcement by the Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon Marise Payne and the Minister
for Defence Industry, the Hon Christopher Pyne that the Company has been selected
to upgrade Australia's long-range high frequency radar network. The
Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) protects Australia's
coastal approaches through a network of three remote radars in Queensland, Western
Australia and the Northern Territory. The radars play a vital role in supporting
the Australian Defence Force's air and maritime..."
 "Viasat has announced the availability of
the ViaSat-2 satellite communications (SATCOM) service for government,
defense and military applications. The service leverages the most advanced communications
satellite, ViaSat-2, along with innovations in ground networking technologies, that
will deliver significant performance advantages over any other commercial or U.S.
Department of Defense (DoD) SATCOM system. In early March 2018, Viasat conducted
a ViaSat-2 SATCOM system demonstration..."
 Mac and Barney discuss with some degree of
trepidation the alarmingly increasing rate at which new
electronics technology is being developed and marketed. As service
shop owner and technician, respectively, they needed to constantly educate themselves
on new components and circuits in order to stay current and be efficient enough
to turn a profit. Mac recounts his lengthy background beginning with the days of
mainly battery-powered AM radios, and progressing through AC-DC, FM and all-band
(shortwave) radio, B&W television and the color TV, CB radios, and a new breed
of appliances with electronic controls...
 "The U.S. communications agency says tiny
Internet of Things satellites from
Swarm Technologies could endanger other spacecraft. On 12 January,
a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket blasted off from India's eastern
coast. While its primary cargo was a large Indian mapping satellite, dozens of secondary
CubeSats from other countries traveled along with it. Seattle-based Planetary Resources
supplied a spacecraft that will test prospecting tools for future asteroid miners..."
 Innovative Power Products introduces their
latest 90° SMD Coupler that operates over the full 690 – 6000 MHz. band. Our
new Model IPP-7148, handles 130 watts CW and comes in a
small SMD Style package which is only 0.50 x 1.00 x 0.167 inches. The IPP-7148 will
combine two signals up to 130 Watts CW of total output power. This coupler has very
good amplitude balance across the whole band and insertion loss of <0.80 dB.
The VSWR is less than 1.35:1 with greater than 16.5 dB of Isolation making
them ideal for commercial, industrial or military...
 "China's twin-launch Chang'e 4 mission to
the far side of the moon will place a pair of microsatellites in lunar orbit this
spring 'to test low-frequency radio astronomy and space-based interferometry.' The
two satellites, unofficially called
DSLWP-A1 and DSLWP-A2 (DSLWP = Discovering the Sky at Longest
Wavelengths Pathfinder), could launch this spring. The pair represent the first
phase of the Chang'e 4 mission, which involves placing a relay satellite in a halo
orbit to facilitate communication with the Chang'e 4 lander and rover..."
Wednesday 14
 "A new method to produce large, monolayer
single-crystal-like
graphene films more than a foot long relies on harnessing a 'survival
of the fittest' competition among crystals. The novel technique, developed by a
team led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, may open new
opportunities for growing the high-quality two-dimensional materials necessary for
long-awaited practical applications. Making thin layers of graphene and other 2D
materials on a scale required for research..."
 Photodiodes and phototransistors were relatively
new on the electronics scene in 1969 when this article appeared in Electronics
World magazine. Prior to semiconductor light detectors, vacuum phototubes did
the job in cameras, motion sensors, light level detectors, medical imaging equipment,
etc. High voltages and the large volume for containing components supporting vacuum
tubes created hazards (especially with medical equipment), inconvenience, and high
cost. What we take for granted nowadays in terms of price, performance...
 "Temperatures below 3 millikelvin can be maintained
for seven hours. High-tech refrigerators have been used to reach temperatures as
close to absolute zero as possible - 0 kelvin or -273.15 °C. Physicists aim
to cool equipment to as close to absolute zero as possible, because these extremely
low temperatures offer the ideal conditions for quantum experiments, and allow entirely
new physical phenomena to be examined. A
nanoelectronic chip was successfully cooled to a temperature lower
than 3 millikelvin using..."
 Rohde & Schwarz is offering at no cost
a variety of reference charts (posters) for hanging on your lab or office wall,
and some handy-dandy
Pocket Guides. In the current age of (seemingly) paperless offices
and laboratories, opening a cardboard package from R&S containing the pictured
items caused me to wax nostalgic over the days when sales reps handed out such materials
during workplace meetings and at trade shows. Wall charts are still fairly easily
obtained, but the spiral-bound pocket guides are more rare. Maybe soon we'll be
seeing the resurrection of cardboard slide rule calculators...
 Triad RF Systems announces the TA1014 is a lightweight and high
power linear power amplifier that works from 1400-1600 MHz. The TA1014 is compatible
with high data rate signals such as 4k video, making it ideal for mobile sports
broadcast applications, as well as anywhere that high power and portability are
key. This amplifier also boasts an impressive 40 watts of output power for
its small size. This class AB GaN module is designed for both military and commercial
applications. It is capable of...
 "U.S. researchers have made on-chip inductors
smaller by adding 'kinetic inductance' to conventional magnetic inductance. The work
cuts the size of 10-50 GHz inductors by a third. Kinetic inductance arises
from the physical momentum of charge carriers resisting the change in current direction
associated with a change in electric field, according to the team, from the University
of California, Santa Barbara. Any kinetic inductance created appears in series with
the conventional magnetic inductance of the inductors..."
Tuesday 13
 Axiom Test Equipment
allows you to rent or
buy test
equipment, repair
test equipment, or sell
or trade  test equipment. They are committed to providing
superior customer service and high quality electronic test equipment. 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!...
 Although the article's title specifies "electronic
hobbyist," the advice applies equally well to students and professional technicians
and engineers. A few of the tools are no longer available from the original manufacturers,
but modern equivalents - often of better design and quality - are available. If
you are nostalgic for the originals, though, you can always look for them on eBay;
there's not much you cannot find there if you wait long enough. To show how much
times have changed, get a load of (pun intended) that pistol-shaped soldering gun.
Can you imagine the mayhem that would ensue if it...
 "It's probably no surprise that the
job outlook for engineers is positive. In a January Bureau of
Labor Statistics report, employment in the electrical and electronics space is expected
to grow seven percent by the year 2026. To capitalize on the country's economic
growth, organizations are expanding and looking for more workers to fill traditional
roles in addition to new and emerging positions. As such, the engineering market
is experiencing a lower unemployment rate compared to the national average, with
tens of thousands of jobs expected to..."
 The
Link Gain Calculator is
RFOptic's helpful online tool to calculate the link gain and the optical predicted
parameters for RFOptic's RFoF programmable product line. It is designed for the
programmable RFoF family - 2.5 GHz, 3 GHz, 4 GHz and 6 GHz. It is designed for the
users of programmable RFoF family solutions in order to determine how the embedded
LNA and attenuator should be set up to meet their required RFoF link budget. They
also have a useful Radar Testing Directory with webinars, white papers, tutorials,
and more...
 "For most of the world a motorcycle or a
scooter is a basic means of transportation. Cheap to purchase and operate, and easy
to park on crowded city streets, commuting on two wheels is a way of life. This
is especially in emerging markets where a motorcycle or scooter is an attractive
alternative to a bicycle, a public bus, or walking. In the 1950s and 1960s in the
U.S., motorcycles had a utilitarian purpose too, but somehow, during the 1980s and
1990s, motorcycles, and in particular U.S.-built
Harley Davidson motorcycles, became lifestyle..."
Monday 12
 "According to researchers at Oregon State
University's College of Engineering, vertical structures are difficult to print
with a liquid metal due to the low viscosity and high surface tension of the gallium
alloy. The team in the college's Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems
Institute put nickel nanoparticles into galinstan, a liquid metal alloy, to thicken
it into a paste with a consistency suitable for additive manufacturing. According
to the team, the resulting rheological modification of the liquid metal..."
 David Corman, of Anokiwave, has a good article
on
silicon phased array antennas. This concept, using printed arrays,
is gaining popularity for providing steerable beams in WiFi hotspots, Bluetooth,
small cells, etc., where a dense communications environment generates too much ambient
signal presence for long enough range. Now, implementation in silicon for mm-wave
antenna arrays is being investigated. "Using active antennas allows highly-directive
antenna beams to be formed by physically-small apertures, which helps offset the
higher path loss associated...
 To be or not to be - that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous bi-annual
clock shifts, or to take up arms against a sea of contradicting justifications for
and against the existence of DST, and by opposing, end it. Twice each year, a majority
of the western world is subject to a manmade disruption in circadian and habitual
cycles with an inane one-hour clock change on and off of "Daylight Saving(s) Time" (DST). Some historians claim that Benjamin
Franklin joked about DST in the 18th century, but it was New Zealander George Hudson
who proposed the modern day clock...
 Since 2003, Bittele Electronics has consistently
provided low-volume, electronic contract manufacturing (ECM) and turnkey PCB assembly
services. It specializes in board level turnkey
PCB assembly
for design engineers needing low volume or prototype multi-layer printed circuit
boards. Free Passive Components: Bittele
Electronics is taking one further step in its commitment of offering the best service
to clients of its PCB assembly business. Bittele is now offering common passive
components to its clients FREE of Charge...
 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 can also perform repair
and calibration of your gear. Contact us today with your needs...
 "In the original
Maxwell's demon thought experiment, a demon makes continuous measurements
on a system of hot and cold reservoirs, building up a thermal gradient that can
later be used to perform work. As the demon's measurements do not consume energy,
it appears that the demon violates the second law of thermodynamics, although this
paradox can be resolved by considering that the demon uses information to perform
its sorting tasks. It's well-known that when a quantum system is continuously..."
Sunday 11
 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
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, respectively...
Friday 9
 "The original arguments Congress made for
'springing ahead' have been thoroughly debunked. So why are they still being used
today? One hundred years after Congress passed the first daylight saving legislation,
lawmakers in Florida this week passed the 'Sunshine Protection Act,' which will make daylight saving a year-round
reality in the Sunshine State. If approved by the federal government, this will
effectively move Florida's residents one time zone to the east, aligning cities..."
 IEEE COMSOC is conducting a 4 day, intermediate
level Intensive Wireless Communications Course covering 7 key areas.
Tuesday, April 10th through Friday, April 13th from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
EDT. Attend this 20-hour course online via WebEx. Instructor Alan Bensky will cover
basic radio engineering fundamentals, propagation, smart antennas, beam forming,
radio receiver characteristics, multiple access technologies, cellular network architecture
and evolution through LTE and LTE, Wi-Fi security in GSM through LTE and more...
 "Cornell University has demonstrated a GaN
phase-transition FET based on loading a metal-oxide-semiconductor high-electron-mobility
transistor (MOS-HEMT) with a vanadium dioxide (VO2) resistor. The combination enabled
very low leakage along with sub-thermionic subthreshold steep-switching behavior.
The researchers comment: 'This first demonstration of ultralow-leakage steep switching
in GaN phase-FETs using integration-friendly ALD VO2 opens the door..."
 Robert Radford's (not to be confused with
Robert Redford) "Electromaze" is a unique - and weird - sort of word puzzle that
appeared in the April 1966 issue of Popular Electronics magazine. You will
probably want to print out the maze grid and find an old guy who should still have
a pencil stowed away somewhere you can borrow to use for filling in the boxes. Note
that in my opinion the answer given for clue number 2 is technically wrong. What
say you?...
 The New Rohde & Schwarz
NGE100 is a robust and affordable high-performance power supply.
2 or 3 Channels, 33.6 W each. 0 V to 32 V and 0 A to 3 A
per channel. Max 96 V or 9 A in parallel / serial operation. Electronic
fuse, overvoltage, overpower and over-temperature protection. USB and optional LAN
or W-LAN interface. Starting at $805. The R&S®NGE100 has high efficiency combined
with low ripple and a variety of functions that are usually not found in this class
of power supplies. All operating conditions of all channels are...
 Martin Rowe, over at EDN, has been "Mr. Test &
Measurement." I knight him with that title based on his many years writing for the
long-ago absorbed trade magazine Test & Measurement World. Mention
of this article was motivated by the photo of the small anechoic measurement enclosure
by octoScope. Note that it
is not a TEM cell, which is characterized by its tetrahedral shape and accommodates
a wide range of frequencies. octoBox is a special purpose, limited range test environment.
As with so many things these days, you can outfit just about any T&M setup with
mostly prefabricated components...
 "A new laser system that can make precise
measurements of distance at record-breaking speed has been unveiled by researchers
at Germany's Karlsuhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the Federal Institute of
Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Made using optical frequency combs,
the system can measure the surface profile of a speeding bullet. Modern technologies
such as aerial drones, observation satellites, self-driving cars and manufacturing
robots need to make rapid, highly-accurate measurements of distances to..."
Thursday 8
 Microwave Journal's Technical Education Webinar
Series is presenting "Design Innovations in 5G mm-Wave FEMs and Phased Arrays." Date:
March 14, 2018, Time: 11am ET. Sponsored by: GlobalFoundries. "5G is the new generation
of radio systems and network architecture. It will deliver faster data rates, lower
latency connectivity and higher bandwidths in the millimeter wave (mm-Wave) bands
(28, 39, 60, 86 GHz, …) to support many different applications including: 5G handsets,
wireless infrastructure, WiGig, ADAS, small cells and LEO/GEO broadband..."
 The initial part of this article, The Sarasota
Mystery, appeared in the previous issue (March). Mr. Minto is still scratching
his head over hydronic communications...
 After reading both this article and "The Sarasota Mystery First Follow-Up" article in the April 1966
issue of Popular Electronics, I'm convinced that the inventor Wallace Minto
either did not understand the phenomenon he describes, or he's out to punk the reader.
If this initial article had been printed in the April issue rather than March, it
almost certainly would have to have been a Fool's scam. Minto believes he has discovered
a new form of electromagnetic propagation that exploits molecular / atomic properties
of water to transmit the signal - without attenuation and without picking up noise.
If it...
 "Here's what I'd like to know: Is
short-range wireless really radio? Most of the wireless standards
we use daily are considered short-range technologies. The question is, just what
is short range? For standards like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, Z-Wave, and others,
it ranges from a few feet up to 100 meters or so. The range varies widely with frequency,
power level, antennas, as well as many environmental conditions. These are radio
technologies. Then there are some wireless tech that have a very short range. Short..."
 ConductRF's
FPA RF Cable Assemblies
provide a cost effective high performance solution for applications typically supported
by Semi-Rigid or high cost flexible precision cables. Multi-layer shielded cable
provides both flexibility and form-ability by combining a flexible spiral foil over
which is a tin plated copper braid which can be formed. This create a half-way situation,
but with added benefits of lower costs, improved performance and enhanced shielding.
Flexible Low Loss RF cables with direct solder connectors. Custom marking available
on...
 "The government announced plans to study
the possibility of sharing or clearing a 100 megahertz swath of spectrum for high-speed
mobile broadband. David Redl, administrator of the National Telecommunications and
Industry Administration, said in a Feb. 26 blog post that 100 MHz in the
3450-3550 MHz band, used by the Department of Defense for military
radar, could be a key asset in expanding the U.S. broadband spectrum inventory.
Under the Spectrum Pipeline Act, passed in 2015 with the budget bill, agencies can..."
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