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5 of the October 2018 homepage archives. Friday 19
 Electronica 2018 is just a month away, it
being held in Munich, Germany, on November 13th through 16th. It is held every two
years at the Messe München trade-fair center. You would be forgiven for believing
that because the show has always been based in Germany that it was a German nation
brainchild. However, based on the article in a 1964 issue of Electronics
magazine - the first year of Electronica - its progenitor was the American trade
group International Electronics Association (IEA - no longer in operation). Its
founders wanted to usurp France's Salle de Composants as Europe's largest components
trade show. And now you know... the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would end
his broadcast. Strong opposition was provided by Germany's Central Association of
the Electro-Technical Industry (ZVEI - still in operation today). In the pre-Internet world, getting
the word out - especially in other countries - about a company's new product offerings...
 "Nothing in the world can take the place of
Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with
talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not;
the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are
omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems
of the human race. " -
Calvin
Coolidge, 30th president o the United States of America. Thanks to Ted Beck
for sending it to me.
 This headline about an
artificial moon immediately smelled like fake news to me - which
means a typical science-challenged reporter would buy it without question hook,
line, and sinker. It doesn't occur to the writer that in order for the scheme to
work, the satellite would need to be in geostationary orbit, 33,200 miles above
the Earth. That's a long way with a lot of light level attenuation before even entering
the densest part of the atmosphere near the surface. Scattering and dispersion would
make focusing a light beam on a particular area with enough intensity to be useful
would be impossible - especially in China's smog-filled cities. I've got a call
in to the reporter with an offer to sell him / her the Brooklyn Bridge at a good
price...
 Triad RF Systems has shipped their latest
L-Band DUAL Bi-Directional Amplifier (BDA), the TTRM1081D. This
unit is compatible with all military and commercial radios and provides over 25 W
of RF power across 1.3 to 1.4 GHz. Made specifically for MIMO radios, providing
2 radio and 2 antenna ports, each providing 5 W of 64 QAM power or 20 W
of BPSK power. The BDA operates off a single +28 V supply and provides 25 dB
of TX gain and 11 dB of RX gain in both channels. It is available with automatic
or manual switching, depending on the radio system...
 In 1970, engineers at the Hamilton Watch Company
introduced the world's first solid state electronic digital watch called the
Pulsar Time Computer. It went on sale commercially two years later,
just a few months after this article appeared in the December 1971 issue of
Popular Electronics magazine. Motorola created this "$25,000 Sundial," which
represents the research and development cost of the LED clock display that the company
predicted would one day lead to an inexpensive wristwatch. Maybe they hadn't seen
the The Tonight Show show where it made its debut in 1970. The Pulsar Big
Time watch retailed for $295 in 1972, which in 2018 is the equivalent of $1,777
(per the BLS Inflation Calculator). That's about three times the cost of the top
end Series 4 Apple Watch today, and all the Pulsar watch could do was tell time...
 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, connecting to the measurement hardware
via USB interface. The result is a lower cost, faster, more effective test process
that fits into the modern workspace in lab, production, field and secure testing
environments...
 "Researchers at the Ångström Laboratory,
are working on a way towards enhancing RF amplifiers to make them more affordable,
efficient and accessible for medical applications like cancer diagnosis. With the
upgraded technology, the cost of maintenance and operation of these amplifiers can
be reduced significantly. This research is being carried out under the EU project
ENEFRF. Dragos Dancila at the Division of Solid State Electronics
and FREIA is heading the Eurostars project ENEFRF. The plan is to develop radio-frequency
amplifiers for new cyclotrons in collaboration with GE Healthcare..."
Thursday 18
 Mr. Glen Robb, owner of
Antenna Test Lab, has an article in the October 2018 issue of
Microwaves & RF magazine titled, "Assemble
Antennas with 3D Printing. Says Rob, "Three-dimensional printers working with
plastic materials can create the foundations that are then spray-painted with metallic
coatings to form high-frequency RF / microwave antennas. Antennas are RF / microwave
components that lend themselves to 3D printing, especially with the large volumes,
miniaturization, and repeatability required for antennas in many mobile applications.
Certainly, design engineers have considered the possibility of printing different
types of miniature RF/microwave antennas. However, they may have wondered about
how the performance of these printed antennas might compare to traditionally manufactured
antennas..."
 If - and that's a big "if" - you can find
a hobby shop today, it is still a great source of tools and materials for building
electronics projects. Just as the convenience, vast selection of products, and competitive
prices of the Internet has been killing all sorts of brick and mortar stores since
the early 21st century,
local hobby shops (LHS's) have all but disappeared from most towns.
There are still a handful of full-featured, well-stocked hobby shops to be found,
but they are rare anymore. A lot of the small hobby-type hand tools (X-acto knives
and saws, Dremel tools & bits) can be bought in home improvement stores, and
the large craft stores often carry balsa, aircraft plywood, poplar wood, small gauge
brass and aluminum tubing and sheets, plastic models and paint, and Estes rockets...
 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 surface-mount 45 MHz IF
SAW filter with a 10 MHz bandwidth; a surface-mount 2050 ceramic bandpass filter
with a 900 MHz bandwidth; and a 2037.5 MHz cavity bandpass filter with
a 12 MHz bandwidth and SMA connectors. Custom RF filters designs are used when
a standard cannot be found, or the requirements are such that a custom approach
is necessary...
 Concentric Technology Solutions is your one
stop source for RF shield boxes,
RF enclosures, Bluetooth testers, WiMax testers, RFID testers and RF power amplifiers.
CTS can supply off-the-shelf or custom products for your testing needs requiring
maximum RF shielding in order to produce repeatable results in laboratory and production
environments. Manual and pneumatic operation is available. TEM cells, glove boxes,
forensic enclosures, and special purpose per your requirements.
 "Harris Corporation and L3 Technologies have
agreed to merge in an all-stock deal of equals to create a global defense technology
leader, focused on developing differentiated and mission-critical solutions for
customers around the world. Under the terms of the merger agreement, which was unanimously
approved by the boards of directors of both companies, L3 shareholders will receive
a fixed exchange ratio of 1.30 shares of Harris common stock for each share of L3
common stock, consistent with the 60-trading day average exchange ratio of the two
companies. The combined company,L3 Harris Technologies, Inc., will be the 6th largest defense
company in the U.S. and a top 10 defense company globally, with approximately 48,000
employees..."
Wednesday 17
 Most people have heard of the incredibly accurate
Norden bombsight that was credited for revolutionizing accuracy of heavy bombers
like B-17s, B-25s, and B-29s. It was an electromechanical device that took bombardier
inputs of altitude, airspeed, heading, and wind speed and direction, then calculated
the impact point of the bomb. An accuracy of 75 feet was claimed under ideal conditions
- provided by a mechanical computing device. By 1956 when this article was published,
the Norden had been replaced by radar-integrated bombing systems. Additionally,
ground-based radar measurement systems were...
 Here is why government control over the U.S.
taxpayer-funded development of the Internet should not be ceded - it makes us vulnerable
to the whims of a few megalomaniac chieftains. "Don't expect Amazon to follow Google's
lead when it comes to working with the
U.S. Department of Defense. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made a surprise
appearance at the Wired 25 conference in San Francisco on Monday. In light of Google's
decision last week to pull out of a bid for the DoD's JEDI cloud computing project,
he was asked about his philosophy in regard to big tech companies working with government.
'We are going to continue to support the DoD, and I think we should,' Bezos said..."
5G Brings New RF Challenges for Handsets
 Open your smartphone and count the antennas
within. They take on many form factors and are often multi-band, making it difficult
for the untrained eye to discern the implementation. It is a true wonder of antenna
engineering. Factor in that they have to work regardless of whether being held in
a hand, pressed between a shoulder and ear, or sitting in a pocket or handbag. Genius
is at work there. I remember during my reverse engineering days when there were
maybe three antennas in a handset. Take a look at the block diagram in this "5G Brings New RF Challenges for Handsets" MWJ article
by Ben Thomas of Qorvo and note the 8 antennas depicted. How many people can pull
off such a challenge? Beyond that there is RF signal switching and isolation, analog
and digital processing, filtering, AGC, ALC, and other tasks. Amazing...
 Just to remind you that patent laws are continually
being monkeyed with by lawmakers and challenged in court by litigants, here is a
news item from a 1965 issue of Electronics magazine reporting on a Supreme
Court case brought by Hazeltine Research regarding their
patent application for a microwave switch. Evidently over time
the Supreme Court had been raising the bar on patent filings by requiring a higher
degree of uniqueness for new inventions. The 1952 U.S. Patent Act, enacted by the
U.S. Congress, simplified the terms of claims for new patents, thus making them
easier to obtain, but according to critics, making new patents less valuable in
the process. Now (in 1965), the Supreme court was moving itself back to ward the
pre-1952 criteria. Judicial activism, anyone...
 ERZIA serves critical aerospace and defense
missions by designing and manufacturing RF, microwave, and mm-wave amplifiers, integrated assemblies operating
from low frequencies up to 100 GHz, and by providing high reliable satellite
communications. The company was founded in 2002 to become a worldwide reference
of advanced engineering, performance, reliability and ruggedness. Their catalogue
of standard amplifier modules comprises more than 100 different models, having also
a high capacity of customization for amplifiers and integrated assemblies. Some
of products have space heritage and are used in aerospace, commercial, military
and scientific systems, having a wide range of final applications...
 "Telrad Networks has announced the release
of its
MU-MIMO technology after completing a successful trial. The new
technology is set to help operators increase capacity in a network by up to 70%,
and thereby increasing subscriber connectivity rates. The new feature was tested
in the trial by long-term customer Seaside Wireless Communications, a Canadian Wireless
Internet Service Provider located in Nova Scotia. The company in recent times has
been able to double its spectral efficiency during this trial, which meant they
could add subscribers to their network within the current spectrum they already
utilize. The new feature falls into an overall strategy by the company to increase
capacity..."
Tuesday 16
 The lesson learnt (or learned) by Barney
in this
Mac's Radio Service Shop saga is one that he has learned (or learnt)
before, if you are an regular reader of the feature. As always, the story is a combination
docudrama and tutorial concerned with troubleshooting, handing customers, giving
air to some newfangled device, or instruction on circuit theory. Proprietor Mac
McGregor is usually the teacher and Barney the pupil, but on rare occasions the
roles are reversed. As you will see in this episode, radio and television set designers
ginned up all kinds of ways to accomplish the same end objective - whether to avoid
patent infringements or preferred exercising of creativity - and the nuances between
them could cause no end of frustration to even highly trained and experienced troubleshooters.
An additional inconvenience set upon technicians...
 SAW and BAW devices have been around for
many decades. They have not always been inexpensive commodities during that time,
however. When I first entered the defense electronics realm as an engineer in the
late 1980's, a SAW filter in the 70 MHz band (common for IF's in the day) could
easily cost $20 in volume quantities. They had high insertion losses and did not
handle much power. Now, of course, SAW's are dirt cheap and have much better performance.
This article titled, "SAW/BAW New Market Entrants Offer New Approaches," which appears
in the October issue of Microwave Journal, reports on some new techniques being
utilized by vendors...
 PierCon Solutions, a solid, tenured, and proven
wireless consulting and engineering firm, is in need of an experienced RF Engineer.
Based in Lincoln Park, NJ, PierCon is dedicated to providing world-class engineering
and consulting services to our customers. PierCon is a recognized leader in the
wireless designs of in-building coverage, Broadband, WiMAX/LTE, Microwave, Cellular,
Public Safety, Interoperability, PCS, iDEN (ESMR), In-Building First Responder and
In-Building cellular and WiFi, and interference mitigation. In this RF Engineer
position you will routinely assists in zoning and testimony preparation by creating
maps, summary sheets and zoning exhibits using information collected from the Client.
Occasionally performs testing of new and existing cell sites test equipment. Supports
investigation...
 As someone who has been a Windows user since
version
2.0, I have followed Microsoft co-founders
PPaul Allen and Bill Gates in the tech news for more than 3 decades.
Mr. Allen, a mere 5 years my senior, died on Monday, October 15, 2018, from
complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He generously end enthusiastically funded
aerospace research, including in conjunction with
Burt Rutan, whom I greatly admire. Looking at the included photo,
it is hard to imagine we were all that young at one time. Time is a cruel master.
Tempus fugit, and even a billion dollar fortune and good works cannot buy immortality.
RIP, Paul Allen...
 Triad RF Systems designs and manufactures
RF power amplifiers and systems.
Triad RF Systems comprises three partners (hence 'Triad')
with over 40 years of accumulated knowledge of what is required to design, manufacture,
market, sell and service RF/Microwave amplifiers and amplifier systems. PA, LNA,
bi-directional, and frequency translating amplifiers are available, in formats including
tower mount, benchtop, rack mount, and chassis mount. "We view Triad more as a technology
partner than a vendor for our line-of-sight communications product line." Please
check to see how they can help your project...
 "5G networks will likely consume more energy
than 4G, but one expert says the problem may not be as bad as it seems. A lurking
threat behind the promise of 5G delivering up to 1,000 times as much data as today's
networks is that 5G could also consume up to 1,000 times as much energy. Concerns
over
energy efficiency are beginning to show up at conferences about
5G deployments, where methods for reducing energy consumption have become a hot
topic. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has published challenging,
measurable requirements on the data rates, latency, and reliability that a network
needs to satisfy to be called 5G. While the ITU has also aimed for greater energy
efficiency, it hasn't established any measurable goals for it..."
Monday 15
 The extreme level of complexity and consolidation
of circuit functions in today's functional integrated circuit (IC) blocks makes
it so that people with almost no instruction or experience in circuit and system
design can assemble and make work some pretty impressive creations. The days of
vacuum tubes and early discrete semiconductors required a designer to know how to
properly bias and interface various sections of circuits and systems. Nowadays,
with the ready availability of impedance-matched amplifiers, filters, mixers, couplers,
detectors, and other pre-packaged components, even RF and microwave frequency systems
are within the reach of relative amateurs. Likewise, people interested in digital
and microprocessor circuits...
 Electronic Design Innovation Conference and
Exhibition (EDI CON) USA, the industry event that brings together RF/microwave and
high-speed digital design engineers and system integrators, is pleased to introduce
its EDI CON University 2018
program at its event this October 17 and 18 at the Santa Clara Convention Center.
These 2-hour sessions offer in-depth training in a particular topic, such as MIMO
Test, Amplifier Design, and Measuring Impedance. All conference pass holders are
eligible to attend, but pre-registration happens during the registration process.
After attending an EDI CON University course, attendees can earn IEEE Continuing
Education Unit/Personal Development Hour...
 Rohde & Schwarz USA (R&S USA) has
produced an Educational Note titled, "Modulation and Signal Generation with R&S® Signal Generators."
Signal generators play a vital role in electrical test and measurement; however,
choosing the right one often requires a look beyond the banner specs. This application
note does exactly that. How do analog-, vector- or arbitrary signal generators work?
What are the parameters to look at? What important information is not obvious from
the datasheet? And how do I generate a modulated signal? Download this application
note and find out more about: What a Signal Generator is and why you need one What
types of Signal Generators...
 This is the electronics market prediction
for
Russia, circa 1966. It was part of a comprehensive assessment
by the editors of Electronics magazine of the state of commercial, military,
and consumer electronics at the end of 1965. Then, as now, Russian electronics products
are not considered to be serious competition to U.S. markets. For that matter, when
is the last product of any type you bought with a "Made in Russia" stamp on it?
Even though the Soviet Iron Curtain fell in 1992, very little progress has been
made with mending fences with them. Unless you can find a news story on the state
of the industry, detailed reports must be purchased from research companies...
 Providing full solution service is our motto,
not just selling goods. RF & Connector Technology has persistently pursued a
management policy stressing quality assurance system and technological advancement.
From your very first contact, you will be supported by competent RF specialists;
all of them have several years of field experience in this industry allowing them
to suggest a fundamental solution and troubleshooting approach. Coaxial RF connectors,
cable assemblies, antennas, terminations, attenuators, couplers, dividers, and more.
Practically, we put priority on process inspection at each step of workflow as well
as during final inspection in order to actualize "Zero Defects..."
 RF Cafe's raison d'être is and always has been
to provide useful, quality content for engineers, technicians, engineering managers,
students, and hobbyists. Part of that mission is offering to post applicable job
openings. HR department employees and/or managers of hiring companies are welcome
to submit opportunities for posting at no charge (of course a gratuity will be graciously
accepted). 3rd party recruiters and temp agencies are not included so as to assure
a high quality of listings. Please read through the easy procedure to benefit from
RF Cafe's high quality visitors ...
 "One of the most enduring 'Holy Grail' experiments
in science has been attempts to directly observe
atomic motions during structural changes. This prospect underpins
the entire field of chemistry because a chemical process occurs during a transition
state - the point of no return separating the reactant configuration from the product
configuration. What does that transition state look like and, given the enormous
number of different possible nuclear configurations, how does a system even find
a way to make it happen? Now in the journal Applied Physics Letters, researchers
at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter..."
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Microsoft Cofounder Paul Allen Dies at 65