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4 of the August 2019 homepage archives. Friday 9
 It's funny how often topics crop up bemoaning
the current state of society, technology, etc., as if they are suddenly new plagues
upon the entities concerned. That's not to say the subjects are not worthy of being
brought to the forefront of public awareness, but often times in fact those same
issues are exactly the same or reincarnations of former "emergencies" in need of
immediate attention. I have posted numerous articles and editorials from vintage
electronics and hobby magazines lamenting the
poor state of youth involvement, with blame being laid in the
lap of some newfangled hobby or activity that is presently stealing away erstwhile
brethren. The effort is usually not in vain since the intended effect of motivating
fellow enthusiasts to reinvigorate and motivate those drifting prodigals ...
 Rohde & Schwarz has released a new video
entitled, "Noise Power Ratio Measurements." In it, application engineer Gareth
Lloyd discusses a convenient and easy way to measure NPR over a maximum of 25 notches.
A combination of the R&S®SMW200A vector signal generator and the R&S®FSW
signal and spectrum analyzer equipped with the R&S®FSW-K19 option can be used
to characterize two-port devices such as satellite transponders, power amplifiers
and converters. The R&S®FSW-K19 measures Noise Power Ratio (NPR) using either
a notched comb signal, a notched noise or a digitally modulated stimulus signal
to determine how the DUT will perform...
 Kenneth Wyatt has a good article on the EDN
website entitled, "Insertion Loss Measurements of Ferrite Absorber Sheets," using
a method suggested by absorber manufacturer
Würth Elektronik. Who would have known it was that straightforward?
"The development of stealth aircraft brought about the use of ferrite absorber sheets,
which have proven useful for damping cavity resonances at microwave frequencies.
Since then, ferrite absorber sheets have become useful at mitigating EMI. Most absorber
sheets act as magnetic shields that help “redirect” magnetic fields and become effective
at gigahertz frequencies. As my measurements show, some are effective even at much
lower frequencies ..."
 The
Beverage Antenna, very familiar to amateur radio operators, is
a simple but efficient, highly directional, non-resonant antenna that consists of
a single straight wire of one or more wavelengths that is suspended above the ground.
It is orientated parallel to the direction of intended reception. One end is terminated
to ground through a resistor, and the other is connected to the receiver. The following
quote comes from the patent (US1,81,089) text: "In accordance with theoretical considerations,
if an antenna were to be freely suspended and if the surface of the earth constituted
a perfectly conducting parallel plane, current waves would travel through the antenna
conductor at a velocity equal to the velocity of light ...
 ConductRF offers an extensive line of
RF and mixed signal cable harnesses and assemblies with custom
configurations, lengths and markings. Thousands of combinations of coaxial, power,
and digital and analog signal connectors available. Flexible phase-stable, low-loss,
phase-matching, high power, and other options per your requirements. Broad insert
connector solution choices including BMA, SMPM, for cable sizes #8, #12 & #16
Custom marking and ruggedization enhancements capability. Contact ConductRF today
and let us help your project ...
 "Researchers based in Sweden, Belgium and
Ireland have developed 850nm-wavelength
vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) with a single-mode
transverse polarized light output power up to a claimed record of 6.5 mW. The
team from Chalmers University of Technology and OptiGOT AB in Sweden, Ghent University-imec
in Belgium and Tyndall National Institute in Ireland reports: 'The output power
is more than 60% higher than previously achieved.' The high power was attained by
using a relatively large oxide aperture. The epitaxial material design aimed for
low resistance, low optical loss and high slope efficiency in the resulting VCSELs ..."
 SF Circuits' specialty is in the complex,
advanced technology of
PCB fabrication and assembly, producing high quality multi-layered
PCBs from elaborate layouts. With them, you receive unparalleled technical expertise
at competitive prices as well as the most progressive solutions available. Their
customers request PCB production that is outside the capabilities of normal circuit
board providers. Please take a moment to visit San Francisco Circuits today...
Thursday 8
 Television, in 1955, was still a relatively
new phenomenon to many - maybe even most - people. According to multiple sources,
the portion of American households with a TV set went from under 20% in 1950 to
nearly 90% ten years later in 1960. That was a meteoric rise, particularly considering
the expense of even a minimal TV. The technology was not even available commercially
when most people were born, so the rush to join in on the craze was akin to the
mass adoption of cellphones in the 1990s. "Carl & Jerry" creator John Frye used
his pair of electronics-savvy teenagers to help make the "magic" behind recreating
a moving picture on a
cathode ray tube (CRT) miles away from where it was created. Water
flowing through a garden hose has often been employed as an analogy for current ...
 Engineering whitepapers, pamphlets, books, magazines,
and chapter examples listed here are a small sample of a lot of new items that are
offered for FREE through TradePub. The publishers make them available to qualifying
people as a promotional campaign for their full line of offerings. Free e-books
like "Maximizing LinkedIn for Business" and "20 Questions You Should Never Ask in
an Interview" are examples. Magazine titles include Microwave Engineering Europe,
Electronic Design, and Microwave Product Digest...
 Skyworks Solutions is pleased to introduce
the
SKY85774-11, a highly integrated 5 GHz front-end module (FEM)
that supports simultaneous WLAN and licensed assisted access (LAA) protocols for
mobile smartphones and tablets. This advanced module incorporates a power amplifier
(PA), low-noise amplifier (LNA) with bypass, and an SPDT transmit / receive (T/R)
switch. Its high performance power amplifier increases range and saves power while
eliminating external devices and reducing PCB area. The SKY85774-11 comes in a compact
20-pin 2.2 x 3 package and is currently being leveraged across leading mobile connectivity
reference designs...
 As legend goes, the use of microwaves for
preparing food was pursued after a serendipitous discovery by Raytheon engineer
Percy Spencer whereby he noticed the chocolate bar in his pocket had melted while
he was working near a radar transmitter magnetron. Being a newly discovered phenomenon
in 1945, Mr. Spencer was probably not aware that his own body parts were being likewise
cooked, but he did recognize the commercial potential of an oven that used microwaves
to cook food. It only took Raytheon (Amana) to have the first
Radarange available for sale to professional kitchens. This article
was printed a full decade after the discovery and even then the size and power consumption
was too great for grandma's countertop ...
 The 44th
International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz)
is being held in Paris, France, September 1-6, 2019. "The IRMMW-THz conference alternates
between Asia, Europe and America on a continuous three-year cycle. The venue is
the Maison de la Chimie Conference Center, in the heart of Paris. Given the diversity
of topics, comprising fundamental and applied research, and in view of the variety
of applications (communications, security, energy, astrophysics, medicine, environment...),
the conference gathers several communities of physicists, academics and industrials
who meet at this occasion each year to review the state of the art and determine
the axes of future works and future collaborations ..."
 "Investigators probing the sudden failure
of the Boeing-built Intelsat 29e geostationary relay station in April have concluded
an
electrostatic discharge, aggravated by a harness flaw on the spacecraft,
or a micrometeoroid strike prematurely ended the satellite's mission, resulting
in a $382M hit to Intelsat's quarterly financial report. Intelsat said Tuesday that
officials investigating the April 7 anomaly with Intelsat 29e have narrowed the
cause of the failure to one of two possibilities. 'The failure review board concluded
that the anomaly was either caused by a harness flaw in conjunction with an electrostatic
discharge event related to solar weather activity ..."
 Alliance Test sells
used / refurbished test
equipment and offers short- and long-term rentals. They also offer repair, maintenance
and calibration. Prices discounted up to 80% off list price. Agilent/HP, Tektronix,
Anritsu, Fluke, R&S and other major brands. A global organization with ability
to source hard to find equipment through our network of suppliers. Please visit
Allied Test Equipment today to see how they can help your project...
Wednesday 7
 Here is a short tutorial on
resistor-capacitor (R-C) combinations and the time constants created
by their combinations. It's pretty basic stuff, but there are new people coming
into the field of electronics all the time so it is worth posting. Discussed are
coupling circuits, filter networks, differentiators, and time-delay circuits. The
"After Class" feature is a series run by Popular Electronics magazine in
the 1950s and 1960s. As with this installment, "After Class" presented topics on
electricity and magnetism that served not just as new material for beginners, but
was a good review even for seasoned practitioners of the craft ...
 Custom MMIC, a leading designer and manufacturer
of high performance monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs), hosted U.S.
Rep. Lori Trahan, and a number of other press and industry influencers, as part
of a ceremonial celebration to officially open their
new twenty thousand square foot office / manufacturing space and
to acknowledge the Women in Engineering Scholarship Program that Custom MMIC debuted
in 2018 and just recently announced the 2019 scholarship winners. Paul Blount, President
and CEO of Custom MMIC, kicked off the event with opening remarks explaining what
Custom MMIC does and how they are a critical part of delivering advanced and reliable
defense systems to keep our warfighters safe ...
 For some reason the
subject of grounding has been very prominent in my reading in
the last few days. The chapter I just finished reading in one of David Herres' books
on the National Electric Code (NEC) covering grounding of commercial and
residential services, an article by H. Ward Silver in QST titled,
"Grounding and Bonding Systems," and now this article by John T. Frye (of
Carl and Jerry fame) on grounding, makes for a wealth of knowledge. Mr.
Frye takes a unique approach at teaching by exploiting his gift for story-telling.
In this article, electronics repair shop owner Mac gives technician Barney a nice
bit of tutelage on what constitutes a good Earth ground and what does not. In some
environments, treating the soil with an electrically conductive substance is necessary
to establish a suitable ground without having to drive ...
 "The sensor solutions provider HENSOLDT has
demonstrated the capability of its 'Twinvis'
passive radar system for air traffic control during a comprehensive
measurement campaign. A passive radar sensor cluster was installed at four sites
in South Germany for the tests, from which air traffic above this region could be
monitored and tracked in real-time. This showed that passive radar systems can track
aircraft with sufficient precision in order to be used for air traffic control.
The sensors were positioned in Nuremberg, Roth, Erding and Ulm, while the data was
processed centrally at HENSOLDT's Ulm site ..."
 At VidaRF, the phrase 'Providing Simple Solutions
for Complex Connections' is more than just a slogan – it's a mindset, a mission,
and a driving force behind everything we do. Their pledge is to design and distribute
high performance, cost effective
RF Microwave products to fit each customer's unique applications.
Please visit VidaRF today to see how their lines of attenuators & terminations,
directional couplers, power dividers, coaxial connectors, and circulator & isolators
can be of use to your project. "When the standard just will not do, VidaRF has the
solution for you!..."
Tuesday 6
 Finding information on the
Osgood Lens, invented by James R. Cravath, is challenging.
For as prominent as it was in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post
in the late 1910s and 1920s, there is not even a Wikipedia entry for the lens type
or the man according to my searches. Although not exactly the same as the Fresnel
lenses used by lighthouses since the 18th century, the concept is basically the
same. Of course the Osgood company was careful not to use the term Fresnel in their
literature for potential patent infringement reasons. Some vehicles might have been
fitted with them as a factory installed option, but they were also sold as add-on
items. According to the literature the tiered stack of prism-shaped glass directed
the headlight beam toward the road ...
 NI AWR presents it July 2019 E-Newsletter.
Included in this issue are Designer's Primer: Internet of Things (IoT), Customer
Success: TMYTEK, Application Example: Diplexer, and Optimization Study. There are
also links to NI AWR technical publications (whitepapers and magazine articles),
industry events (European Microwave Week 2019, IEIEC Society Conference), and training
sessions. The new primer showcases recent advances in NI AWR software that help
designers meet the challenges of developing cost-effective IoT solutions using a
modular design approach that focuses on combining all the relevant components in
the RF signal path ...
 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...
 Did you know that the Hallicrafters line
of radios is
named after founder Bill Halligan (W9WZE)? Hallicrafters, founded
in 1932, was a major manufacturer of amateur radio gear. During the years of WWII
they ruggedized some of their products to survive the harsh environments of battle.
Hallicrafters was sold to Northrop Corporation in 1966, at which time the product
line essentially ceased. Their gear is still very collectible by aficionados of
vintage Ham equipment. This story from the February 1943 QST provided an
inside look at the production floor at Hallicrafters. Having cut my figurative electronics
teeth on radar and radio equipment built with tubes and point-to-point wiring while
in the USAF, and then later as an assembly/test technician at Westinghouse Electric
building sonar equipment ...
 Dave Watling, of pSemi, sent me a note about
the company's new "sNp Viewer"
multiport s-parameter plotting software that is available for free downloading on
the pSemi website. It is provided as an executable file that installs the Runtime
Vee (Keysight) framework needed for the program's operation. Look for the sNp Viewer
icon to appear on your desktop (not in the Start menu) when installation is complete.
You can drag the icon into the Start menu afterwards. My guess is this was an tool
developed for internal use by the engineering staff and it turned out so well that
they decided to make it available to everyone; it is quite handy. The example screen
shot at the right uses the pSemi* PE42430 UltraCMOS® SP3T Reflective RF Switch,
which is a 4-port device with a .s4p data file extension. I wanted to use a device
with more than just two ports. The plots would get really busy ...
 Anatech Electronics (AEI) manufactures and
supplies RF and microwave
filters for military and commercial communication systems, providing standard
LP, HP, BP, BS, notch, diplexer, and custom RF filters, and RF products. Standard
RF filter and cable assembly products are published in our website database for
ease of procurement. Custom RF filters designs are used when a standard cannot be
found, or the requirements dictate a custom approach. Sam Benzacar's monthly newsletters
address contemporary wireless subjects. Please visit Anatech today to see how they
can help your project succeed...
 "More than 100 years after Albert Einstein
published his iconic
theory of general relativity, it is beginning to fray at the edges,
said Andrea Ghez, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy. Now, in the most comprehensive
test of general relativity near the monstrous black hole at the center of our galaxy,
Ghez and her research team report July 25 in the journal Science that Einstein's
theory of general relativity holds up. 'Einstein's right, at least for now,' said
Ghez, a co-lead author of the research. 'We can absolutely rule out Newton's law
of gravity. Our observations are consistent with Einstein's theory of general relativity.
However, his theory is definitely showing vulnerability. It cannot fully explain
gravity inside a black hole, and at some point we will need to move beyond ..."
 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!
Monday 5
 Electric induction heating has been used in
manufacturing processes since shortly after Benjamin Franklin invented electricity.
Of course I jest about Franklin; he didn't invent electricity but discovered that
lightning was a form of electrical discharge. One of the most energy-consuming forms
of induction heating is that used by Alcoa for smelting aluminum. Beyond that are
many thousands of processes ranging from forming, tempering, and joining metal parts
to cooking food and curing adhesives. Both Tocco and Ajax-Northrup, now Ajax Tocco,
brands of equipment are featured in this 1955 article which appeared in Popular
Electronics magazine. Some processes work by directly inducing a high current
in the primary target object - usually metallic - being treated ...
 Innovative Power Products (IPP) has over
30 years of experience designing & manufacturing RF & microwave passive
components. Their high power, broadband couplers, combiners, resistors, baluns, terminations and attenuators
are fabricated using the latest materials and design tools available, resulting
in unrivaled product performance. Applications in military, medical, industrial
and commercial markets. Take a couple minutes to visit their website and see how
IPP can help you today...
 Come see the future (it used to be the future,
now it is now.) Thursday, August 8, at approximately 7:45 pm ET, Alan Dewey will
give a short demonstration of desktop circuit board printing and soldering (and
drilling if time permits). He will be using the
Voltera V-One PCB Printer. The demo will be held for the Clearwater
Electronics at the
Clearwater Amateur Radio Association, in - guess where -Clearwater,
Florida. Alan has written extensively on his TwoHourCPBs.com website to promote leading-edge desktop PCB prototyping
printers...
 How is this for a prescient prediction from
the early 1960s? "As a result of modular and integrated circuitry techniques, all
future circuit design work, regardless of degree, will become the responsibility
of the component manufacturer instead of the equipment producer." Texas Instruments'
(TI) Jack Kilby is credited with designing the first integrated circuit
in 1958. The first commercial IC, Ti's
Type 502
flip-flop, had just hit the market in early 1960, and already pundits were prognosticating
and ruing the disappearance of circuit designers. Maybe it was concerns over job
security that they seem to favor forever building every circuit from discrete transistors,
resistors, capacitors, and inductors. Rumor has it they also lobbied for the perpetual
existence of the buggy whip and horse-drawn farrow industries ...
 "Moore's Law has lost a lot of momentum in
recent years. Now it looks like Austrian researchers are preparing the next big
thing for semiconductor technology: Their breakthrough could well open the door
to the next step to again
shrink transistor structures. For decades the transistors in microchips
became smaller and smaller. About every two years the number of transistors on commercially
available chips could be doubled - this phenomenon became known as 'Moore's Law.'
But for some years now this has been a thing of the past. Miniaturization has reached
a natural limit because, on a scale of a few nanometers ..."
 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...
Sunday 4
 This
RF Cafe Engineering & Science Crossword Puzzle contains at
least 10 words from headlines posted on the homepage during the week of July 29
- August 2, 2019 (marked with an asterisk*). These custom-made engineering and science-themed
crossword puzzles are done weekly for the brain-exercising benefit and pleasure
of RF Cafe visitors who are fellow cruciverbalists. Every word and clue - without
exception - in these RF Cafe puzzles has been personally entered into a very large
database that encompasses engineering, science, physical, astronomy, mathematics,
chemistry ...
These archive pages are provided in order to make it easier for you to find items
that you remember seeing on the RF Cafe homepage. Of course probably the easiest
way to find anything on the website is to use the "Search
RF Cafe" box at the top of every page.
About RF Cafe.
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