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Tuesday the 8th
 Sporadic E propagation has been a significant
source for long-distance (DX) radio signal communications for voice, and Morse code
(CW) for as long as radio has been around, with digital data having joined the activity
sometime around the 1970s. Many contest are organized around the phenomenon where
the regions of the ionosphere's E-layer are to some extent randomly (as "sporadic"
suggests) ionized by solar electron ejections in a manner that renders it highly
conductive to certain wavelengths - primarily VHF (30-300 MHz). VHF is typically
a line-of-sight transmission path. Via one or more jumps, signals can travel very
long distances, even half-way around the world. Just as radio listeners considered
it a challenge to pick up broadcasts from far away, so, too, did some television
watchers. I know a couple guys who in the 1960s and 1970s engaged in the
TV DX sport. One says he could sometimes pick up, say, Miami, Florida from his
home in Madison, Wisconsin. Another living as a kid in Bangor, Maine, claims to
have picked up TV stations in Puerto Rico. This 1954 Radio-Electronics contains
many instances of reports from avid TV DXers who...
 One of the news websites I frequent had a
note about this "Evolution
of Transistor Innovation" video produced by Intel. In a span of five minutes
you are taken on a journey from the early planar MOSFET (metal oxide semiconductor
field effect transistor) days to today's world of 3-dimensional, non-planar FINFET
(fin field effect transistor). Physical layout, materials, and lithography advances
allowed gate lengths to shrink from 12 μm in the early 1970s to a mere 10 nm
by 2020. Switching speeds have gone up, die sizes have gone down, power consumption
per gate has decreased, and reliability has increased. At every juncture we have
been served stories of a certain end to Moore's law (a doubling of gate count every
18-24 months), and thanks to dedicated engineers and scientists the prognosticators
have been proven wrong...
 Teledyne e2v HiRel announces the new
TD99102 UltraCMOS® High-speed FET and GaN transistor driver offering very high
switching speed of 20 MHz. The new flip-chip part is ideal for driving Teledyne
HiRel's 100 V high reliability GaN HEMT devices in DC-DC, AC-DC converters, orbital
Point-of-Load (POL) modules and space motor drives. The TD99102 is an integrated
high-speed driver designed to control the gates of external power devices such as
enhancement mode gallium nitride (GaN) High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT)
and power MOSFETs. The outputs of the TD99102 are capable of providing switching
transition speeds in the sub-nanosecond range for switching applications up to 20
MHz. The TD99102 is optimized for matched dead time and offers best-in-class propagation
delay to improve system bandwidth. High switching speeds result in smaller peripheral
components and enable innovative designs for high reliability orbital motor driver
and POL applications...
 Here are the schematics and parts list for
the
Garod model 5A1 "Ensign" tabletop radio. They appeared in the September 1947
issue of Radio News magazine. Unlike with a lot of these service data sheets,
there was no textual description of the circuit functions or an alignment procedure.
A nicely restored example of the Garod 5A1 "Ensign" Tabletop radio can be seen on
the RadioMuseum.org website. There are still many people who restore and service
these vintage radios, and often it can be difficult or impossible to find schematics
and/or tuning information. That makes today's situation similar to what existed
back in the era where such information was difficult to obtain without having an
inside line to the manufacturer. I keep a running list of all data sheets to facilitate
a search...
 Here is a great article reporting on a recent
breakthrough in nuclear fusion for electrical power generation -
Lattice Confinement
Fusion (LCF). My first thought was that this is the latest cold fusion gimmick,
but the method is distinctly different. The author does a nice job of stepping through
the evolution of nuclear fusion research as he arrives at the new method which manages
to store fusible elements at a density only 3 orders of magnitude lower than that
required for spontaneous fusion - and at room temperature! Pumping in a relatively
low level of excitation power is enough to trigger the reaction, which continues
only for as long as the stimulus persists; i.e., totally controlled. I thought for
sure by now we would have fusion reactors online, having read of this technology
since the early tokamak days in the 1970s with promises of unlimited sun-like power
generation. We'll be waiting a while longer, though, since this is still nowhere
near a break-even point of power input vs. power output. In the mean time, I'll
keep rooting for the researchers.
 This assortment of custom-designed themes
by RF Cafe includes T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks, Tote Bags, Coffee Mugs and Steins,
Purses, Sweatshirts, and Baseball Caps. Choose from amazingly clever "We Are the World's
Matchmakers" Smith chart design or the "Engineer's Troubleshooting Flow Chart."
My "Matchmaker's" design has been ripped off by other people and used on their products,
so please be sure to purchase only official RF Cafe gear. My markup is only a paltry
50¢ per item - Cafe Press gets the rest of your purchase price. These would make
excellent gifts for husbands, wives, kids, significant others, and for handing out
at company events or as rewards for excellent service. It's a great way to help
support RF Cafe. Thanks...
 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.
Monday the 7th
 Ironically (for me, anyway), this "Serviceman's
Experiences" feature from a 1942 issue of Radio News magazine was the
next on my to-do list of stories right after "An Inside Story About Metal Tubes"
which appeared in a 1935 edition of Radio-Craft magazine. Two entire issues
were dedicated to the subject. Vacuum tubes with metal casings were relatively new
in 1935 and would, according to prognosticators of the day, quickly supplant the
normal glass enclosure, but history shows they never did; glass tubes were still
in the majority up until the time they were finally nearly totally phased out by
semiconductor devices in the early 1970s. In this article, the dialog opens with
servicemen complaining about needing to remove metal tubes from their sockets in
order to see the part number markings, but that is not the moral presented in the
saga. Rather, the takeaway here for service businesses is to be sure to leave a
customer satisfied that you care about your reputation and your customer's needs
more than making a profit. Many episodes of Mac's Service Shop emphasize the same
thing. I'm not sure how far you should go...
 Metal-encased vacuum tubes were such a big
deal when they arrived on the scene in the mid 1930s that two successive issues
of Radio-Craft devoted the majority of print space to them. Metal tubes,
as admitted by editor and author Hugo Gernsback, did not perform as well electrically
as glass tubes yet, but that was attributed to the infancy of the technology. Overwhelming
positives, including ruggedness, lower cost of production, longevity (lifetime)
and other aspects would ensure that metal tubes "are here to stay." They never did
even come close to replacing glass tubes. One of the most interesting statements
in the article has nothing to do with metal tubes, but Mr. Gernsback's understanding
of special relativity; to wit, "...unless you have Einsteinian faculties that enable
you to look around corners." In 1935, a mere three decades after Einstein published
is theory, very few people had even heard of the phenomenon...
 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. For anyone seeking a way to offload surplus or obsolete
equipment, they offer a trade-in program or they will buy the equipment from you.
Some vintage items are available fully calibrated. Please check out Axiom Test Equipment
today!
 As I have written in a couple articles,
there was a huge push in the mid 1930s to adopt the revolutionary new
metal-encased vacuum tubes over established glass-encased tubes. The entire
October 1935 issue of Radio-Craft magazine was dedicated to extolling the
virtues of using metal tubes, entirely eliminating glass tubes in all sockets, "with
a resulting improvement in selectivity, sensitivity and a marvelous increase in
fidelity of tone." Today, interest in vacuum tube amplifiers is building among audio
enthusiasts both from a nostalgic perspective and from a long-perpetuated belief
that sound from vacuum tube circuits have a distinctively richer audio quality than
that of solid state devices due to the microphonics of the physical elements which
expand and contract with the signal. I post this stuff for the benefit of those
who otherwise might not be able to find the information otherwise...
 Copper Mountain Technologies'
S5180B 2-Port 18 GHz Compact VNA will serve as an enhanced version of its
predecessor, the S5180 Compact VNA. S5180B is the first CMT VNA with built-in Pulse
Modulation Generation/Measurement capabilities which will expand measurement proficiency
for the development, manufacturing, and testing of high-power amplifiers. The Pulse
Modulation feature is a paid software option sold separately from the VNA and is
only compatible with the S5180B VNA due to hardware requirements. The Pulse Modulation
option can be added at any time during or after the initial VNA purchase. Pulse
modulated measurements are useful for high power amplifier development, manufacturing,
and testing, especially on-wafer components where a heat sync isn't practical. 5180B
has built-in hardware to support various types of pulse measurements when used with
the Pulse Modulation software option. Pulses can be generated...
 Here is a fascinating story from a 1946
issue of the ARRL's QST magazine of the ordeal one Catholic priest experienced
while serving in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation in World War II.
Father Visintainer exploited his personal interest in
radio communications to help keep local residents apprised of the war's progress
and talk to the outside world. Japanese troops confiscated all the existing shortwave
radios and converted them to their own frequencies. Some were re-converted by daring
servicemen and then hidden. Batteries were recharged using covert water wheel powered
generators located in the woods. Drama hit a peak one day when an attempt to formulate
a make-shift battery electrolyte resulted in an explosion that brought Japanese
running to the church lab. For a guy who claims, "But I am not a chemist," he has
an amazing knowledge of chemicals. Read on to learn how Father Visintainer escaped
certain death...
 With more than 1000
custom-built symbols, this has got to be the most comprehensive set of
Visio Symbols available for RF, analog, and digital system and schematic
drawings! Every object has been built to fit proportionally on the provided
A-, B- and C-size drawing page templates (or can use your own). Symbols are provided
for equipment racks and test equipment, system block diagrams, conceptual drawings,
and schematics. Unlike previous versions, these are NOT Stencils, but instead are
all contained on tabbed pages within a single Visio document. That puts everything
in front of you in its full glory. Just copy and paste what you need on your drawing.
The file format is XML so everything plays nicely with Visio 2013 and later...
 KR Electronics designs and manufactures
high quality filters for both the commercial and military markets. KR Electronics'
line of filters
includes lowpass, highpass, bandpass, bandstop and individually synthesized filters
for special applications - both commercial and military. State of the art computer
synthesis, analysis and test methods are used to meet the most challenging specifications.
All common connector types and package form factors are available. Please visit
their website today to see how they might be of assistance. Products are designed
and manufactured in the USA.
Sunday the 6th
 This custom made crossword puzzle for March
6th, 2022, from RF Cafe has a
radio technology theme. All RF Cafe crossword puzzles are custom made by me,
Kirt Blattenberger, and have only words and clues related to RF, microwave, and
mm-wave engineering, optics, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and other technical
subjects. As always, this crossword puzzle contains no names of politicians, mountain
ranges, exotic foods or plants, movie stars, or anything of the sort unless it/he/she
is related to this puzzle's technology theme (e.g., Reginald Denny or the Tunguska
event in Siberia). The technically inclined cruciverbalists amongst us will appreciate
the effort. Enjoy...
 Please take a few moments to visit the
everythingRF website to see how they can assist
you with your project. everythingRF is a product discovery platform for RF and microwave
products and services. They currently have 267,269 products from more than 1397
companies across 314 categories in their database and enable engineers to search
for them using their customized parametric search tool. Amplifiers, test equipment,
power couplers and dividers, coaxial connectors, waveguide, antennas, filters, mixers,
power supplies, and everything else. Please visit everythingRF today to see how
they can help you.
Friday the 4th
 Here are six more
schematics and parts lists for radio models current when the June 1948 issue
of Radio News magazine was published. Included are the Mantola Models 92503
and 92504, the Emerson Model 508 Series 8-7434351 and Up, the Belmont Model A-5D118,
the Wards Model 74BR-2707A, the Crosley Model 56TP-L, and the Admiral Model 7C60
Chassis 6B1. Of course all use vacuum tube for signal and DC power amplification
and rectification. Many of the electronics magazines of the era posted these
as a service to repair shops and fix-it-yourselfers who did not have access to manufacturers'
technical data. A lot of the companies would sell service information only to licensed
sales and service shops...
 "A metasurface that can be reconfigured using
electric motors has been designed by researchers in the US and China. The structure
can be programmed in real time to control impinging electromagnetic waves and was
developed by a team led by Weili Zhang at Oklahoma State University. The metasurface
comprises an
array of dielectric 'meta-atoms,' which can be reoriented in groups. The set-up
enabled the team to use the device to perform three very different tasks that involved
manipulating microwaves. Metasurfaces are ultrathin films that comprise arrays of
tiny dielectric structures that behave much like atoms - hence they are called meta-atoms.
The meta-atoms are separated by distances smaller than the wavelengths of incoming
electromagnetic waves. The result is a modification of the amplitude, phase and
polarization of incoming wavefronts..."
 Carl Kohler has done it again with his saga
of a DIYer-gone-overboard titled "Operation
Chaos," as it appeared in a 1956 issue of Popular Electronics magazine.
Nobody knows for sure whether the over-enthusiastic husband in the series of techie
stories that ran in Popular Electronics magazine in the 1950s was actually Carl
himself or maybe an alter ego version of himself. Carl was also the artist of numerous
tech-related comics. His wife, affectionately referred to as "Old Big Eyes" and
a certified "lady-telepath" is always quick to recognize the impending disaster
about to ensue, often with her as an unwilling participant. This particular project
is not one recommended for the undertaking by anyone within eyeshot since aside
from being profoundly unsafe, these days it would likely illicit a visit by a child
welfare and/or animal rights Gestapo agent, accompanied by a police officer. The
"Kohler Stroller" (which might be a hint as to whether this is about Carl himself)
was actually an early version of today's wide selection of battery-powered toy cars
and carts for tykes...
 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 $25. We're leading the way again!
 Aegis Power Systems, a leading supplier
of AC-DC and DC-DC power supplies for custom and special applications, is pleased
to announce the release of two new
AC-DC power supplies for ground vehicles and other defense applications. Both
the AP14G02K0282 and the AP14G01K2282 offer single phase 85-264 Vac input and
28 Vdc output. These power supplies are suitable for harsh environments with
IP68 waterproof enclosure, humidity rating up to 95%, and ability to withstand extreme
temperatures. Further, they have been tested for MIL-STD-810G and MIL-STD-461F for
ground applications such as military vehicles, battery chargers, radars, naval equipment,
and other similar defense applications. With a power factor of 0.99 at 115 Vac,
these units are designed to support demanding electrical requirements with high
efficiency and conditioning. The AP14G02K0282 offers 2000 W power and the AP14G01K2282
offers 1200 W. Both units provide good thermal performance through convection
cooling, no need for external or internal fans...
 Finding current information on the ARRL's
Brass Pounders
League (BPL) is difficult, and in fact a search on the ARRL.org website does
not get you to a page with a date more recent than around 2012. I don't know whether
the BPL has been "obsoleted" or just does not enjoy the promotion level it once
did. This article in The Dipole publication reviews a bit of the history
of the Brass Pounders League, and even mentions Mary A. Dougherty (a.k.a Mae Burke,
W3CUL), who is featured in this 1953 QST article. She was born in 1911 and became
a Silent Key in 1997. If I wasn't so busy, I would do some research to find out
what the percentage of licensed female Hams was in 1953 compared with today. I wouldn't
be surprised if the number was higher in 1953...
RF Cascade Workbook is the next phase in the evolution of
RF Cafe's long-running series, RF Cascade Workbook. Chances are you have
never used a spreadsheet quite like this (click here for screen capture). It is a full-featured RF system
cascade parameter and frequency planner that includes filters and mixers for a mere
$45. Built in MS Excel, using RF Cascade Workbook 2018 is a cinch
and the format is entirely customizable. It is significantly easier and faster than
using a multi-thousand dollar simulator when a high level system analysis is all
that is needed. An intro video takes you through the main features...
 Since 1996, ISOTEC has designed, developed
and manufactured an extensive line of RF/microwave connectors, between-series adapters, RF components
and filters for wireless service providers including non-magnetic connectors for
quantum computing and MRI equipments etc. ISOTEC's product line includes low-PIM
RF connectors components such as power dividers and directional couplers. Off-the-shelf
and customized products up to 40 GHz and our low-PIM products can meet -160 dBc
with 2 tones and 20 W test. Quick prototyping, advanced in-house testing and
high-performance. Designs that are cost effective practical and repeatable.
Thursday the 3rd
 Accuse me of whatever you want, but I sure
wish a lot of the early and middle 20th century stalwart industrial and technology
companies were still around. Some exist as a remnant of their former selves after
having been absorbed into some other company - often a foreign concern. Others have
been broken into separate parts with new names (e.g., Hewlett Packard into HP &
Agilent/Keysight) while losing their founding identities. A few have retained their
name (or part of it) while being owned and managed by foreign companies.
Bell Systems is probably the poster child and most famous company forced to
surrender its identity due to a court-ordered breakup following a monopoly lawsuit.
As I have mentioned many times before, Bell is responsible for America's dominance
in telecommunications in the 20th century. In this 1954 issue of Radio-Electronics
magazine announces Bell Telephone Labs' development of ultra pure germanium crystals
for fabricating semiconductors...
 "Scientists at the University of California,
Berkeley have persuaded two trapped ions to interact over a distance of 620 µm
- much larger than would be possible via their intrinsic interaction - by connecting
them with a room-temperature wire. This proof-of-principle experiment provides a
pathway to more precise measurements of fundamental physics based on
long-distance
interactions between trapped particles. Trapped-ion technologies are an incredibly
useful tool in physics. They are a leading candidate to build the quantum bits,
or qubits, that make up quantum computers because ions are relatively easy to isolate
and high-fidelity gate operations can be performed by the relatively simple means
of shining laser light on the ions. Trapped ions are also used to make ultra-precise
measurements of fundamental physics, for example in a recently-developed trapped-ion
sensor that might prove useful...
 1940 was a big year in the commercial broadcast
industry because it was when the FCC began
licensing stations for FM operation. Amazingly, that was only four years after
Edwin Armstrong first came up with his frequency modulation scheme - fast moving
for the government. Simultaneously, equipment manufacturers were cranking out transmitters,
receivers, antennas (new frequencies), writing installation and operation guidelines,
training servicemen, and doing scores of other vitally important tasks. The advent
of FM was considered a very significant technical improvement because of immunity
to electrical noise interference. If for no other reason, you should look at this
National Radio News magazine article to see the photo of the megavolt artificial
lightning discharge created to test and demonstrate FM's tolerance of such phenomena...
 If
you have been working with computers since the mid- to late 1980s, then you have
witnessed an amazing
evolution of
graphics presentations for hardware, software, and firmware. 16-color, 320x200-pixel
CGA monitors were at one time considered a great leap forward in the basic user
interface compared to monochrome. Those green glowing blocky alphanumeric displays
seen in 1970s and 80s TV shows and movies were avant-garde at a time not so really
long ago. Per this Electronic Design website article, "Jon Peddie has put together
short overviews of graphics chips that have made a major impact over the years.
It is a fun look back at how we got to where GPGPUs are the norm." You might enjoy
the trip down memory lane either from personal experience of vicariously through
Mr. Peddie's...
 Early automobiles presented significant
challenges to
mobile
radio designers due to a combination of a fledgling understanding of electrical
and electronic circuits and quickly evolving automotive materials and configurations.
A 1935 issue of Radio-Craft magazine presented eight radio designs that represented
break-through techniques for dealing with some of those innovations. All of the
technical issues involved here have been pretty much solved in modern radios. Ignition
interference is nearly invisible to FM and satellite reception, although audio frequency
circuits can still pick up noise if not properly filtered and wired. Only dinosaurs
like me still listen to AM broadcasts in the car and still hear occasional interference.
Front end sensitivities and antenna design and placement have greatly extended reception
range, although multipath, particularly in urban areas, is probably worse now than
in the 1930s because there are vastly more sources of signal reflection. All of
the radios, as did the Emerson 5A automotive radio, employed some sort of electromechanical
DC-DC converter scheme in order to obtain the couple hundred volts needed to bias
vacuum tubes from the car or truck 6-volt electrical system...
This assortment of custom-designed themes
by RF Cafe includes T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks, Tote Bags, Coffee Mugs and Steins,
Purses, Sweatshirts, and Baseball Caps. Choose from amazingly clever "We Are the World's
Matchmakers" Smith chart design or the "Engineer's Troubleshooting Flow Chart."
My "Matchmaker's" design has been ripped off by other people and used on their products,
so please be sure to purchase only official RF Cafe gear. My markup is only a paltry
50¢ per item - Cafe Press gets the rest of your purchase price. These would make
excellent gifts for husbands, wives, kids, significant others, and for handing out
at company events or as rewards for excellent service. It's a great way to help
support RF Cafe. Thanks...
 TotalTemp Technologies has more than 40 years
of combined experience providing thermal platforms.
Thermal Platforms
are available to provide temperatures between -100°C and +200°C for cryogenic cooling,
recirculating circulating coolers, temperature chambers and temperature controllers,
thermal range safety controllers, space simulation chambers, hybrid benchtop chambers,
custom systems and platforms. Manual and automated configurations for laboratory
and production environments. Please contact TotalTemp Technologies today to learn
how they can help your project.
Wednesday the 2nd
 Modelithics is pleased to announce the release
of version 22.0 of the
COMPLETE+3D Library for use with Ansys HFSS. Included in this library are nearly
360 highly scalable Microwave Global Models™ for capacitor, inductor, and resistor
families from many popular vendors. Also included is Modelithics' collection of
over 500 3D electromagnetic (EM) geometry models for inductors, capacitors, filters,
packages, and connectors. With both circuit and 3D EM models, the Modelithics COMPLETE+3D
Library now represents a total of more than 24,500 individual components. Version
22.0 adds new Microwave Global Models for various part families, including the AMOTECH
A60Z and A60L capacitor series and the Coilcraft 0201HL inductor series. New Microwave
Global Models are also available for the Kyocera-AVX 08051C capacitor series and
the Yageo CQ0201 and CQ0402 capacitor series. Additional new Microwave Global Models
are available for part families from KEMET, TDK, and Würth Elektronik...
 Here are four more comics from magazines
of the days of yore, in this case way back to 1945 (only 3 years before I was born
- yikes!). Evidently Radio-Craft readers would submit ideas for funnies
and then artist Frank Beaven would draw the comics. For some of them you need to
be a little familiar with situations of the era, but usually you can discern what
is going on anyway. An exception might be the first one here from page 712, where
you need to know that a special "cat's eye" or "magic eye" vacuum tube was used
in some radios to indicate how close you are tuned to the band center for a station.
I particularly like the one here with the radio aerial stretched between the two
teepees. It is rare to find a comic in a technical or hobby magazine these days.
I don't know why that is. Enjoy...
 Axiom Test Equipment, an electronic test
equipment rental and sales company has published a very unique and helpful new blog
post entitled "Believe
in the Benefits of Bidirectional Power Supplies." A bi-directional DC power
supply makes it possible to evaluate how changes on supply voltage, current, or
power affect the performance of a device under test. A bidirectional DC power supply
is often used in CV or CC mode to simulate a rechargeable battery for a device under
test, to better understand how a device or circuit will operate when its voltage
fluctuates or drops below its nominal operating current or power level. With its
bidirectional capabilities a regenerative DC power supply simplifies testing of
such components as motor inverters, batteries, bidirectional on-board chargers (BOBCs),
and bidirectional DC-to-DC converters without having to switch connections when
testing the reverse current as with a conventional DC power supply...
 This
Capacitor Function Quiz appeared in the March 1962 issue of Popular Electronics
magazine. You can mentally substitute semiconductor diodes and transistors in place
of the vacuum tubes is needed to figure out what role the capacitor plays in the
circuits. Many of the configurations and function names are unfamiliar in today's
design environment, but with some imagination you can probably figure out most of
them. That said, I won't embarrass myself by telling you what my score was...
 A lot of people are desiring to leave the
city and suburb environment with ever-increasing crime rates and exorbitantly high
taxes. If for that or any other reason you or someone you know is considering buying
a
country home with horse facilities, please take a look here. Located in a quiet
area about 10 miles from Greensboro, NC, you will find that an affordable, comfortable,
convenient, safe family life is still possible! My daughter, Sally, has decided
to put her horse farm property up for sale. She built a very successful horse riding,
training, and boarding business - Equine Kingdom - around it from the ground up
over a period of eleven years. Due to a debilitating back injury, she can no longer
perform the duties and maintenance necessary to sustain the operation. Formal lessons
and long-term boarding ceased at the end of 2021, and now the entire property is
being offered as a private home with extensive horse facilities. Of course you could
re-establish it as a fully outfitted income-producing business with on-property
living. At the time Equine Kingdom closed, Sally had more than 80 students and 5
part-time instructors...
 It was a lot of work, but I finally finished
a version of the "RF & Electronics Schematic & Block Diagram Symbols" that
works well with Microsoft Office™ programs Word™, Excel™, and Power Point™.
This is an equivalent of the extensive set of amplifier, mixer, filter, switch,
connector, waveguide, digital, analog, antenna, and other commonly used symbols
for system block diagrams and schematics created for Visio™. Each of the 1,000 or
so symbols was exported individually from Visio in the EMF file format, then imported
into Word on a Drawing Canvas. The EMF format allows an image to be scaled up or
down without becoming pixelated, so all the shapes can be resized in a document
and still look good. The imported symbols can also be UnGrouped into their original
constituent parts for editing. Check them out!
 Innovative Power Products (IPP) has over
35 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 are serviced around the world. Products listed on website
link to detailed mechanical drawings that contain electrical specifications as well
as performance data. Please take a couple minutes to visit their website and see
how IPP can help you today.
Tuesday the 1st
 If you are looking for a very thorough treatise
on
transformers, from AC line frequency up through audio and RF frequencies, but
without a lot of formulas to distract you, then this article by Ken Gilmore is it.
He begins with the fundamentals of a current setting up a magnetic field, talks
about mutual coupling and induction, step-up- and step-down transformers, autotransformers,
iron and laminated core transformers, multi-tap voltage and impedance matching transformers,
and even touches on the mage-size transformers in electrical distribution system
substations. Transformers fundamentally work the same way today as they did when
first invented in the 1830s. Equations for simulations have been refined to the
nth degree, but for the vast majority of mankind this article will suffice to provide
a better-than-a-layman's knowledge of the principles...
 "Computers are getting smaller and smaller,
just as current cell phones offer computing power similar to that of a laptop. And
the trend toward miniaturization continues.
Smart Dust applications (tiny microelectronic devices), such as biocompatible
sensor systems in the body, demand computers and batteries smaller than a dust mote.
So far, this development has been hindered by two main factors: lack of on-chip
power sources for operation anytime and anywhere and difficulties in producing integrable
microbatteries. In the current issue of Advanced Energy Materials, Prof. Dr. Oliver
G. Schmidt, head of the Professorship for Material Systems of Nanoelectronics and
Scientific Director of the Center for Materials, Architectures and Integration of
Nanomembranes (MAIN) at Chemnitz University of Technology, Dr. Minshen Zhu, who
has been working..."
 Being an old-school old guy (turn 64 this
year), I still work the
crossword puzzle in the daily newspaper - surely you've heard of antiquated
print media form of which I am the only house on my street which has it delivered
daily. I also like the cryptogram type word jumble puzzles. Working the Sudoku puzzles
is also a pencil and paper exercise (as opposed to interactive online) because of
my method of figuring out the numbers. My older sister is a whiz at them, and she
does them on her iPhone. Old habits die hard, as the saying goes. But I digress.
In addition to the weekly RF Cafe Engineering and Science crossword puzzles I create
each week, I also like to post crosswords that appeared in the vintage electronics
magazines. This one appeared in the March 1962 issue of Popular Electronics...
With more than 1000
custom-built symbols, this has got to be the most comprehensive set of
Visio Symbols available for RF, analog, and digital system and schematic
drawings! Every object has been built to fit proportionally on the provided
A-, B- and C-size drawing page templates (or can use your own). Symbols are provided
for equipment racks and test equipment, system block diagrams, conceptual drawings,
and schematics. Unlike previous versions, these are NOT Stencils, but instead are
all contained on tabbed pages within a single Visio document. That puts everything
in front of you in its full glory. Just copy and paste what you need on your drawing.
The file format is XML so everything plays nicely with Visio 2013 and later...
 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.
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