Homepage Archive - May 2023 (page 4)

Friday the 2nd

Thursday the 1st

Wednesday the 31st

Tuesday the 30th

Monday the 29th

Gone But Not Forgotten

There are no  official lyrics for "Taps;" however, this is the most common version:
"Day is done, gone the sun, From the hills, from the lake, from the skies. All is well, safely rest, God is nigh. Go to sleep, peaceful sleep, may the soldier or sailor, God keep. On the land or the deep, Safe in sleep. Love, good night, must thou go, when the day, and the night need thee so? All is well. Speedeth all To their rest. Fades the light; And afar Goeth day, And the stars Shineth bright, Fare thee well; Day has gone, night is on. Thanks and praise, for our days, 'Neath the sun, Neath the stars, 'Neath the sky, As we go, this we know, God is nigh."

General Radio Company

This advertisement for General Radio Company's Recording Wave Analyzer (1965 Electronics magazine) caught my eye due to the chain-driven interface between the upper Type 1900-A Wave Analyzer and lower Type 1521-B Graphic Level Recorder chassis. Maybe that can be considered an early form of the GPIB - General [Instruments] Physical Interface Bus. I wonder how many neckties, a rigidly-enforced item of professional dress code of the era, got caught in those exposed gears? ...or fingers for that matter? OSHA would condemn such a platform these days. It is not apparent from the photograph whether there is also an electrical interface. The quality of the printed chart output is phenomenally good for 1965 equipment - and in color, no less. I also found it interesting that a reference was made to "M. Fourier," as though maybe Fourier's first name began with an "M," but in fact his full name is Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier (French), so the "M." would be an abbreviated form of "Monsieur..."

Post Your Engineer & Technician Job Openings on RF Cafe for Free

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. 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...

Please Thank Lotus Communication Systems for Their Support!

Lotus Communication Systems began in 2009, setting up CNC machine shop and RF/microwave assembling and testing lab in Middlesex Country, Massachusetts. Lotus is committed to highest quality and innovative products. Each RF/microwave module meets exceedingly high standards of quality, performance and excellent value, and are 100% Made in the USA. Lotus' RF/microwave products cover frequency band up to 67 GHz. Lotus also offers an COTS shield enclosures for RF/microwave prototyping and production. All products are custom designed. We will find a solution and save your time and cost. Lotus has multiple 4 axis CNC machines and LPKF circuit plotters. In stock, 1-day free shipping.

Sunday the 28th

Electronics Theme Crossword for May 28th

This custom RF Cafe electronics-themed crossword puzzle for May 28th contains only words and clues which pertain strictly to the subjects of electronics, mechanics, power distribution, engineering, science, physics, astronomy, chemistry, etc. If you do happen see names of people or places, they are directly related to the aforementioned areas of study. As always, you will find no references to numbnut movie stars or fashion designers. Need more crossword RF Cafe puzzles? A list at the bottom of the page links to hundreds of them dating back to the year 2000. Enjoy.

Get Your Custom-Designed RF Cafe Gear!

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...

Many Thanks to Anatech Electronics for Long-Time Support!

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 for your military and commercial communications needs. Sam Benzacar's monthly newsletters address contemporary wireless subjects. Please visit Anatech today to see how they can help your project succeed. 

Friday the 26th

What's Your EQ?

Here are three more puzzlers from the "What's Your EQ?" section of the May 1963 issue of Radio−Electronics magazine. The Constant Current circuit has two solutions, of which the first - the one I solved (hint: first solve for the circuit impedance needed for the given voltage and current) - is the simplest and most intuitive. You're probably smarter than I am and will naturally arrive at the more sophisticated solution. Four-Way Switch is a piece of cake it you've done electrical wiring (hint: you can make another configuration switch from a 4-way). Don't let the vacuum tube diodes throw you on Rectified Voltage; just replace the symbols with semiconductor diodes (hint: the fat line is the plate = anode). Good luck.

Mac's Radio Service Shop: The Worm Turns

This "The Worm Turns - and Squirms" episode of "Mac's Radio Service Shop," which appeared in the January 1953 issue of Radio & Television News magazine, goes down a drastically different path than most, at least until the very end where a completely unrelated anecdote about interference with a remote garage door opener is told by Mac. Although the exact issues chanted by electronics technician cum repairman Barney Gallagher regarding many manufacturers' penchant for designing and selling unserviceable equipment is dated, the principle remains the same. We have all wished a designer had to service the product he/she has designed and sold to us. Anyone who has worked on the engine of a car built after about 1965 knows of what I speak...

Comparison of Apollo and Artemis Electronics

This is the dual 2−input NOR, RTL IC used in Apollo computers. "The men who designed and crafted the first practical integrated circuit (IC), the type used in the computers to guide the Apollo spacecraft that made the first U.S. moon landing, were also the unintentional fathers of Silicon Valley. Computer History Museum's David A. Laws. "These are the people that changed the world,' David A. Laws, semiconductor curator of the Computer History Museum, told EE Times. 'Everybody knew them. They were heroes in Silicon Valley.' The Apollo contract was not the only reason for the transformation of the valley, but it was a major factor, according to an article on the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum's website. The ICs and software used in the computers used in the Apollo missions had a limited job compared with the computers used in NASA's current Artemis lunar missions, which use the Orion spacecraft..."

Radio Controlled Flight

Even though the U.S. Army Air Force and other research agencies around the world were at the forefront of experimenting with remote control airplanes, helicopters, tanks, trucks, cars, boats, and rockets, hobbyists were forging their own paths in the electronic art. I did not know until reading this article that drones were flown through the radiation field at the Bikini Atoll atom bomb test site for data collection. In fact amateur radio operators have long had the privilege of broadcasting for the purpose of remotely controlling a vehicle - the only scenario of Earth-based transmission whereby the "control operator" is not required to identify his/her call sign at an interval prescribed by the FCC (currently at least once every 10 minutes and at the end of the broadcast). Vintage modeling magazines have articles on early radio controlled (R/C) airplane experimentation. Target drones subject to remote control were not just small models, but also full-size aircraft that were deemed not airworthy enough to carry a human crew...

RF & Electronics Symbols for Visio

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...

Many Thanks to Axiom Test Equipment for Continued Support!

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 - and don't miss the blog articles!

Thursday the 25th

Electronics-Themed Comics

Upon first seeing the electronics-themed comic on page 93, I thought it was a slam on the repair technician considering himself as smart and talented as a brain surgeon, or maybe charging rates comparable to that of a brain surgeon. Then I noticed what was inside the room he was preparing to enter, whereupon it made sense (at least if you are privy to the lingo of the day). The page 71 comic depicts a scenario that would have been considered extreme in 1963, but is commonplace today - particularly in SUV type vehicles. Of course now you can add a video player to the speakers. You really need to have knowledge of the TV world to get the page 104 comic. Since almost nobody alive would know what is going on, I'll provide the gag line. Magazines of the era, both electronics industry titles like Radio & Television News and Popular Electronics, and household titles Better Housekeeping and Readers' Digest, commonly contained advertisements for amplifier gizmos that plugged in between the CRT...

Many Thanks to KR Electronics for Long-Time Support!

KR Electronics has been designing and manufacturing custom filters for military and commercial radio, radar, medical, and communications since 1973. KR Electronics' line of filters includes lowpass, highpass, bandpass, bandstop, equalizer, duplexer, diplexer, 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.

3D Printed Elastic Conductor Stretchable Electronics

"Three-dimensional (3D) printing has become increasingly advanced over the past few years and has been successfully used to create countless items, including toys, furniture and electronic components. As 3D printing equipment becomes more affordable, it could potentially also be used to fabricate soft electronic components for wearable devices. Despite its promise in this area, so far 3D printing has rarely been successfully used to produce complex and flexible electronics. One reason for this is that solid-state elastic materials that can conduct electricity are difficult to print using existing inks. Researchers at Korea Institute of Science and Technology recently demonstrated the successful use of 3D printing to create elastic components that can conduct electricity. Their proposed printing strategy, outlined in a paper in Nature Electronics, could potentially pave the way toward the large-scale printing of multi-functional and stretchable components for wearable devices..."

Trinitron - Still a Mystery?

Explaining the workings of the Trinitron color cathode ray tube (CRT) with black and white pictures is a little like explaining the third dimension to a Flatlander. How do you visualize red, green , and blue in shades of gray? It's like being told to grasp the concept of tesseract being the 3−D projection of a 4−D cube. Still, that was the challenge author Forest Belt had when writing this article for a 1972 issue of Popular Electronics magazine, an era where multicolor print was the realm of high−end glossy−page magazines. Those of us who were around in the days when Sony's Trinitron hit the market remember well the hype that surrounded it. Of course my parent's B&W television suffered the same handicap as this printed page when the commercials attempted to demonstrate the Trinitron's color contrast and resolution superiority over traditional CRTs with a single electron gun. Once color computer CRTs were available, they also were differentiated between those that were and those that were not Trinitron types...

Honorable Mention of RF Cafe in June 2023 QST Article

Many thanks to John Stanley (K4ERO) for referencing RF Cafe in his fine "Simple and Accurate Measurement of Small Network Losses with the NanoVNA," in the June 2023 issue of QST magazine! Begins Mr. Stanley in his piece: "In my article 'Precautions When Using the Return Loss Method of Measuring Coax Loss,' in the January/February 2022 issue of QEX, I described a refined method of measuring coax loss by using both a short and an open coax and then averaging the return loss for best accuracy. I wondered whether this same method could be used to determine loss in antenna tuners or tube transmitter pi networks. While a short and an open coax on a network's load side can produce very small values of return loss in a low-loss network, advances in low-cost test instruments can now resolve return losses to 0.01 dB. This led me to do some antenna tuner tests...

The Propagation of Short Waves

"Short waves," with their ability to support long distance communications under certain conditions, became a phenomenon in the late 1920s, and a market developed for converting commercial broadcast receivers to short wave receivers. Magazines at the time were full of advertisements for the devices. The particulars of short waves and the way they propagated in the upper atmosphere were not yet well understood early on. In fact, the government considered transmission frequencies above 1.5 MHz (≤200 meters) so useless that they assigned those bands to amateur radio operators. The presence of an electrically conductive layer, known as the ionosphere, was not verified until 1927 by Edward Appleton. Hams quickly investigated, experimented, and successfully exploited the long distance radio communications possibilities so successfully that the government quickly re-claimed most of the bands. They were rewarded by being prohibited from engaging in transmissions for the duration of America's involvement in World War II. Much has been learned about the ionosphere since 1931 (the publication date of this article), but what is printed here is still largely valid...

RF & Electronics Symbols for Office™

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!

Many Thanks to ConductRF for Continued Support!

ConductRF is continually innovating and developing new and improved solutions for RF Interconnect needs. See the latest TESTeCON RF Test Cables for labs. ConductRF makes production and test coax cable assemblies for amplitude and phased matched VNA applications as well as standard & precision RF connectors. Over 1,000 solutions for low PIM in-building to choose from in the iBwave component library. They also provide custom coax solutions for applications where some standard just won't do. A partnership with Newark assures fast, reliable access. Please visit ConductRF today to see how they can help your project! 

Wednesday the 24th

Transatlantic Subsea Cable Amplifier

Even with scores of intercontinental telecommunications satellites orbiting the Earth (not all "birds" are for telecommunications), there is still a significant need for wired communications cable. Satellites alone cannot handle the amount of data needing to be exchanged across the globe. At least once a year I post a headline about a new undersea cable being run between Asia and Australia, Asia and Africa, Europe and America, etc. I don't recall ever reading about a subsea cable between Europe or Asia and Australia, or Asia to America - that would be a significant achievement. Because of the lengths of the cables, signal amplification at intervals is required, even with optical cables. Because of the depths at which the cables lie, access for maintenance / repair is extremely difficult and expensive. Accordingly, in addition to supremely rugged physical construction of the cable itself, reliability of the amplifiers (relays) must be extremely high. That nothing but the best design and construction practices humanly possible is imperative to satisfy such requirements is evidenced by the number of superlatives...

Wooden Transistor Developed

This would have made a good story to publish on Easter. "A team of researchers from Linköping University and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology have created the world's first transistor made from wood.." "We didn't create the wood transistor with any specific application in mind. We did it because we could. This is basic research, showing that it's possible, and we hope it will inspire further research that can lead to applications in the future," says Isak Engquist. " Their findings, published in the journal PNAS, open up new opportunities for the advancement of wood-based electronics and the control of electronic plants. Transistors, a revolutionary invention that dates back nearly a century, are often regarded as one of the most significant innovations in human history, on par with the telephone, the light bulb, and the bicycle. Today, they play a crucial role in modern electronic devices and are manufactured at a nanoscale level..."

Transistor Terminology

Many years have passed since I sat in a college classroom to learn about transistor fundamentals. The industry had long moved past germanium transistors and was solidly into silicon. Having been formally introduced to transistors in the USAF, I was familiar with their functionality from a technician's perspective of checking for gain, proper bias (as indicated on "educated" schematics), and determining go-no-go health by performing a front-to-back resistance measurement using an ohmmeter. Holes, energy bands, gate widths, and doping levels were first encountered in solid state physics class, however. This article does a nice job of introducing the terms and concepts at a layman's level. I actually found the vacuum tube circuits in our radar unit easier to troubleshoot than transistor circuits, partially because I had a little experience...

Thanks to Temwell for Their Support!

Temwell is a manufacturer of 5G wireless communications filters for aerospace, satellite communication, AIoT, 5G networking, IoV, drone, mining transmission, IoT, medical, military, laboratory, transportation, energy, broadcasting (CATV), and etc. An RF helical bandpass specialist since 1994, we have posted >5,000 completed spec sheets online for all kinds of RF filters including helical, cavity, LC, and SMD. Standard highpass, lowpass, bandpass, and bandstop, as well as duplexer/diplexer, multiplexer. Also RF combiners, splitters, power dividers, attenuators, circulators, couplers, PA, LNA, and obsolete coil & inductor solutions.

Anatech Electronics May 2023 Newsletter

Sam Benzacar of Anatech Electronics, an RF and microwave filter company, has published his May 2023 newsletter that features his short op−ed entitled "Z-Axis Positioning Finally Arrives," which discusses the FCC's "Wireless E911 Location Accuracy Requirements" mandate for providing altitude information from the point an emergency assistance call is placed. It says in part, "...requires nationwide wireless providers to deploy z-axis technology nationwide by April 3, 2025." It is not a trivial requirement since cell tower triangulation and even embedded GPS sensors cannot provide altitude (z-axis) position precisely enough to pinpoint floor-level location. The FCC wants to know what floor of a building from which the call originates. Sam mentions NextNav's Pinnacle system that uses a precision barometric pressure sensor in the phone, tablet, computer, etc., to provide the altitude information. After reviewing available info on Pinnacle, I don't see how a pressure sensor can provide floor-level height without a very nearby reference pressure sensor at some fixed, known height to compare readings. Pinnacle must have a network of such sensors in urban areas, because a general barometric pressure reading for a wide area would not be sufficient. Ambient barometric pressure is constantly changing, so a highly accurate referenceless reading is practically useless. Pilots always calibrate their altimeters (barometers calibrated to read out in units of height) at a point on the airport...

Dots and Dashes

If you read through this "Dots and Dashes" column from the July 1934 issue of Radio News magazine, you will find many familiar topics -- and a couple weird ones. Among the familiar are transmitting electrical power via RF waves, an electronics industry convention and exposition being held in Chicago, elevator control with electric sensors to assure the cars stop at floor level, global communications, the closing of a historic radio station (how "historic" can a radio station be in 1934?), earth-moon-earth (EME) experimentation, and remote control of beacon stations with radio signals. The weird ones? How about an "electric woman" with glowing breasts and a "queer-acting" radio microphone, do they qualify?

RF & Electronics Stencils for Visio

With more than 1000 custom-built stencils, this has got to be the most comprehensive set of Visio Stencils available for RF, analog, and digital system and schematic drawings! Every stencil symbol has been built to fit proportionally on the included A-, B-, and C-size drawing page templates (or use your own page if preferred). Components are provided for system block diagrams, conceptual drawings, schematics, test equipment, racks (EIA 19", ETSI 21"), and more. Test equipment and racks are built at a 1:1 scale so that measurements can be made directly using Visio built-in dimensioning objects. Page templates are provided with a preset scale (changeable) for a good presentation that can incorporate all provided symbols...

Please Visit Empower RF's Website in Appreciation of Their Support

Empower RF Systems is the technological leader in RF & microwave power amplifier solutions for EW, Radar, Satcom, Threat Simulation, Communications, and Product Testing. Our air and liquid cooled amplifiers incorporate the latest semiconductor and power combining technologies and with a patented architecture we build the most sophisticated and flexible COTS system amplifiers in the world. Solutions range from tens of watts to hundreds of kilowatts and includes basic PA modules to scalable rack systems.

Tuesday the 23rd

Bridge Function Quiz

Quartz crystal bridges, half-bridges, Wien bridges, Schering bridges, Maxwell bridges, full bridges, Wheatstone bridges, shunt bridges. Who knew there were so many different types of bridge circuits? If you can ace this Bridge Function Quiz, then you are truly an analog circuits guru. It appeared in the September 1969 issue of Popular Electronics magazine, and is one of Robert Balin's most challenging quizzes. I can think of maybe four or five people I have known over the years who are likely to be able to correctly answer all ten, and no, I am not among the revered few. In the days of yore when electronics repair shops were ubiquitous across the land, there were many Mac McGregor types, of Mac's Radio Service Shop fame, who could easily perform such a miracle. Such circuits were common in radio and television sets back then...

CTA Opposes "AM for Every Vehicle Act"

"'Mandating AM radio in new cars would be like mandating CD or 8-track cassette players,' says the first major organization to speak out against the AM For Every Vehicle Act. This criticism of the Act, introduced to Congress last week by a bipartisan group of sponsors led by Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Ed Markey, is coming from a source near to many broadcasters - the Consumer Technology Association. The CTA is best known for the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which many radio executives attend ... CTA also said requiring AM radio installation in new cars would burden automakers with increased costs, leading to higher prices for consumers..." Apparently, that last statement is not quite true; to wit: "For any owners of Ford EVs without AM broadcast capability, we'll offer a software update." I.e., it's already in the radio.

1957 Auto Radios: Chevrolet

Apologies to Chrysler aficionados for not having similar articles for your classic automobiles, but this article from a 1957 edition of Radio & TV News magazine only covers Chevrolet radios. Transistors were fairly recent newcomers on the portable radio scene (on any radio scene for that matter), so you will please excuse the absence of them in most radios of the era. In fact, as evidenced by a companion article in this same edition titled "Delco's All-Transistor Auto Radio," such newfangled devices like transistors were reserved for top-of-the-line models like Cadillac's Eldorado Brougham. A move toward printed circuit boards, rather than the time-honored point-to-point wiring, was well underway, and push-button tuning was being sold to the car buying public as an indispensible safety feature - the "hands-free" feature of yesteryear. Even though push button tuning with memory (albeit mechanical) for storing station locations had been around for a long time in tabletop and floor model console home radios...

The ARRL "Clean Signal Initiative"

The June issue of the ARRL's QST magazine reported on a new effort called the Clean Signal Initiative (CSI). Whether or not the name was formed to facilitate the popular Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) TV show is not known, but even if it was, the parallel is apropos since many of the interfering signals being targeted for clean-up are violations of the FCC's statutes. Per the ARRL website: "We've all heard them on the HF bands: overmodulated and distorted signals causing splatter on SSB, and key clicks on CW. The problem is often so bad that it's hard to get within 5 kHz of them to work that elusive all-time new one. It is frustrating, to say the least. What can be done about it? In mid−2020, this question led to a few email exchanges between myself and Ward Silver, NØAX. Our conversation eventually led to the formation of an ARRL Programs and Services Committee (PSC) subcommittee, the Working Group on Transmitter Cleanliness, whose goal was to learn what ARRL could do to help solve these issues. The subcommittee consisted of myself f and several other ARRL PSC members with RF engineering backgrounds..."

QST Cruises with the Maritime Service

The United States Maritime Service (USMS) was established in 1938 under the provisions of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 - a comprehensive piece of legislation that aimed to promote and develop the United States merchant marine, which refers to the commercial fleet of U.S.-registered vessels that engage in domestic and international trade. This story from a 1944 issue of QST magazine highlights amateur radio's role. The USMS was created as a civilian training and education organization, with the primary goal of preparing American merchant mariners for service in both peacetime and during times of war. The Act authorized the Secretary of Commerce to create and maintain a training program for merchant marine officers and seamen...

RF Cascade Workbook

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...

Thanks to Copper Mountain Technologies for Continued Support

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. 50 Ω and 75 Ω models are available, along with a full line of precision calibration and connector adaptors.

Monday the 22nd

What's New - Pictorial Reports of New Developments

For a few years, Radio-Electronics magazine ran a regular feature entitled "What's New - Pictorial Reports of New Developments," usually consisting of four or five photos of recent events, discoveries, inventions, etc., in the wireless realm. This April 1961 issue was published in the era when solid state devices were rapidly replacing vacuum tubes, so there was always something mentioned about a transistor, diode, or even an integrated circuit. Antenna developments appeared frequently, as did computer and display technologies. That 8-segment display shown is not and LED, as it appears to be. It is an electroluminescent device called a Rayescent panel, made by Westinghouse (note the Mercury dime used to indicate the size). The only LEDs available in 1961 were infrared emitters, and those were laboratory models. Optical wavelength LEDs became commercially available in the mid-1960s...

230 Ultra-Rare Classic Cars in Barn

Some guy in the Netherlands has a collection more than 230 classic autos, many in showroom condition, that have just gone up for auction. I would love to be able to afford just one nice pickup truck from the 1960s or 1970s. My 1st choice would be a 1952 Ford F−1 stepside like the one on the Sanford and Son TV show (I have the DVD set). "An elderly car enthusiast's astonishing collection of 230 rare classic cars has been discovered by a Dutch auction house, and the lot, including European and American cars collectively worth millions, is soon to be sold at auction. One particular, 'undeniably stylish and sophisticated' sports car from the 1950s is expected to fetch in excess of 675,000 euros ($729,432). Former professional car dealer Ad Palmen of the Netherlands, 82, had been collecting cars for decades. He stored them in a church and two 'dry but dusty' warehouses in Dordrecht until his ailing health forced him to sell them all ... Mr. Palmen started collecting cars approximately 40 years ago, with a yellow Lancia B20 being the first car..."

Chatham Marconi Maritime Center / Marconi-RCA Wireless Museum

Only recently has the importance of the role played by of the town of Chatham (pronounced "kat'-um"), Massachusetts, in the success of World War II been recognized to the degree it deserves. Thanks to the effort of Chatham Marconi Maritime Center / Marconi-RCA Wireless Museum's Ed Fouhy, the extent of strategic radio operations performed there is made available both online and, to a much greater degree, to visitors at the physical location. The entire campus was totally renovated in the 2009-2010 timeframe Foughy and his team produced a video that crams the story of years of intense activities and accomplishments into a seven-minute video. About a third of it can be viewed below, but if you want to see its entirety, you will need to visit the Center. A separate video, also shown here, is an interview with Mr. Foughy by the Cape Cod Chronicle where he talks about the research and some of the surprising discoveries that went along with his project. The U.S. Navy used the site primarily to intercept and monitor German U-boat activities in the Atlantic Ocean. In the early days of WWII, U-boats wreaked havoc on both military and merchant ships crossing the northern Atlantic. They operated with near impunity because of the genius of German commanders and submarine crews...

Surface Coating Increases Electron Emission 7x

This is the kind of headline I would have expected to see back in the vacuum tube days: "An international research group has developed a new surface coating technology that is capable of significantly increasing electron emission in materials. Their breakthrough is expected to improve the production of high-efficiency electron sources and lead to increased performances in electron microscopes, electron beam lithography systems and synchrotron radiation facilities. The research was published in the journal Applied Physics Letters on April 3, 2023. Free electrons are those not bound to a specific atom or molecule, wondering freely within a material. They play a vital role in a wide range of applications, from photoreactors and microscopes to accelerators. One property that measurers the performance of free electrons is work function: the minimum energy required for electrons to escape from a materials surface into a vacuum. Materials with a low work function require less energy to remove electrons and make them free to move around; whereas materials with a high work function need more energy to remove electrons..."

USAF Recruitment Advertisement - Precision Approach Radar

This is cool. I saw a U.S. Air Force recruitment advertisement in a 1960 edition of Popular Electronics magazine pitching careers as radar operators (air traffic control) and technicians (maintenance). The picture has the dual-display glide path and elevation sweeps from the MPN/13/14 radar system that I worked on in the late 1970s - early 1980s. A photo I took circa 1980 of our unit based at Robins AFB, Georgia, is shown below. The precision approach radar (PAR) operated at x-band (10 GHz) with an operational range of 10 nautical miles. B&W photo of PAR display showing Elevation display at top and Azimuth display on bottom. Yes, it is in dire need of alignment. The azimuth and elevation antennas were mechanically swept with motors that changed the geometry of a waveguide having dipole stubs along its length. The entire PAR system was built with vacuum tubes and chassis using point-to-point wiring. Sweep patterns on the CRT were aligned using an iterative procedure to adjust linearity, x-y position, outline, size, course line and glide slope centerlines, etc...

Post Your Engineer & Technician Job Openings on RF Cafe for Free

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. 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...

Please Thank RF & Connector Technology for Their Support

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."

Canada's New Voice on Shortwave

Radio Canada International (RBI) is (was) the worldwide version of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), operating on the 9,745 kHz and 11,856 kHz shortwave bands. It carried broadcasts from 1942 through 2012, by which time the widespread access to Internet broadcasts rendered the service obsolete. What remains of RBI is a skeleton staff that generates podcasts in a few foreign languages. As with the USA's Voice of America (VOA), RBI's mission over the years was a combination of broadcasting for the sake of overseas armed forces members, anti-communist/socialist propaganda, and news items. This 1972 Popular Electronics magazine article reported on the new, much more powerful transmitters inaugurated in July of the previous annum. Its goal was to reach the four corners of the Earth in the same way VOA had been doing for decades...

Carl & Jerry: Great Bank Robbery

June 1969 P-E, Kohler p40

August 1969, Hobnobbing Harbaugh p68

September 1969, Bridge Quiz p68

October 1969, Op Amp Quiz p58

Electronics and IGY

Electronics Poetry: Unpopular Electronics

Engineering Job Opening

Promote Your Company on RF Cafe

New Scheme rotates all Banners in all locations on the page! RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000 website visits each weekday. RF Cafe is a favorite of engineers, technicians, hobbyists, and students all over the world. With more than 17,000 pages in the Google search index, RF Cafe returns in favorable positions on many types of key searches, both for text and images. New content is added on a daily basis, which keeps the major search engines interested enough to spider it multiple times each day. Items added on the homepage often can be found in a Google search within a few hours of being posted. I also re-broadcast homepage items on LinkedIn. If you need your company news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be.

RF Cascade Workbook

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...

RF & Electronics Stencils for Visio

With more than 1000 custom-built stencils, this has got to be the most comprehensive set of Visio Stencils available for RF, analog, and digital system and schematic drawings! Every stencil symbol has been built to fit proportionally on the included A-, B-, and C-size drawing page templates (or use your own page if preferred). Components are provided for system block diagrams, conceptual drawings, schematics, test equipment, racks (EIA 19", ETSI 21"), and more. Test equipment and racks are built at a 1:1 scale so that measurements can be made directly using Visio built-in dimensioning objects. Page templates are provided with a preset scale (changeable) for a good presentation that can incorporate all provided symbols...

RF & Electronics Symbols for Office™

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!

RF & Electronics Symbols for Visio

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...

Please Support RF Cafe

The RFCafe.com website exists partly on the support of its visitors by way of a small percentage earned with your Amazon.com purchases, which typically works out to less than $20 per month. That does not even cover the domain registration and secure server fees for RFCafe.com. If you plan to buy items via Amazon.com, please click on this link to begin your shopping session from here so that I get credit for it. Doing so does not cost you anything extra. Thank you for your support.

Post Your Engineer & Technician Job Openings on RF Cafe for Free

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. 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...

Get Your Custom-Designed RF Cafe Gear!

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...

Nanostructure Flat Lens for Tiny Cameras

"Inside today's computers, phones, and other mobile devices, more and more sensors, processors, and other electronics are fighting for space. Taking up a big part of this valuable real estate are the cameras - just about every gadget needs a camera, or two, three, or more. And the most space-consuming part of the camera is the lens. The lenses in our mobile devices typically collect and direct incoming light by refraction, using a curve in a transparent material, usually plastic, to bend the rays. So these lenses can't shrink much more than they already have: To make a camera small, the lens must have a short focal length; but the shorter the focal length, the greater the curvature and therefore the thickness at the center. These highly curved lenses also suffer from all sorts of aberrations, so camera-module manufacturers use multiple lenses to compensate, adding to the camera's bulk. With today's lenses, the size of the camera and image quality are pulling in different directions. The only way to make lenses smaller and better is to replace refractive lenses with a different technology..."

Moore's Law Getting More Complicated

"There was a time, decades really, when all it took to make a better computer chip were smaller transistors and narrower interconnects. That time's long gone now, and although transistors will continue to get a bit smaller, simply making them so is no longer the point. The only way to keep up the exponential pace of computing now is a scheme called system technology co-optimization, or STCO, argued researchers at ITF World 2023 last week in Antwerp, Belgium. It's the ability to break chips up into their functional components, use the optimal transistor and interconnect technology for each function, and stitch them back together to create a lower-power, better-functioning whole. 'This leads us to a new paradigm for CMOS,' says Imec R&D manager Marie Garcia Bardon. CMOS 2.0, as the Belgium-based nanotech research organization is calling it, is a complicated vision. But it may be the most practical way forward..."

Compliant 3D-Printed Tunable GHz-Range Antenna

"Many situations arise in which an antenna needs to dynamically reconfigure its center frequency or beam pattern. In some cases, this can be done with a steerable, multi-element antenna array, but it's often not a viable solution for various reasons. As an alternative, a team of electrical engineers in the Penn State College of Engineering devised an innovative design for a reconfigurable patch antenna dubbed a reconfigurable compliant mechanism antenna (rCMA). The antenna, which leverages the inherent elastic properties of selected material to create a desired motion through controlled deformation, is designed to operate up to 10 GHz. These compliant mechanisms can be made as a planar structure from a single material yet still achieve multi-axis motion. Further, they can be designed as a full structure with minimal or even no assembly, require no lubrication, and their reliability is high, as it's based on the elastic properties of the material..."

Forksheet: Imec's In-Between Transistor

"The architecture shrinks circuits in a valuable step toward the ultimate CMOS device. The most advanced manufacturers of computer processors are in the middle of the first big change in device architecture in a decade - the shift from finFETs to nanosheets. Another 10 years should bring about another fundamental change, where nanosheet devices are stacked atop each other to form complementary FETs (CFETs), capable of cutting the size of some circuits in half. But the latter move is likely to be a heavy lift, say experts. An in-between transistor called the forksheet might keep circuits shrinking without quite as much work. The idea for the forksheet came from exploring the limits of the nanosheet architecture, says Julien Ryckaert, the vice president for logic technologies at Imec. The nanosheet's main feature is its horizontal stacks of silicon ribbons surrounded by its current-controlling gate. Although nanosheets only recently entered production..."