Friday the 20th
TGIF, and that means
tech-themed comics from vintage electronics magazines if I happen to have any.
You'll really appreciate the comic on page 96 of the 1965 issue of Popular Electronics
magazine. In a way, the drawing's concept was very prescient regarding the future
of flexible, bendable circuits. A big part of the electronics world at the time
centered around servicing all the newfangled circuits and test equipment for troubleshooting
and aligning them. As is still true today, technology changed quickly and there
was always a newer model television, radio, tape recorder, stereo system, video
recorder, etc. Customer interactions and repair shop experiences provided plenty
of amusing fodder for magazine articles and comics. I took the liberty of coloring
them...
Lightning season is upon us once again.
The National Weather Service says June, July, and August, are the most active lightning
months in the U.S., which is probably true in all of the northern hemisphere, and
then December, January, and February in the southern hemisphere. According to the
National Safety Council, the average American has a 1:114,195 chance of being
killed by lightning in a lifetime (which ends abruptly upon being
killed). That's much less than your chance of dying due to cancer (1:7) or being
killed in a car accident (1:102), but is sucks if you're that one in 114,195. Not
all lightning strikes are fatal, but many cause personal and property damage. Mitigating
the chance of being harmed requires taking some simple actions to not expose...
• FCC Accuses
EU Regulators of Harbouring Anti-American Biases
• GlobalFoundries
Pledges $16B U.S. Investment
• Wireless
Providers Dominating Broadband
• Q1
Mobile Core Market up 32% YoY
• Supply
Chain Must Confront Divergence
Thursday the 19th
Prior to the advent of earth-orbiting satellites,
very long range communications like between continents was dependent on the state
of the various ionosphere levels. There is never a completely predictable "open"
channel from point A to point B. A satellite repeater, however, while not always
in a position to be within view of both points, at least is predictable based on
a published ephemeris of times and positions. The first
OSCAR (Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio), now governed
by AMSAT, was launched in December of 1961. This 1973 article in Popular Electronics
mentions OSCAR 6, which was launched in October 1972...
"Anritsu Corporation announces its participation
as a Test and Measurement partner in two pioneering demonstrations of
3GPP Rel-17 compliant Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) technology at the 2025 5GAA
meetings in Paris. The demonstrations provided the first of their kind measurements
showcasing the readiness of the technology and ecosystem to revolutionize automotive
safety. In one of the collaborations with industry leaders BMW Group, Deutsche Telekom,
Viasat and Skylo, Anritsu contributed to successful measurements of end-to-end NTN
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)..."
This
Electronics Metals Quiz appeared in the October 1964 edition of
Popular Electronics. Given the era and obsolescence of some technologies,
a couple of the drawings might not be recognizable to you. Accordingly, I feel obligated
to clue you in on those. "B" is a television iconoscope, which was used in early
TV video cameras. "D" is a phonograph stylus. For "F," keep in mind the prevailing
semiconductor material at the time. "I" is a type of heater element that could be
screwed into a light bulb socket (I used to have a couple). "J" is supposed to be
a needle for a meter movement. Now that you know, have at it. The process of elimination
should result in a good score. I got 10:10, but then I'm older than the quiz...
According to a plethora of news reports
in the last few years, the "cord cutting" phenomenon is having a significant impact on cable
media providers. Consumers long ago grew tired of the monopolistic practices of
corporations forcing mostly unwanted programming onto everyone and then trying to
convince them that they were getting a good deal if the cost per channel was considered.
No one bought that argument, but it didn't matter because there was no competition
for service. Public Utility Commission (PUC) efforts to force prime line owners
to rent out "space" in an attempt to provide competitive products has never worked,
but that doesn't keep PUCs from trying (job security). The advent of wideband wireless
service has opened up a new realm of media delivery that is leaving wired service
in the dust. Not only is cellphone...
"Trump Mobile launches as a new mobile service
and will also sell its own mobile device, the T1, offering an 'all-American service
for our nation's hardest-working people.' 'Alongside the team from Trump Mobile,
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump unveil T1 Mobile, a transformational, new cellular
service designed to deliver top-tier connectivity, unbeatable value and all-American
service for our nation's hardest-working people,' opens a post on the Trump Organisation
website. Trump Mobile claims to be a next-generation wireless provider.' It offers
5G service through all three major cellular carriers, presumably meaning T-Mobile,
AT&T and Verizon, and it is holding up The 47 Plan as a flagship package which
goes for $47.45 per month..."
Decisions, decisions, decisions. As the
title states,
color television manufacturers were, in 1965, finding themselves
between a rock and a hard place, as the saying goes, regarding a change from vacuum
tubes to transistors. The buying public (aka consumers) had mixed emotions about
the newfangled semiconductors based at least partly on bad information about transistors.
Transistors had been designed in various circuits for a decade and a half and were
gaining rapidly in performance and reliability. The price was coming down, but as
reported here, still cost $5 to $10 apiece compared to a $1 vacuum tube. Company
management needed to decide whether to delay implementing the new engineering and
production methods required to deal with transistors for a couple more years until
the market had more time to make up its mind whether to begin. A couple firms enthusiastically...
Wednesday the 18th
This is another installment of the "Hams
in Combat" series that the ARRL's QST magazine ran during WWII. I enjoy
vicariously waxing nostalgic of a time before I was born, at time when there was
still honor, courage, selflessness, and pride of country. During World War II, it
was an ingrained part of most citizens, whether or not they happened to be serving
in the military. Our modern day troops still have it, but sadly fewer and fewer
people see their own country as any place special in the world. Many don't believe
it ever was. Sure, as General William Tecumseh Sherman famously said, "War is hell,"
but then again so is witnessing the tearing apart of your country from forces within...
"The Trump administration has changed the
rules on broadband funding in the US in a widely-anticipated move that could open
the way for satellite companies to cash in. The president has made a number of alterations
to the
Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) programme, pitching them as
an exercise in cutting red tape. The changes cover a range of T&Cs, including
environmental and inclusion issues, but the one capturing column inches is around
technology; where once BEAD was heavily skewed towards fibre deployment, those applying
for funding will now be able to use whatever technology they wish, including satellite
or wireless. Such a change has been on the cards for the past few months..."
Photodiodes and phototransistors were relatively
new on the electronics scene in 1969 when this article appeared in Electronics
World magazine. Prior to semiconductor light detectors, vacuum phototubes did
the job in cameras, motion sensors, light level detectors, medical imaging equipment,
etc. High voltages and the large volume for containing components supporting vacuum
tubes created hazards (especially with medical equipment), inconvenience, and high
cost. What we take for granted nowadays in terms of price, performance, reliability,
and size was all yet to be worked out with the new technology...
Werbel Microwave's Model
WMC-0.3-8-10dB-S is a directional coupler that covers 300 MHz to 8 GHz
with broadband flat coupling response, high directivity, and excellent return loss
performance. Frequency sensitivity is ±0.6 dB typical. High directivity of
25 dB typical. Mainline insertion loss of 1.3 dB typical includes loss
due to coupling factor. Return loss 23 dB typical. Aluminum enclosure measures
6.00 x 0.73 x 0.50 inches with threaded mounting holes. SMA Female connectors. The
device is RoHS compliant but may be special ordered with Lead solder to support
military applications...
Tuesday the 17th
Home entertainment is as big of a deal (or
bigger) today as it was in the 1960's and 1970's when high fidelity personal sound
gear was coming into the mainstream. Capability and features were going up while
the price was coming down on really nice equipment. In order to achieve theater
quality sound from your stereo and/or large screen television, thought and planning
is essential or you will end up with a confusing mess of directed and reflected
sounds. This article contains very valuable information on room configuration and
sound absorbing materials and strategies. A fairly extensive table of common floor,
wall, and ceiling sound absorption coefficients is provided, as are charts of reverberation
times of various venues and volumes...
"Efforts to tackle space debris are underway
with an experiment to
de-orbit CanX-7, a Canadian satellite that began a controlled descent using
space sails in May, 2017. CanX-7 is part of the Daedalus experiment, an effort led
by scientists at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) to tackle
space junk. According to NASA, over 500,000 items are tracked as they orbit Earth,
yet fewer than 5,000 are operational satellites. Travelling at speeds of up to 17,500mph,
relatively small pieces of orbital debris can damage a satellite or a spacecraft.
DSTL says the most congested area sits in low Earth orbit (LEO) where collisions..."
The
Simpson 260 multimeter (now up to model P) has been around a long
time - about eight decades. It is on version 8 now. My first encounter with a Simpson
260 was in my high school electrical vocational classes. We had them in the USAF
radar shop as well, then in every company lab in which I worked. Sadly, I do not
personally own one, and at $850 (doh! get it...Simpson?), never will. John Ellis
has a nice historical account of the Simpson 260 multimeter in the July 2018 issue
of
QST magazine. Unfortunately the ARRL does not make the
article available online to non-members, but surely there is a Ham nearby who can
lend you his/her copy for reading. An advertisement for the
Simpson 260 VOM, which I do have in full, appearend the July 1944 edition
of QST.
Steerable phased array antenna systems used
to be the exclusive domain of military and aerospace radar and electronics warfare
systems. The expense involved in both the hardware and the electronics required
for controlling the beam was expensive and complicated. Larger
phased array antennas for lower frequency bands are still relatively
expensive. However, small cell wireless phone and WiFi applications in the 2.4 GHz
and higher bands are seeing the development and deployment of phased arrays that
will search for and track individual users in order to allocate antenna gain and
signal power where it is needed, rather than using an omnidirectional radiation
pattern. Physically steered directional antennas are not capable of the speeds needed
to do the job. In the last couple years, MMIC phased antenna arrays have begun appearing
in the news for millimeter-wave systems...
Withwave is a leading designer and developer
of a broad range of RF, microwave, and millimeter-wave test solutions and subsystems
with a focus on electromagnetic field analysis and signal processing. Withwave's
45 degree connectors are specifically designed for easy installation in tight
spaces, providing a reliable 45° connection with a solderless contact to the PCB
surface on test and measurement boards. These connectors deliver outstanding electrical
transition performance up to 67 GHz while also significantly reducing installation
time...
Monday the 16th
Although
published in a 1972 issue of Popular Electronics magazine, the topic of
dealing with
radio interference is timeless. Some of the sources of radio interference
change over the years, but there is always a need to discover and resolve such problems,
and more importantly, use the lessons learned to attempt to prevent it in the first
place. The January setting in the Great Lake Midwest region of the U.S. is right
on time for when this is being posted. It's snowing here in Erie, Pennsylvania,
as I write this, the temperature is about 24°F, and the wind is howling at 15-20
miles per hour as is has been all night. "Someone must have sprayed circuit-cooler
around out there," Barney (Mac's able young assistant) complained. "Man, it's cold!"
That about sums up today's weather. Unfortunately for Barney, he would be called
upon to leave the warmth of the shop to make a service call to figure out why CB
radio transmissions...
As mentioned often before, I have been using
various AI engines a lot in the last year. Topics include writing VBA code for Excel
and JavaScript code for HTML pages, generating historical data on technology pioneers,
companies, components, and events; doing research on medical diagnosis and treatment,
computer issues, car care, food nutrition, and child development; and content for
my RFCafe.com and AirplanesAndRockets.com websites. Most replies are good, but for
objective data nearly always require multiple solicitations to arrive at an acceptable
and useful result. Sometimes, AI responses are outrageously in error. Here are the
exact instructions posed to AI engines (Arya, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok) regarding the
probable disasterous result of unchecked propagation of erraneous information...
"This is the first of seven articles devoted
to the topic of
shielding
to prevent electromagnetic wave radiation. The shielding theory is based on
the accepted theory originally presented in and embraced by many EMC experts. The
results presented here are valid under the assumption of a uniform plane wave with
normal (perpendicular) incidence on a boundary between two media. Fundamental Framework
Shielding theory is based on three fundamental concepts: Reflection and transmission
of electromagnetic waves at the boundaries of two media, Radiated fields of the
electric and magnetic dipole antennas wave, and Impedance of an electromagnetic
wave. The first concept leads to the analytical formulas for the far-field shielding..."
According to this 1964 article in Electronics
magazine, the U.S. Air Force's decision to build radar systems that would enable
low altitude,
terrain-following flight paths for strategic and tactical aircraft
was in response to the shooting down of Gary Powers' U-2 spy craft in 1960. The
event made clear that simply flying high over enemy territory and dropping bombs
would not be a reliable strategy since surface-to-air missiles could reach and destroy
aircraft before they got to their targets. Terrain-following capability on the part
of bombers and fighters would add a major element of surprise since approach paths
could be masked until it was too late to take offensive action. That approach was
not without its risks and faults, as made apparent by the Dr. Strangelove movie
satire that poked fun at the very concept...
IPP's new broadband 90° hybrid coupler,
the IPP-7181, covers 80 - 1000 MHz with an impressive power handling of 250 W
CW in a surface mount package. Measuring 1.00" x 1.75" x 0.260", the
IPP-7181 provides excellent performance in a compact package; its insertion
loss is less than 0.90 dB, VSWR is less than 1.40:1, isolation is greater than 15 dB,
and phase balance is ±6 degrees. From 125 - 1000 MHz, its amplitude balance
is ±1.0 dB, and ±2.0 dB at 80 MHz. The IPP-7181 can be used in a variety
of applications ranging from VHF to UHF including radio communications, broadcasting,
radar...
