Electronics Pioneers & History
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 Phillip H. Smith (April 29, 1905 – August 29, 1987) was an American
electrical engineer who made significant contributions to the field of RF
engineering. He is primarily known for his work on transmission line theory and
impedance matching. Smith's research in the 1930s while working at Bell Labs led
to the development of the
Smith Chart,
which is a graphical representation of complex impedance values.
The Smith Chart is a polar plot that helps engineers analyze and design RF
circuits, such as impedance matching networks and transmission lines. It
provides a visual representation of impedance and reflection coefficient values,
allowing engineers to easily determine the impedance characteristics of a system
and make necessary adjustments to optimize performance.
The Smith Chart has become an essential tool in RF engineering, and it is
widely used in various applications, including antenna design, RF filter design,
and microwave circuit design. It simplifies calculations and provides a
intuitive way to understand and manipulate complex impedance values.
Here is "The Oral
History: Phillip H. Smith," and interview by Engineering and Technology
History Wiki. This January 1939 issue of Electronics magazine might be
the first appearance of the most recognized version of the
Smith Chart.
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AI Technical Trustability Update
While working on an
update to my
RF Cafe Espresso Engineering Workbook project to add a couple calculators
about FM sidebands (available soon). The good news is that AI provided excellent
VBA code to generate a set of
Bessel function plots. The bad news is when I asked for a
table
showing at which modulation indices sidebands 0 (carrier) through 5 vanish,
none of the agents got it right. Some were really bad. The AI agents typically
explain their reason and method correctly, then go on to produces bad results.
Even after pointing out errors, subsequent results are still wrong. I do a
lot of AI work and see this often, even with subscribing to professional
versions. I ultimately generated the table myself. There is going to be a
lot of inaccurate information out there based on unverified AI queries, so
beware.
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