|
 Banner Ads are rotated in all locations
on the page! RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000 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.
Your Banner Ads are displayed on average 280,000 times per year! 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. If you need your company
news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be...
 Did you know the 1961 Lincoln Continental
that President John F. Kennedy was shot while riding in had a transparent Plexiglas
roof available? If it had been installed that fateful day in November of 1963, would
the bullet have missed the president or maybe the shooter would not have even tried
for the shot. You might think the car would be referred to as Presidential Limo
One or some code name similar to Air Force One (airplane), or Marine One (helicopter),
but the best they could come up with was
X−100. There was also an official presidential yacht (Sequoia) up until 1973.
I highlight this feature from a 1961 issue of Popular Science magazine
primarily because it mentions a pair of radiotelephones - one with a scrambler for
super-secret communications. The car, by the way, was a rental ($500/year), and
was actually owned by Ford Motor Company...
 The
World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC) is associated with the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU). It is hard to pin down exactly when the organization's
name official became the WARC since it is no longer a separate entity, and good
luck locating a definitive history on the WARC proper. The closest I could come
to determining a time when it was first referred to as the World Administrative
Radio Conference was from this list of all radio conferences on the ITU website.
The Geneva 1967 WARC is it. Previous events did not include the word "World" in
them, from what I could find. Please let me know if you have another authoritative
source. This 1971 WARC for Space Communications was the first to emphasize allocation
of frequencies to satellite operations...
 Hugo Gernsback wrote in his June 1962 issue
of Radio-Electronics magazine editorial "Earth
Signals on the Moon" editorial that, "Within the next few years - certainly
before 1970 - men will have landed on the moon, opening up a vast new world." That
was a year after John F. Kennedy made his famous "man on the moon" speech.
As he was wont to do, Mr. Gernsback accurately predicted the series of events
that would lead up to the first manned moon landing. He mentions the need for automation
to achieve a controlled, soft landing on the lunar surface because of the time lag
for radio communications between the Earth and the moon - a little more than a second
each way - which is not fast enough for a remotely controlled landing of an unmanned
craft. He also addresses the necessity for accommodating the Doppler frequency shift
due...
 According to the Oxford English dictionary,
the definition of an anagram is: a word or phrase made by using the letters of another
word or phrase in a different order; e.g. "Neat" is an anagram of "a net." Therefore,
the title of this Electronics World magazine puzzle appears to be misnamed.
Sometimes an anagram crossword puzzle is created in which the clues are in the form
of anagrams, but even that is not the case here. With any due apologies to author
Comstock, I hereby re-title this a "High-Fidelity Crossword Puzzle." The "high-fidelity"
part is entirely appropriate since it refers to the musical nature of the clues
and words. As mentioned previously, the late 1950s through the early 1980s was a
major era for interest in high fidelity radio receivers and playback gear. It represented
the transition from powerful vacuum tube amplifiers to hybrid amplifiers...
•
Collegiate Amateur Radio at 2024 Hamvention
•
China's Hi-Tech Progress Reshaping Global Politics
•
Marconi Radio Awards Nominations Open
•
FCC Fines Carriers for LBS Information Misuse
• The
U.S.-China Tech Cold War
 Francis A. Gicca, manager of Raytheon's
Space Communications Systems, published a very extensive two-part article in
Electronics World magazine in 1969. Part 1 covered Score through
Intelsat II satellites which launched between from December 1958 and December
1968, respectively, in the July 1969 issue. Part 2 begins with Intelsat III,
which commenced operation in September 1968. Rather than reiterating the article's
contents, I will offer an anecdote about the altitude used by geostationary satellites,
which is 22,300 miles. In the early 1990s, I worked for a few years at COMSAT Laboratories
(Communications Satellite Corporation, famous for involvement in both Intelsat and
Inmarsat), in Clarksburg, Maryland. The mailing address there was 22300 Comsat Drive...
 If you or someone you know is just starting
in the realm of radio and want a really nice pictorial presentation of the basics
of
radio wave propagation, then this one-page article from a 1935 edition of
Short Wave Craft magazine is just what you need. Formula phobia will not
be an issue for anyone since no equations are presented. The fundamentals have not
changed in the intervening 89 years, and this same sort of analogy is still used
in introductory physics classes and books today. Note in Figure 7 that the
antenna for the airplane is shown being dragged behind. Back in the day, a long
antenna was spooled out once in the air, and cranked back in before landing. If
the pilot forgot to reel the antenna in, it could get yanked off by a tree upon
landing. CW (Morse code) was the dominant form of air-to-ground communications...
 90 miles of wire in an average home is a
lot of wire. That includes not just the wire used for supplying 120 VAC receptacle
and light lines within the walls and ceiling, but also the wire in motors, relays,
and transformers in appliances and various subsystems (HVAC, attic fans, shop tools,
etc.). When this article appeared in Popular Science magazine in 1961,
the average size of an American home was around 1,300 square feet. In 2024, it is
around 2,600 square feet. That's a doubling in size with fewer people per household
(mine is smaller than the 1960 standard). The typical house now has more AC wiring
in it due to electrical code changes requiring ceiling lights in all rooms, more
receptacles, more feeder circuits, etc.
Adding a ground wire increases the copper in a length of Romex by 33% to 50%.
Most kitchens have more appliances on the counter, and the proliferation of cordless
tools has added significantly to the number of motors. Most houses did not have
air conditioning in 1961, so add a compressor motor...
 Here are a couple more
electronics-themed comics from 1947 issues of Radio−Craft magazine.
Artist Frank Beaven, who created a huge number of comics and advertisements (e.g.,
Eveready batteries, Zippo lighters) for technical and other types of publications
(Saturday Evening Post, New Yorker, Esquire), did both of them. Beaven must have
a fan base since many examples of his drawings are offered for sale on eBay. Most
of his comics credit reader suggestions as the basis for the subject. I have to
admit to not really "getting" the gag in the top comic. Maybe Sinatra's voice strained
the frequency response of simple tabletop radios of the day. The bottom comic is
one of a series entitled "Radio Terms Illustrated," in this case "High Potential"
(get it?)...
 "This article presents the derivation of
the radiated far fields from a
Hertzian dipole antenna above the ground plane using image theory. An electric
dipole, often referred to as a Hertzian dipole consists of a short, thin wire of
length l carrying a constant current positioned symmetrically at the origin of the
coordinate system and oriented along the z-axis. Ideally, the wire is infinitely
short; practically, a wire of the length l << λ/50 (λ = wavelength) can be
considered a Hertzian dipole. The far field of a Hertzian dipole has only a θ component
(in a spherical coordinate system) and is given by Eq. 1. In image theory, a radiating
antenna (actual source) is placed at some distance h from a perfect conducting plane..."
 The origin of the saying "Everything old
is new again" is credited to sources ranging from the Bible to Shakespeare to Mark
Twain. It might be one of the most oft-repeated phrases about life. The topic of
this editorial from a 1972 issue of Popular Electronics magazine is a prime example
of why people like me invoke the aforementioned dictum. For as long as I have been
aware of the
state of engineering and technology, opinion writers (aka "journalists") have
lamented the sorry condition of education in that it cannot motivate and produce
a qualified new crop of replacement engineers, scientists, technicians, doctors,
nurses, chemists, and other white collar workers (I can't recall ever hearing of
lawyer shortage, unfortunately). Looking back at how the "shortages" have been handled,
a large portion of the deficit was rectified by importing foreign talent rather
than...
 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.
 "Remcom's
XFdtd and Wireless InSite EM simulation software packages provide a complete
solution, from system and MIMO antenna design through performance assessment in
realistic, simulated environments, and planning for deployment in 5G networks. Their
mission is to provide accurate solutions, optimized for performance to help customers
reliably predict how their systems will behave in the real world. Through active
research and development, Remcom has remained a leader in modeling and MIMO simulation
technology for 5G and advanced wireless communications. 5G is pushing the boundaries
of wireless communications and wireless device design. Significant innovations are
needed in order to accommodate increased requirements for Enhanced Mobile Broadband,
Massive Machine-Type..."
 Exodus Advanced Communications, is a multinational
RF communication equipment and engineering service company serving both commercial
and government entities and their affiliates worldwide. We are pleased to announce
the
Exodus AMP2099C, a rugged ultra-broadband SSPA designed for all applications.
It supports a frequency band of 500 MHz to 6.0 GHz, with 150 W minimum
power and 53 dB of gain. Excellent power/gain flatness as compared to other
amplifiers. Forward/Reflected power monitoring, VSWR, voltage/current/temperature
sensing for superb reliability and ruggedness. The nominal weight is 23 kg
in a compact 4U chassis 7"H x 19"W x 22"D...
Banner Ads are rotated in all locations
on the page! RF Cafe typically receives 8,000-15,000 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.
Your Banner Ads are displayed on average 280,000 times per year! 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. If you need your company
news to be seen, RF Cafe is the place to be...
 Not everyone who visits websites such as
RF Cafe is a seasoned electronics veteran. While I and most likely you, too, can
do series and parallel circuit analysis (and series/parallel for that matter, possibly
using Fourier or La Place transforms for reactive AC circuits) in our sleep,
many are recently getting into the wonderful world of electronics who are just coming
of age or have suddenly at a later point in life developed a passion for the science.
Accordingly, this article from a 1932 issue of Radio News magazine provides yet
another tutorial on the fundamentals of series and parallel circuit analysis. Only
resistors and basic Ohms law are covered. Don't let the vacuum tube schematic symbols
deter you.
 When
LEGO blocks were
first introduced in their current form in Denmark in the late1940s, founder Godfred
Kirk Christiansen could not have imagined how wildly popular his "toy" would become
with sculptors. That generations of kids would while away hours at a time building
original and predesigned structures per printed instructions were his realized dream,
Godfred would be in awe over how his creation has been applied from professional
and amateur artists. By the way, LEGO is a contraction conceived of by Christiansen
from the Danish phrase "leg godt," meaning "play well." The June 2012 issue of
Scientific American magazine has an article titled "Fusion's Missing Pieces"
on the current state of nuclear fusion, and with it is a photo of a cut-away view
of a tokomak...
 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, and
more. Page templates are provided with a preset scale (changeable) for a good presentation
that can incorporate all provided symbols...
 You've seen photos of
airplane
boneyards in the desert where retired commercial and military planes are stored
for use in cannibalization of replacement parts. A desert environment is idea because
corrosion from water is minimal. Did you know there are also
wind turbine graveyards? One of the largest is located in Sweetwater, Texas.
Most of what is stored there are the fiberglass and carbon fiber blades, cut into
pieces for easier handling. Unlike the airplanes whose wing parts in time may server
a purpose, these wind turbine "wings" (that's what they are) will likely remain
there forever. Some companies promise to recycle expired blades, but few ever do.
EV battery pack boneyards probably also exist, but you'll never see a picture of
one because political concerns will assure they are well hidden from public view
(probably in a 3rd world country where child labor is used to process them).
 Radio control (R/C) of a model doesn't get
much simpler than the transmitter and receiver circuits shown in the schematics
of Figure 2. Of course the cleanness of the transmitted signal and the selectivity
of the receiver of that signal leaves a lot to be desired. In 1952 when this article
appeared in Radio & Television News magazine, the airwaves weren't cluttered
with wireless communications devices, but given that these radio systems were sharing
the electromagnetic spectrum with Citizens Band (CB) radio, the chances of getting
"shot down" from nearby operators was pretty high if you lived within a few miles
of where CB'ers were communicating. More sophisticated R/C equipment was available
from commercial manufacturers, but this system targeted the do-it-yourself types
and those with limited hobby budgets. A lot of airplane models which consumed many
hours and dollars of a flyer's resources met with their demise as the result of
a stray signal blocking...
 Dig those crazy curved pistons, man. They
are righteous! That was the sort of hip lingo just beginning to hit the scene in
1961 when this "Rotary
Engine Fires Like a Six-Shooter" article appeared in Popular Science
magazine. It was not a Wankel type rotary engine in that it still used pistons and
connecting rods like a traditional internal combustion engine (ICE). Looking as
surreal as the watches in Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory" painting,
the pistons' shape conforms to the arched cylinder in which it reciprocates a few
thousand times per minute. How someone thinks up a scheme like this is beyond me.
It took a couple readings to truly get a grasp on the operation. The writer is a
bit misleading when asserting that the pistons are not really reciprocating in the
cylinders, but in fact they are; they are just not driven by the traditional crankshaft.
The engine's configuration reminds me of a modern brushless motor where the armature
remains fixed and the field...
 According to Electronics magazine
editor Lewis Young in mid-1964, the industry was entering into a
slump in business opportunities. The boom times provided during the war years
of WWII and Korea had resulted in, according to Mr. Young, a lax attitude toward
operational strategy that led to wasteful spending and poor accountability for project
results. It wasn't just the defense contractors' fault because government bureaucrats
- from relatively low ranking military personnel to elected lawmakers - had (have)
a habit of making sudden changes to contract requirements. Maintaining the resources
needed to keep up with ever-evolving demands necessitated a lot of the excess. Fortunately,
the military-industrial complex, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower dubbed it,
was on the verge of being thrown another huge monetary bone - the Vietnam War. President
Kennedy was already pumping lots of equipment and manpower into it, and LBJ would
follow suit with vigor. The money pipeline was filling up quickly; the electronics
industry...
 I'm old enough to remember the
1973 Oil Crisis era (the subject of Mac McGregor's and Barney's discussion)
that resulted from an oil embargo instituted by Arab oil producing nations during
the Yom Kippur War where Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel. I
didn't get my driver's license until Fall of 1974 (turned 16 on August 18th), so
the worst of it was pretty much over by then. However, I clearly remember sitting
in long lines at the gas station with my father, and then being limited in the amount
that could be purchased (i.e., no fill-ups). Gas prices jumped from a national average
of 38.5¢/gallon in May 1973 to 55.1¢/gallon in June 1974 (43% increase in a year).
According to the BLS' Inflation Calculator, that is the equivalent of about $3.52/gallon
in 2024 money. That's about what gas is costing right now, so today we're paying
oil embargo era rates (thank you Brandon). If you were fortunate enough to own a
boat during those times...
 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.
 British engineer John Sargrove was to the
production of radios what Henry Ford was to automobiles. At the time this "Robot
Makes Radios" article appeared in a 1947 issue of Radio-Craft magazine,
Sargrove had recently put his
Electronic Circuit Making Equipment (ECME) fully automated assembly line into
operation. Applying knowledge from two decades of developing methods of creating
inductors, capacitors, resistors, and interconnecting conductors using controlled
deposition of various materials on flat substrates, he was able to build 2-tube
AC/DC radios at a rate of up to three per minute, with only two ECME operators -
one at the input and one at the output. The only manual assembly required was the
installation of a potentiometer-switch, a transformer, speaker, and a power cord,
plus joining the two fabricated Bakelite plates together. You will be amazed at
what Mr. Sargrove's machine did. Unfortunately, raw material shortages after
a grueling war...
|
 We really have it good today compared to
the early days of the semiconductor revolution. Most of the most difficult problems
were solved long ago. Point contact devices were still fairly commonplace even in
1964 when this ad appeared in Electronics magazine. Recall that the very
first manufactured
solid state diodes and transistors were the point contact type that were encapsulated
in glass with a space gap where the contact was made. That left the device vulnerable
to vibration and impact damage and to contamination if the hermetic seal failed
between the metal lead and the junction(s). Unitrode claims to have been the first
to eliminate that issue with essentially a fully bonded package. Keep in mind, however,
that even the early semiconductor device packaging was no worse than the vacuum
tubes that they replaced, since the tubes also suffered from the same vulnerabilities
due to their construction...
 Even in the early days of
"computer-designed" printed circuit boards, the software was sophisticated enough
to take a circuit net list and perform a rudimentary auto-routing all of metal traces,
component solder pads and through holes, using a set of defined design rules for
line width and spacing, component size, number of layers, etc. Manual tweaking was
usually needed after the initial run, but even today, especially for high frequency
PCBs, some manual adjustment is needed to help ensure first-pass success of a layout.
According to author Bauer, as many as 22 layers had been accomplished at the time
of the article's printing in a 1969 issue of Electronics World magazine.
Numerically controlled machines were already being used to produce artwork and drill
through holes. What kinds of computers did the heavy computations in the day? "A
12 x 12 inch board with 50 thousandths of an inch grid requires 120,000 bytes of
memory. This memory capacity is supplied by a medium- to large-scale computer...
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, and
more. Page templates are provided with a preset scale (changeable) for a good presentation
that can incorporate all provided symbols...
 These couple
tech-themed
comics appeared in the June 1969 issue of Electronics World magazine.
The one on page 52 is a bit short-sighted even for its era given that any advanced
civilization would likely no longer use vacuum tubes. For that matter, most first-world
peoples on Earth were pretty much out of the vacuum tube realm by 1969. New TVs
(except the CRT) and radios were almost exclusively solid state. The comic on page
61 made me chuckle out loud when I saw it. That one is worth printing out and framing
to hang in the lab or outside an electronics professor's office door...
 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+ 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...
 The fundamental
principles of sonar (sound navigation and ranging) and radar (radio detection
and ranging) are very similar. Oddly, the author never makes the comparison, and
neither does he mention the makeup of the acronym. Although I am no sonar expert,
I did work as an electronics technician with sonar system components while at the
Westinghouse Oceanic Division in Annapolis, Maryland, back in the 1980s. And, as
you might know, I was an Air Traffic Control Radar Repairman in the late1970 - early
1980s, so I have some experience there, too. While both sonar and radar have their
own unique challenges regarding operational environments, I have to say the sonar
system designer has more obstacles to overcome than does his radar counterpart.
Factors affecting signal propagation which can lead to uncertainty in position,
size, and speed are water salinity, temperature, pressure (at great depth), turbidity,
turbulence, including often traversing multiple gradients between the source and
the target. Wavelengths useful at long distances are too long for fine resolution
images, but for close−up inspection, ultrasonic enable near photographic resolution.
 Winged
Shadow Systems has developed a solid state
electronic altimeter called the How High™ that plugs into a spare receiver channel
for power, and provides altitude readings between 50 feet and 7,000 feet above ground
level. The heart of the system is the SM5420 pressure sensor, by Silicon Microstructures.
It is a micromachined structure molded in an 8-pin SOIC plastic package. Here is
the datasheet. Per the manufacturer, "The SM5420C is a small outline SO-8 packaged
pressure sensor. The sensor uses SMI’s SM5108C micromachined, piezoresistive pressure
sensing chip that has been optimized to provide the highest possible accuracy for
a package of this size..." News
Flash: I set a personal thermalling altitude record of 1,267 feet
in my 85% Aquila glider on May 23, 2024!
 This assortment of custom-designed themes
by RF Cafe includes T-Shirts, Mouse Pads, Clocks, Tote Bags, Coffee Mugs and Steins,
Purses, Sweatshirts, Baseball Caps, and more, all sporting my amazingly clever "RF Engineers - We Are the World's Matchmakers"
Smith chart design. These would make excellent gifts for husbands, wives, kids,
significant others, and for handing out at company events or as rewards for excellent
service. My graphic has been ripped off by other people and used on their products,
so please be sure to purchase only official RF Cafe gear. I only make a couple bucks
on each sale - the rest goes to Cafe Press. It's a great way to help support RF
Cafe. Thanks...
 When designing filters, be they lowpass
(LP), highpass (HP, bandpass (BP), or bandstop (BS), you begin with prototype values
of capacitors and inductors using an impedance of 1±0j Ω and a
frequency of 1 rad/s. From there, you need to
scale
the components for whatever impedance and frequency you need. Most filters we
use are 50±0j Ω and then scaling frequency is the cutoff for LP and HP,
and the fencer frequency for BP and BS. Of course these days nearly everyone uses
software to do the heave lifting, but if you're old school or are in school and
need to do it manually,
Espresso
Engineering Workbook (free download) now have a page to do that for you...
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+ 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...
 Mr. E.D. Clark added these three circuit
posers to his increasingly large number of "What's
Your EQ?" series of columns, this one appearing in the June 1962 issue of
Radio-Electronics magazine. While many can be real head-scratchers, the
first problem is not too much of a challenge. The resistor and capacitive reactance
circuit should also be a piece of cake for even a first-year student. It's a standard
voltage divider except you need to account for the phase shift (-90°) of the capacitor,
which requires using the magnitude of the series combination. I had to admit that
the author's solution to the 1 μs pulse from a 2 μs using only a simple
passive device eluded me. I was thinking in terms of an RC differentiating circuit
of some sort with phase delays, but a much simpler method is possible. You'll need
to think "out of the box" - the spare parts box, that is...
 You've heard of the World's Fairs, the most
familiar probably being the 1933 Chicago World's Fair where the theme was "A
Century of Progress." World's Fairs have been held in various cities worldwide
since the late 1790s. In 1929, the World's Fair was held in the United Kingdom,
but the "Radio World's Fair," which began its annual run in 1924 (click on stamps
thumbnail), was held in New York City. Surprisingly little exists on the Internet
about the events. It was more of a trade show to introduce new products than it
was a fair, as can be seen from the photos. Radios with decorative wooden cabinets
were becoming popular as the number of commercial broadcast stations was growing
rapidly. Remote control in the day meant a handheld unit with a cable attached to
the main system. Crosley introduced its first gendered radio model - the Monotrad
(see photo).
 When you read a lot of tutorials about introductory
electronics on the Internet, most are the same format where stoic, scholarly presentations
of the facts are given. Those of you who don't have enough fingers and toes to count
all of the college textbooks like that which you have read know of what I speak.
When hobby articles are written in a similar fashion, it can quickly discourage
the neophyte tinkerer or maybe even a future Bob Pease. The American Radio Relay
League's (ARRL's) QST magazine has printed a plethora of articles over
the years that are more of a story than just a presentation of the facts. My guess
is the reason is because often the authors are not university professors who have
forgotten how to speak to beginners. This 1944 article on basic calculations for
AC series and parallel circuits is a prime example; everything still holds true
today.
 Centric RF is a company offering from stock
various RF and Microwave coaxial
components, including attenuators, adapters, cable assemblies, terminations,
power dividers, and more. We believe in offering high performance parts from stock
at a reasonable cost. Frequency ranges of 0-110 GHz at power levels from 0.5-500
watts are available off the shelf. We have >500,000 RF and Microwave passive
components we can ship you today! We offer Quality Precision Parts, Competitive
Pricing, Easy Shopping, Fast Delivery. We're happy to provide custom parts, such
as custom cables and adapters, to fit your needs. Centric RF is currently seeking
distributors, so please contact us if interested. Visit Centric RF today.
 In his spare time, when not developing world-changing
concepts of information theory, Claude Shannon designed this
Minivac 601 programmable computer for students and hobbyists. It had 6
bits of data storage, implemented with electromechanical relays. Its output consisted
of six incandescent lamps. Marketed by Scientific Development Corporation, advertisements
for it appeared in magazines like Popular Science in the early 1960s. $85 in 1961
is the equivalent of around $885 today per the BLS CPI calculator, which is about
what high end smartphones cost today. Since this ad is pitching a computer, let
us perform a few simple calculations. Inflation from 1961 through 2024 represents
a factor of 10.4 in 63 years, an average of 0.165x per year. Four short years ago
the equivalent price was $731, representing a factor of 8.6 in 59 years, an average
of 0.146x per year. Continuing, 0.165/yr ÷ 0.146/yr = 1.12, or a 12% increase
in the last four years...
 "5G communications technology has been overhyped
but
6G may live up to the revolutionary promise that its predecessor did not, a
British expert told a leading tech conference in China. Jiangzhou Wang, a professor
at the University of Kent’s school of engineering, told a technology conference
in Beijing on Friday that 5G had yet to result in a killer app. 'I am objectively
disappointed with 5G,' Shanghai-based financial news site Yicai quoted Wang as saying
at the Sohu Annual Sci-Tech Conference. 'In the 5G era, we have not seen a blockbuster
application for ordinary consumers, nor has it been widely applied in vertical industries.'
Future 6G technology might be revolutionary rather than incremental. '5G has been
overhyped, as if it can do everything..."
 If subjects pertaining to electronics -
particularly vacuum tubes - are like music to your ears, then this poem entitled
"What Is It?," from the
February 1943 edition of QST magazine, should suit you just fine. The rhyming
words are supplied by author Frank Judd; you just need to supply the harmony. You
might recognize paraphrasing of other familiar works such as Longfellow's "Paul
Revere's Ride." Poems like this one were actually quite common back in the day.
In fact if you look through the list of articles that I have posted from vintage
QSTs, you will find about a dozen...
 Maybe the term "time
domain reflectometery" had not been coined when this Bell Telephone Laboratories
(Bell Labs) advertisement appeared in a 1948 issue of Popular Science magazine.
Or, maybe the creators figured Popular Science readers, while generally a more technically-oriented
group, might not possess the depth of understanding needed to appreciate the phrase.
At the time, use of coaxial cable transmission lines for carrying telephone calls
was fairly new, although Bell began using some coaxial cable in 1927. A decade earlier,
prior to great advances in high frequency communications during World War II,
twisted pairs of solid conductors were sufficient to handle traffic. They did a
good job, but each twisted pair carried only a single circuit operating at audio
frequencies. That is why telephone cables were so large in diameter - they could
be holding hundreds of twisted pairs. Coaxial cable signals can handle hundred or
thousands of channels by modulating across a very wide bandwidth...
 It's probably a safe bet that most people,
even at the
dawn of color television, knew of the competition which occurred for the adoption
of three different methods of implementation. Two of them - line-sequential by Color
Television, Inc. (CTI), and dot-sequential by Radio Corporation of America (RCA)
- were fully electronic while the third system by the Columbia Broadcast System
(CBS) used a kludge of a spinning color wheel placed in front of a black and white
display. The CBS field-sequential design used a synchronization component of the
composite transmitted signal to position the correct color screen (red, yellow,
or blue) in front of the screen as the electron gun scanned the CRT - analogous
to how World War I airplane machine guns were synchronized with the engine
to fire between propeller blades. Of course an out-of-synch scenario in the color
wheel was not as serious as with the machine gun...
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 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...
 As the general election approaches here
in the U.S., more attention is being paid to voting legitimacy, particularly by
non-citizens. This was very recently brought to light:
18 U.S. Code § 611
- Voting by aliens --- "(a) It shall be unlawful for any alien to vote
in any election held solely or in part for the purpose of electing a candidate for
the office of President, Vice President, ... Member of the Senate, Member of the
House of Representatives, ... unless ---
(c) Subsection (a) does not apply to an alien if --- (3)
the alien reasonably believed at the time of voting
in violation of such subsection that he or she was a citizen of the United States."
Undoubtedly the millions who have crossed into the U.S. have been instructed to
claim such an exemption. Your vote can be nullified by an illegal alien with this.
 Every once in a while having your own website
pays off by having someone offer hard- or difficult-to-find information. Back in
2016 when I originally posted the Radio Service Data Sheet (RSDS) for the Columbia
Screen-Grid 8 (SG−8) Receiver, no photo could be found online. Notice hugeness of
the components on top of the electronics chassis - the vacuum tubes, the metal shields,
the transformers, the coils, etc. I always put in a fair amount of effort to find
actual pictures of the radios. An image search usually does the job, but sometimes
there is nothing to be found. This RSDS appeared in the October 1930 issue of
Radio-Craft magazine. Typical of the era is a very ornate wooden chassis,
and note the tiny tuning window in the center - no round dial or linear frequency
scale...
 "The
Radio
Access Network (RAN) market is "still struggling," according to the latest report
from telecom analysts Dell'Oro Group. The first quarter of 2024 saw exceptionally
weak results, with a decline of 15-30% in the overall global RAN market - the steepest
decline since Dell'Oro started covering this market in 2000, according to Stefan
Pongratz, Dell'Oro VP and analyst. Dell'Oro measures the sector by both revenue
and units sold, but "the focus is on revenue," Pongratz said. Huawei, Ericsson,
Nokia, ZTE and Samsung are the top five RAN suppliers, based on worldwide revenues.
The vendors' positions remained stable but 'there have been shifts in vendor shares,'
Dell'Oro said in an email. 'Huawei's 4QT revenue share improved relative to 2023,
while Nokia lost ground over the same period.' So, we can look forward to dour first-quarter
results from our Nordic friends at Nokia and Ericsson, following disappointing fourth-quarter
results. Ericsson said that it would cut 1,200 Swedish staff in March 2024. This
follows planned cuts of 8,500 people worldwide..."
 The newest release of RF Cafe's spreadsheet
(Excel) based engineering and science calculator is now available -
Espresso
Engineering Workbook™. Among other additions, it now has a Butterworth Bandpass
Calculator, and a Highpass Filter Calculator that does not just gain, but also
phase and group delay! Since 2002, the
original Calculator Workbook has been available as a free download. Continuing
the tradition, RF Cafe Espresso Engineering Workbook™ is also
provided at no cost,
compliments of my generous sponsors. The original calculators are included, but
with a vastly expanded and improved user interface. Error-trapped user input cells
help prevent entry of invalid values. An extensive use of Visual Basic for Applications
(VBA) functions now do most of the heavy lifting with calculations, and facilitates
a wide user-selectable choice of units for voltage, frequency, speed, temperature,
power, wavelength, weight, etc. In fact, a full page of units conversion calculators
is included. A particularly handy feature is the ability to specify the the number
of significant digits to display. Drop-down menus are provided for convenience...
 From the 1940s through the 1980s,
National Radio Institute (NRI) ran full-page and multi-page advertisements in
many electronics and technology magazines, including Popular Mechanics,
Radio News, and here in this 1947 issue of Popular Science. I
don't recall exactly how/where I learned of the NRI when I enrolled in their "Electronic
Design Technology" course, circa 1987. At the time I was working as an electronics
technician for Simmonds Precision Instruments in Vergennes, Vermont. That was immediately
preceding my completing a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering at
the University of Vermont. My formal training in electronics began in the U.S. Air
Force while attending technical school at Keesler AFB, Mississippi, for being an
Air Traffic Control Radar Repairman. NRI president J. E. (James Ernest) Smith,
whose face appeared regularly in the ads...
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