This water-powered
clock appeared on the EDN website. Rather than get the story second-hand, I went
to the Bedol website. According to the manufacturer: The handsome
Bedol Water Clock works 100% on natural power. No batteries, no chemicals,
no electricity – no pollution. You don’t even need to wind it up! Just fill the tank
with natural tap water and you’re set for 12 to 14 weeks of accurate timekeeping before
refreshing. (You won’t even lose time while changing water, thanks to the built-in memory
chip!) With its bold modern styling, space-age accuracy, and surprisingly low price,
the Bedol Eco-Friendly Water Powered Clock is ideal for home or office – or as a unique
gift item. Not bad for $25, and no batteries required. There is a video that explains
the process.
Synthesis
and Tuning of Modern Microwave Filters, by CST, Thursday, November 8, 11 am ET. The
first part of this webinar focuses on filter synthesis. Starting with the classic coupling
matrix approach in which the matrix coefficients determine the filter topology, we will
focus on the conversion of this matrix into a 3D model in CST MICROWAVE STUDIO® (CST
MWS). We will demonstrate the new link between CST MWS and the filter synthesis tool
Nuhertz as well as a specialized built-in macro for automatic band-pass filter synthesis
and construction.
The Windfreak
SynthNV is a 137 MHz to
4.4 GHz software tunable RF signal generator controlled and powered by a Windows
PC via its USB port. It includes an on board 70 dB RF power detector which
can be used with the sweep function as a scalar RF Network Analyzer. RF power is
settable in ½ dB steps up to +17 dBm with over 60 dB of amplitude
adjust-ability. There is no need to stay tethered to the computer. The
SynthNV has nonvolatile on board
memory so it can be programmed to fire up by itself on any frequency, power or modulation
setting. This makes for a highly mobile, low power and light weight solution for your
RF signal generation needs. The SynthNV
has unique amplitude, sweep and pulse modulation capability that has made it very popular
with military and police EW applications. But it is equally at home used as a high quality
local oscillator driving a mixer in a microwave communication system or test signal generation
in your ATE setup.
everything
RF is a search engine for RF & Microwave Components. everything RF lists
complete catalogs from various RF & Microwave component manufacturers and enables
engineers to search through them by specification. There are over 60,000 Components
listed from more than 150 Manufacturers. Download datasheets, Request Quotes or
Contact the Suppliers for more information via everything RF.
NP Technologies designs and manufactures solid
state broadband linear RF power amplifiers for commercial, military, medical and industrial
applications. RF amplifiers range 10 kHz to 3 GHz in frequency and power levels
exceeding 1 kW. Standard products can be quickly modified to your specific requirements.
Hittite Microwave has introduced a new Successive
Detection Log Video Amplifier (SDLVA) that operates over the full 1 to 20 GHz frequency
range and carries a class 1A ESD rating (250V HBM). Specified as an improved ESD performance
replacement for the
HMC-C052 SDLVA, the
HMC-C088 features
miniature connectorized module packaging, which makes it ideal for designers with space
and power-constrained applications including EW and ELINT receivers, DF radar, ECM, and
IFM systems.
Did you know that the Hallicrafters line of radios
is named after founder Bill Halligan (W9WZE)?
Hallicrafters,
founded in 1932, was a major manufacturer of amateur radio gear. During the years of
WWII they ruggedized some of their products to survive the harsh environments of battle.
Hallicrafters was sold to Northrop Corporation in 1966, at which time the product line
essentially ceased. Their gear is still very collectible by aficionados of vintage Ham
equipment. This story from the February 1943 QST provided an inside look at
the production floor at Hallicrafters. Having cut my figurative electronics teeth on
radar and radio equipment built with tubes and point-to-point wiring while in the USAF,
and then later as an assembly/test technician at Westinghouse Electric building sonar
equipment for the Navy which included wiring chassis and building large complex cable
harnesses, I can personally relate to the photos accompanying the article...
Aruba Networks
is seeking a Senior RF Engineer who wants to be a part of a fast-paced and challenging
environment. The focus of this position will be designing Aruba next generation Access
Points by a combination of Sunnyvale based R&D and technical leadership and oversight
of our Asia based JDM partners.
PMI Model
8C1542D5-35-CD-SFF is a band pass filter centered at 1542.5 MHz
with a nominal bandwidth is 35 MHz. This model offers a low insertion loss of 1.0 dB
maximum and maintains a passband VSWR of 1.5:1 maximum. This filter offers a 8 pole response
and is packaged in an aluminum housing measuring 6.6" x 1.2" x 1.3".
Anatech Electronics designs
and manufactures the industry's widest range of RF and microwave filters at frequencies
up to 40 GHz, as well as power dividers, directional couplers, and many other product
types. They specialize in standard and custom designs for commercial wireless, public
safety, satcom, and defense applications, and we can meet stringent military environmental
specifications.
PierCon
Solutions is a leading provider of wireless communications engineering services currently
looking for Contract RF Engineers for our Northern New Jersey site. Must have OSS and
3-5 years UMTS optimization experience. Ericsson equipment experience a plus. Must be
a self-starter, ambitious, able to work alone and committed to getting the job done.
BSEE required.
Hittite's online Javascript app for finding
mixer spurious products has been around for many years, but in case
you have forgotten about it or have never seen it, now is a good time to bookmark the
page. It uses a format pioneered by Collins Radio back in the middle of the last century
that plots the
RF/LO
and IF/LO harmonics as straight lines, and then draws a rectangle within them that
represents the limits of the output frequency band. Any spurious product lines that pass
through the rectangle are inband at the output, and hence cannot be filtered out after
the fact. I dubbed the chart a "
Spur Web" in my DOS-based
RF Workbench program back around 1990. It was, I believe, the first time that chart format
had ever been implemented in software with a graphical user interface.
I have been a big space adventure and cartoon fan
my whole life, so naturally Buzz Lightyear is my favorite character in the
Toy Story series by Pixar. "Infinity and beyond,"
is his trademark line. The name "Buzz" is in honor of Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
Tim Allen does the voice of Buzz. Anyway, Melanie and I watched Toy Story 3 the other
night and really enjoyed it. My favorite crack-up laughing line in the movie was from
Buzz, where he says, "That wasn't me, was it?" after regaining consciousness in the trash
chute.
New for this publication is a Signal Conditioners
Product Line featuring a 32 Gbps dual channel advanced linear equalizer. The
Selection Guide is organized by RF & Microwave, Analog &
Mixed Signal, Clocks & Timing and LO Frequency Generation IC sections along with
Modules and Instrumentation. The New & Expanded Product Line section includes new
Amplifiers, Clocks & Timing, Mixers, Optical Modulator Drivers, Signal Conditioners
and RFIC & Transceivers.
RF Micro Devices today announced the
appointment of Alan Hallberg as the Company’s corporate vice president and chief marketing
officer (CMO). In the role of CMO, Mr. Hallberg will oversee RFMD’s global marketing
activities and will be based in RFMD’s growing Silicon Valley, CA, location. He will
report to RFMD’s president and CEO Bob Bruggeworth.
For the sake of avid cruciverbalists, each week
I create a new
crossword puzzle
that has a theme related to engineering, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and other technical
words. You will never be asked the name of a movie star unless he/she was involved in
a technical endeavor (e.g., Hedy Lamar).
LS Research has a short tutorial on antenna matching
within an enclosure. The author, RF design engineer John Lienau, is a graduate of Marquette
University in Milwaukee, WI, with a Masters degree in electrical engineering. His graduate
research focused on electromagnetic theory and antenna design. Part I covers
Theory & Principle, and Part II covers
Techniques & Guidelines.
Kevin A., of Roanoke, VA, is the October 2012
Book Drawing winner. Kevin selected
Monopulse Principles
and Techniques, by
Samuel M. Sherman and David K. Barton.
Graciously provided by
Artech House
Handbook of Microwave Component Measurements: with
Advanced VNA Techniques, by Joel P. Dunsmore. This book provides state-of-the-art
coverage for making measurements on RF and microwave components, both active and passive.
A perfect reference for R&D and Test Engineers, with topics ranging from the best
practices for basic measurements, to an in-depth analysis of errors, correction methods,
and uncertainty analysis, this book provides everything you need to understand microwave
measurements. Primary focus is on active and passive measurements using a Vector Network
Analyzer.
Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS)
was the first platform for space-based weather observation, both in visible and infrared
wavelengths. All modern satellites have attitude and orbit correcting capabilities via
gas jets, but there is only a limited supply of gas available so the lifetime of a satellite
is limited as well. Scientists who monitored the performance of TIROS I noticed
that the Earth's magnetic field affected the satellite's attitude as it orbited. They
reasoned that attitude control coils could be installed and energized on TIROS II
using electrical power from its solar panels rather than the onboard fuel supply. This
article from a 1961 edition of Popular Electronics describes the effort.
Pasternack announces that it has appointed Altaix Electronica, S.A.
(Altaix) as Pasternack’s exclusive RF distributor for Spain and Portugal. Altaix joins
a growing list of international RF distributors who are partnering with Pasternack to
expand their product offering and customer service worldwide. Altaix’s customers now
have access to an inventory of more than 35,000 RF and microwave components and assemblies,
all available for same-day shipment from the U.S.
Z-Communications announces a new RoHS compliant
Fixed Frequency Synthesizer model
SFS4000C-LF for Satellite Communications and Test Equipment. The
SFS4000C-LF is a single frequency synthesizer that is phase locked at 4000 MHz while
using a 10 MHz reference. This coaxial resonator PLL features remarkable phase noise
of -102 dBc/Hz @ 10 kHz offset and typical sideband spurs of -65 dBc.
Sherlock Ohms is a regular feature of Design News
that presents submissions from readers about troubleshooting challenges and how they
were solved. This one is titled "
I Fixed My Broken Corvette for $0.00." Yes, it is relevant to EEs
because it involves electrical contacts.
"[I] chose @ - 'probably saving it from going the
same way of the 'cent' sign on computer keyboards'" --
Ray Tomlinson, BBN Technologies engineer who instituted the "@" sign
used in e-mail addresses, September 2012 Smithsonian magazine
AWR Corporation,
the innovation leader in high-frequency EDA software, announces the commercial release
and immediate availability of Analyst. Analyst is a full featured, 3D electromagnetic (EM)
industry standard finite element method (FEM) simulator that is completely integrated
into AWR’s Microwave Office circuit simulation environment, effectively making 3D FEM
EM analysis as straightforward as a mouse click.
Pasternack announces that it has appointed
Vermont Representacoes e Comercio
Ltda. (Vermont Rep) as Pasternack’s exclusive distributor for Brazil. Vermont Rep
joins a growing list of international distributors who are partnering with Pasternack
to expand their product offering and customer service worldwide. Pasternack maintains
inventory of more than 35,000 RF and microwave components and assemblies, all available
for same-day shipment from the United States.
In this article the author describes the
automatic
antenna switching system which was developed for controlling the forty-odd receiving
antennas at the FCC's Grand Island (Nebraska) Monitoring Station. With this system it
required only a matter of seconds for the operator to select any desired antenna by simply
pushing a couple of buttons on the control panel. A similar system could easily be designed
for a lesser number of antennas either for a test range or an amateur radio operation.
A new promotional video titled, "IEEE-USA:
Putting the I in IEEE-USA," has just been released by the IEEE. It is a 4-minute-long
pitch for the services and benefits provided by
IEEE for its members. From political
lobbying to salary surveys, book deals, and student activities, they do offer a lot for
the nominal annual fee. Melanie and I buy our life insurance through them because even
with the dues cost, it is still cheaper than anywhere else we've looked.
The ARRL's outreach to youngsters is aided by a
monthly column written by Youth Editor Sterling Coffey, N0SSC. This one is titled, "October
is for the Kids -- School Club Roundup, JOTA, Contests and Giveaways." Sterling is a
junior majoring in electrical engineering at the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
PMI Model
BPF1370-50-CD-TNCMF-LK is a bandpass filter with an Fc of 1370 MHz
and 1 dB BW of 50 MHz. Ultimate stopband rejection of 60 dBc, input signal
level of 6 watts, 10% duty factor. Loss of less than 2 dB in a package measuring
2.25" x 1.0" x 0.75".
PMI Model
BPF1370-50-CD-TNCMF-BL is a bandpass filter with an Fc of 1370 MHz
and 1 dB BW of 50 MHz. Ultimate stopband rejection of 60 dBc, input signal
level of 6 watts, 10% duty factor. Loss of less than 2 dB in a package measuring
5.08" x 1.5" x 0.79".
As I write this, Hurricane Sandy is just hours
away from making landfall in New Jersey. In case you are not familiar with the
Google Crisis Maps, they are
interactive maps with clickable points for web cams, first-hand reports of conditions,
emergency shelter locations, and many other resources. If you live in Hurricane Sandy's
path or want to monitor the situation because someone you know lives there, this is probably
the single best comprehensive resource for you.
For the sake of avid cruciverbalists, each week
I create a new crossword
puzzle that has a theme related to engineering, mathematics, chemistry, physics,
and other technical words. You will never be asked the name of a movie star unless he/she
was involved in a technical endeavor (e.g., Hedy Lamar).
PMI Model BRF1370-50-CD-TNCFF-BL and
BRF1370-50-CD-TNCFF-LK are a band reject filters with center frequency
of 1370 MHz and a notch bandwidth of 60 MHz with a notch depth is 50 dB.
Two form factors with TNC connectors available.
Leeds, which dubbed itself "The Home of RADIO,"
has been in New York since at least 1923, but this advertisement appeared in the December
1931 edition of QST. Leeds is still in operation today in Brooklyn under the name of
Leeds Radio.
Looking at the ad is a step back ninety years into the past, but the nostalgic waxing
does not have to end there. If you want a trip back to the beginning days of the World
Wide Web, go to the current Leeds Radio website. It's format-less text presentation with
basic hyperlinks is circa 1992 when bulletin boards ruled the day and the Mosaic browser
was just giving web surfers their first taste of a GUI. The only images I found on the
Leeds website were a few scans of old advertisements like the one shown below (which
is not on their site).
Lee de Forest, inventor of the Audion vacuum tube,
created a business called
De Forest Radio Company (although I hear he didn't build that).
This advertisement for his company's electron tubes appeared in the December 1931 edition
of the ARRL's QST magazine. If you research Lee de Forest, you will find his name spelled
incorrectly in many different forms: de Forest, De Forest, de Forest, de Forest, to give
a few. When in doubt, go straight to the source, which in this case is the signature
that de Forest placed on his patent applications - he used "de Forest." Note that the
official company name, according to the advertisement address at the bottom, is "De Forest
Radio Company," (space used) yet the text of the copy uses the form "de Forest" (no space),
and the marking on the base of the tube says, "de Forest." Sometimes marketing firms
screw up, so I went searching for...
A new
Multi-beam Hub Base Station antenna, model number MBA6-3.5DS45/2045,
has been developed by Cobham Antenna Systems, Microwave Antennas
(formerly European Antennas) to enable MIMO radio system
operators to meet their goal of 1Gbps/km2 anywhere within a cell. Designed for high speed
MIMO 4G (and beyond) urban access for backhaul, this was
originally a European Union funded project that has become a finished and available Multi-beam
antenna with additional Military and Security applications.
Transmission Line Transformers, by Jerry Sevick.
Recommended by RF Cafe visitor Alexander T., this 4th edition of a classic text on transmission
line transformers for high frequencies includes new chapters on transmission line transformer
efficiency, power combiners and mixer transformers, and equal-delay transformers. Techniques
of Guanella and Ruthroff as well as hundreds of real transformers constructed and measured
to establish the practical levels of bandwidth and loss performance.
RF Micro Devices announced it has been awarded a $2.1 million contract
from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to enhance the thermal efficiency
of gallium nitride (GaN) circuits used in high power radar and other military systems.
The award is in association with the Near Junction Thermal Transport (NJTT) effort of
DARPA's Thermal Management Technologies (TMT) program. The goal of the DARPA NJTT initiative
is to achieve a 3x or greater improvement in power handling from GaN power amplifiers
through improved thermal management of the near junction region.
What is believed to be the oldest playable recording
of an American voice has been revealed at the
Museum of Innovation
and Science in Schenectady, New York. Digital mastering of the extremely rare, extremely
fragile tinfoil medium has produced an audible 23-second cornet solo of an unidentified
song, followed by a man's voice reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Old Mother Hubbard."
The man laughs at two spots during the recording, including at the end, when he recites
the wrong words in the second nursery rhyme. "Look at me; I don't know the song," he
says. The singer/speaker is identified as St. Louis newspaper writer Thomas Mason. Recordings
like this, which was made during an Edison phonograph demonstration in 1878, are so rare because typically
they would wear through after just a couple playbacks, whereupon the demonstrator would
tear the foil into pieces and hand it out as souvenirs. Optical techniques were used
to read the recorded indentations rather than risking making physical contact. The algorithm
attempted to mimic the physics of the original stylus in the same manner as done for
a 1860 paper recording by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville, a French printer credited
with inventing the earliest known sound recording device.
Wenteq Microwave
provides a wide range of RF
and microwave products with quick delivery at very competitive low prices. Products
including coaxial connectors and adapters, circulators, isolators, low noise amplifiers,
power amplifiers, broadband amplifiers, terminations and more, covering the frequency
range of 100 MHz to 110 Hz. They also provide technical consulting services
and engineering contracts which include antenna design, electromagnetic structural analysis,
and low cost manufacturing of RF/microwave circuits and systems.
EDN has a troubleshooting story-telling feature
called Tales from the Cube similar to the Sherlock Ohms feature by
Design News. This one, titled "If Only I Had Been Holding a Screwdriver," involves a
college kid who attempts to impress his girlfriend's father by fixing a broken stereo
speaker.
PMI Model
BP13G-10G-CD-SFF is a suspended substrate bandpass filter that offers
a wide passband of 8 to 18 GHz. This filter offers a low insertion loss of 1.5 dB
typically and a passband VSWR of 2.0:1 maximum. Stopband rejection of 70 dB typical
is provide from DC-6 GHz and from 20-23 GHz. Offered with field removable SMA
connectors so it can be used in connectorized form or as a drop-in module. The size is
1.94" x 0.76" x 0.5".
3GPP
LTE Standards Update: Release 11, 12 and Beyond, by Agilent, Thursday, October 25,
1:00 PM ET. The original 3GPP LTE standard in Release 8 has been stable now for some
three years and is the baseline for the wide-scale deployment of LTE across the world.
However, the standard continues to evolve through Releases 9 and 10 which are now frozen,
and ongoing work with Releases 11 and 12. This webcast will review the status of LTE
deployment, review the main features of each release and discuss some of the newest features
coming up in Release 11 and Release 12.
The
Cellular News
website, which I go to every day for headlines, has a funny story based on claims made
for lost or damaged cellphones as reported by
UK insurance company
Mobile Insurance. Here
are a couple examples to whet your appetite:
* A farmer in Devon claimed his phone
had disappeared inside the back end of one of his cows when he'd been using the torch
on his iPhone whilst assisting the cow during calving. The phone later made an appearance,
but was damaged.
* A lady in her early 40s from Nottingham claimed that she'd baked
her Nokia 6303i into a Victoria Sponge she'd been making for her daughter's birthday.
It didn't endure the heat of gas mark 5.
* A man in his 30s claimed he'd been filming
monkeys from the car window in Longleat Safari Park with his HTC One X when a monkey
climbed on the roof and snatched it.
"Today we made science fiction science fact." "We
hit every target we wanted to. We prosecuted every one." So says a very happy Keith Coleman,
Boeing's program manager for the
CHAMP project. Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave
Advanced Missile Project is the culmination of decades of
work to develop a non-lethal weapon that defeats targets without collateral damage, sort
of like a neutron bomb for electronics. From the Boeing website, "On Oct. 16th at 10:32
a.m. MST a Boeing Phantom Works team along with members from the U.S. Air Force Research
Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate team, and Raytheon Ktech, suppliers of
the High Power Microwave source, huddled in a conference room at Hill Air Force Base
and watched...