|
 As Radio-Electronics magazine publisher
Hugo Gernsback stated in his "Transistor
Growth" article, the transistor had been invented by Bell Laboratories' Drs.
Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley less than a decade prior to his 1957 writing. Being
the visionary that he is, Mr. Gernsback foresaw many of the implications of
wonderful new products that would be enabled by semiconductors. Not only would transistors
and semiconductor diodes totally replace all current uses where vacuum tubes were
employed, but untold new applications would ensue as well. Relatively high cost
of production (due partly to rejects), low power, low frequency, and lack of ruggedness
were barriers...
 "Sending spacecraft into low Earth orbit
could transform
next-generation telecommunications, space exploration and national security.
But that altitude - which begins roughly 60 miles above the planet's surface - is
a fickle place due to atmospheric drag, and spacecraft would require a new kind
of propulsion system to remain in orbit there. 'At the boundary of space, there's
still enough residual atmosphere that a spacecraft traveling at hypersonic speeds
is going to be slowed down by the atmosphere, and it needs a propulsion system to
keep it aloft, otherwise those collisions with residual air will deorbit your spacecraft
very quickly,' said Elaine Petro, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace
engineering in Cornell Engineering. 'And there's no good propulsion solutions right
now to do that..."
 The June 1945 edition of
Radio-Craft published a death notice for diode electron tube inventor
Sir Ambrose Fleming. The date given was April 19th, but every
source I can find says he died on April 18th. With having been born on November
29, 1849, that made the good fellow 95½ years old. According to a calculator
on the TimeAndDate.com website, that's a grand total of 34,900 days. Who's going
to argue over a potential 0.00287% error?
 Werbel Microwave began as a consulting firm,
specializing in RF components design, with the ability to rapidly spin low volume
prototypes, and has quickly grown into a major designer and manufacturer with volume
production capacities. Werbel is proud to announce its model WMRD16-7.2-S, a
16-way resistive power splitter that covers up to 7.2 GHz with ultra-wide
bandwidth. This unique design accomplishes extremely flat frequency response in
a small radial package. Our unique design approach provides higher than expected
isolation between outputs at far ports than would be achieved in a typical star
topology. It has applications in markets such as CATV, test and measurement, and
military radio. Its small size makes it easy to integrate into compact systems.
"No Worries with Werbel!"
 88 K on a P. 27
V of H K. 24 H in a D. Do you remember those kinds of puzzles where you have to
figure out what is being referred to? The first one is 88 Keys on a Piano, the second
27 Varieties of Heinz Ketchup, and the last is 24 Hours in a Day. If you like tackling
such challenges as associating
familiar quantities with their corresponding subjects, then you'll
want to check out the list I created below that all have science and engineering
themes. If this proves to be popular, I'll do another - hopefully including suggestions
from y'all. Good...
 The Douglas DC-3 revolutionized commercial
air travel with its introduction in 1935, and the military version, the C-47 Skytrain
(aka Dakota), proved an invaluable workhorse for the U.S. Army Air
Force during World War II. Without reliable and effective radio communications,
the aircraft's success would have been much less. Companies like
Bendix Radio led the way with rugged avionics that could take
the harsh conditions of flight that include vibration, shock, pressure changes,
and temperature variations. Replacement parts were usually not conveniently on-hand
and the radio operator often needed to also be a trained electronics technician
or engineer. "Necessity is the mother of...
 This "Harmonic
Analysis Made Easy" article from a 1957 issue of Radio-Electronics
magazine presents a brilliantly clever graphical method for performing harmonic
analysis without complex mathematics or the aid of a computer. By breaking down
a waveform into discrete ordinates every 30 degrees, the technique transforms Fourier
analysis into a manageable visual process, and skipping the messy math. Author Arthur
Shulman's approach is particularly ingenious in how it handles vector addition:
plotting each ordinate's value at its corresponding phase angle on a vector diagram
automatically accounts for trigonometric multiplication. The resultant vector's
length and direction directly reveal the harmonic's amplitude and phase. This method
makes visualization remarkably simple even without computational aid. By constructing
vector polygons, engineers could approximate a square wave using its fundamental
and third harmonic components
 It
is the opinion of historians that in order to understand the present, you need to
know the past. Searching for one's roots in this world is big business. Online family
tree type websites are used by thousands of people to research their family histories,
and some services don't come cheap. You can even pay someone to dig into your past
to assimilate all available information and put it in a bound, printed volume. Here
on RF Cafe, I research and post a lot of our profession's past. While
the individual topics themselves might no bear significantly on the present, having
an insight into the people's mindsets and progression of technology is...
 "Israel's high-powered laser interception
system, dubbed
Iron Beam, will be delivered to the military at the end of the month, the head
of the Defense Ministry's Directorate of Defense Research and Development said Monday.
Speaking at the DefenseTech Summit, DDR&D head Danny Gold said that 'with development
complete and a comprehensive testing program that has validated the system's capabilities,
we are prepared to deliver initial operational capability to the IDF on December
30, 2025.' ... 'The Iron Beam laser system is expected to fundamentally change the
rules of engagement on the battlefield. Simultaneously, we are already advancing
the next-generation systems..."
 Good, clean humor has always been a welcome
addition to my day whether it come in the form of a printed comic strip, a TV show,
or someone's mouth. My father's side of the family was populated with many jokesters
who could be counted on to deliver an ad hoc pun or zinger at the appropriate moment.
The environment instilled a great appreciation for such entertainment, so these
electronics-themed comics that appeared in editions of Radio-Electronics,
Popular Electronics, et al, are a refreshing distraction from the workaday
world. An old saying claims "laughter is the best medicine," and while it cannot
cure cancer, a good dose of humor often helps ease the pain...
 Exodus Advanced Communications, is a multinational
RF communication equipment and engineering service company serving both commercial
and government entities and their affiliates worldwide.
Exodus' AMP20110 is a rugged ultra-broadband solid state power amplifier (SSPA)
designed for all applications. Frequency range of 500 MHz to 6.0 GHz,
150 W minimum power and 53 dB of gain. Excellent power and gain flatness
as compared to other amplifiers. Forward and reflected power monitoring, VSWR, voltage,
current, and temperature sensing for superb reliability and ruggedness. The nominal
weight is 23kg in a compact 4U...
 $15.1 billion was a lot of money back in
1963 when this story was published in Electronics World magazine. It was
the
value of the electronics market at the time. $15.1 billion is still a lot of
loot today, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Inflation Calculator
it is now the equivalent of $147 billion. The Consumer Electronics Association projects
a 2015 electronics gadget market value of $223B, which does not include military,
medical, and industrial electronics. The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics group
predicts a $333B semi market value for 2014...
 With the high degree of computer automation
at this point in time, it is doubtful that many people still bother to perform digital
logic simplification manually by using a
Karnaugh Map. Online apps like this one (KarnaughMapSolver.com) do all the heavy
lifting for you, producing minterms, maxterms, a truth table, and a written-out
Boolean expression. Back in the late 1980s when I was working on my BSEE at UVM,
the Karnaugh Map, created by Maurice Karnaugh, of Bell Labs, was introduced in a
digital electronics course. It was a fairly easy concept to grasp. Is it taught
in electronics curricula these days? This 1975 Popular Electronics magazine
article provides a great introduction to the Karnaugh Map...
 Radio was a powerful
propaganda tool and strategic communications means toward the end of World War I,
and certainly in the lead-up to and during the course of World War II. Many
governments, including the United States and most European countries, forbade the
broadcasting of signals by anything other than an entity licensed for commercial
and/or military purposes. Amateur radio broadcasts were prohibited, although at
least here in the U.S. possession of a receiver for listening was still allowed.
Some of the regions controlled by Nazis did not even permit receivers - mainly because
the government did not want citizens listening to anything that could be considered...
 "In its latest set of trials Britains advanced
DragonFire laser weapon has been used to successfully target and shoot down
high-speed drones. According to an MOD statement, the trials - which were conducted
at the MOD's Hebrides range off the northwest coast of Scotland - involved above-the-horizon
tracking, targeting and shooting down of high-speed drones able to fly up to 650km/h,
a UK first for the technology. The trials were followed by the news that DragonFire
project lead MBDA - which heads up a consortium also including Leonardo and QinetiQ
- has been awarded a £316M contract to equip..."
 Sam Benzacar, of Anatech Electronics, an
RF and microwave filter company, has published his November 2025 Newsletter that,
along with timely news items, features his short op-ed entitled "AM
Radio Isn't Dead Yet." In it, he asserts that contrary to widespread narratives
of AM radio's imminent demise, data reveals the medium is not collapsing but adapting.
The 8-13% decline in stations since 1990 reflects market adjustments, not systemic
failure. AM maintains strong listenership in rural and mountainous regions where
geography limits FM reception, with radio overall outperforming television among
adults 18-49. Station closures follow local market dynamics...
 Mostly just old farts like me remember anything
about
LORAN (LOng RAnge Navigation). My familiarity with it came not
from boat navigation, but from airplane navigation. Before LORAN became totally
obsolete due to GPS (phased out in U.S. and Canada in 2010), the transmitter stations
were commonly tuned in in order to obtain positional fixes via triangulation. Whilst
taking flying lessons at Lee Airport, in Edgewater, Maryland, the ground instructor
included it in the lessons, and even the FAA Private Pilot exams had a question
or two on LORAN. The el cheapo Piper Colts that I flew were lucky to have a VOR
(VHF omnidirectional range ) receiver in it, so I never actually used LORAN. They
did have direction finders (DF), which could tune in, among other things, VHF television
station channels...
 When the concept
of
radio-refrigerators was presented in a 1933 edition of Radio-News,
it was not quite what has become reality today. At the time, the Radio Electrical
Exposition had recently been held in Madison Square Garden and the world was just
getting used to the miracle of radio waves - and refrigerators for that matter.
Radio-refrigerators never did make their way into the consumer market. Fast-forward
90 years and now we're seeing the advent of radio-refrigerators re-emerge, only
in a completely different format. This time, rather than playing shows from local
commercial broadcast stations, these appliances are communicating with Wi-Fi routers
to allow owners to check on status and contents from remote locations. A
Tesla spark gap transmitter...
 This is my 68th Thanksgiving Day. It seems
like just a short while ago my sisters and I would be made to dress up in our Sunday
best to spend the day at our grandparents' house (mother's side). Most of my mother's
side of the family (many from the Eastern Shore), attended. We lived in
Holly Hill Harbor, and they
were on Carr's Wharf
Road, about five miles away (I couldn't afford to buy a house in either location
now). My father's family was in the Buffalo, NY, area. The food was great, but I
was always anxious to get home to my model
airplanes and rockets. Fast forward
to 1983 when Melanie and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving together, living in
Arnold, MD. Now, on our 43rd Thanksgiving, we live on my daughter's and son-in-law's
16-acre farm in Greensboro, NC. Our grandson,
Calvin, will enjoy his 3rd Thanksgiving meal today at our house. It has been
a wild ride, with many household moves and jobs in between. Melanie and I wish everyone
in the RF Cafe clan a very
Happy Thanksgiving!
 Anyone who watched the
WKRP in Cincinnati
TV sitcom back in the 1970s has to remember what was one of the funniest episodes
ever. Here is the 4 minutes that made Prime Time history. In this Thanksgiving episode,
station owner Arthur Carlson decided he would surprise the community with a good
deed - that doubled as a promotional stunt for his radio station - by dropping turkeys
from a helicopter for lucky shoppers at the local shopping mall. Watch the disaster
unfold as Les Nessman reports live, and then see Carlson's final comment that is
still used or alluded to in many comic routines. Posting this video is an RF Cafe
tradition. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
 Not everybody with a high temperature
semiconductor application in need of heat dissipation has access to a thermal management
program with a database of available commercial
heat sinks and/or an ability to analyze a custom-made heat sink.
This article contains simple equations, a handy chart, and instructions on how to
use them to figure out what kind of heat sink you need for your project...
 As is usually the case, John Frye uses his
monthly "Mac's Service Shop" story to entertain whilst proffering a valuable lesson
in the field of electronics. Mac is famous for his superb knowledge of electrical
principles, and for his ability to troubleshoot and solve just about any problem
put before him. His sidekick technician, Barney, is a young Ham operator who often
needs the admonishment and/or wisdom provided by Mac. In this 1975 Popular Electronics
magazine piece entitled "Taming
Static Electricity," Barney is saved by Mac from the wrath of office girl Matilda
after she received an electrostatic discharge (ESD) shock intentionally administered
by the young man. Prior to the advent of microelectronic circuits, everyday ESD
was generally...
 While working at RF Micro Devices
(now known as Qorvo) on a project to improve the ESD ruggedness of
our RFICs, I had to do a number of presentations on progress over a span of about
two years. I desperately searched online for this episode of Welcome Back Kotter
titled "Sweathog Clinic for the Cure of Smoking." It was not available
at the time, but did show up for a short time sometime around 2008. Then, it disappeared
and was not available again anywhere until a few months ago when a DVD set for the
Welcome Back, Kotter television series went on sale at Amazon.com.
I quickly snatched a copy and produced this clip...
 "In a statement to the House of Commons,
Minister Al Carns declared that the United Kingdom is committed to defending 'every
inch' of its territory, including its critical
undersea networks and coastal security. The comments came after the Russian
spy ship Yantar entered UK waters earlier this week and was accused of shining lasers
at military pilots. The vessel is being closely monitored by the Royal Navy, having
previously been accused of attempting to map the UK’s submarine cable infrastructure,
The incident follows growing concerns about foreign interference and potential sabotage
to the UK's undersea infrastructure, which forms the backbone for the nation’s energy
supplies and communications..."
 IC designers have been striving to make
the "ideal" opamp ever since the device type was first conceived. An ideal opamp
has a certain set of well-defined properties that permit it be used in circuits
defined by neat mathematical equations without the need for compensating or limiting
terms. An example of compensation might be having an input impedance of something
other than infinite ohms that causes a voltage division effect on the input voltage,
and a limitation would be a gain-bandwidth product that prevents it from being used
in high frequency applications. Opamps appeared in electronics before semiconductors
came onto the scene, and a couple companies attempted to market prepackaged vacuum
tube opamps that plugged into a standard octal...
 I know I keep saying this, but it keeps
being true so I say it again: The
basics of electricity and electronics have not changed in the
last 75 or more years, so these articles from vintage issues of electronics magazines
are as applicable today as they were back then. If you are just getting into the
field of electronics, valuable information can be found here to supplement your
learning process. In fact, I have seen examples in some of these articles where
I re-learned something long-ago forgotten, and some of the stuff is rarely, if ever,
seen in contemporary writings. Regardless, making yourself aware of the work done
by pioneers in the industry is always valuable because it gives you a sense of approaches
taken that have led to success, and sometimes...
|
 • China's ½-price
Silicon Wafers Shock Semi Industry
• SEMI Forecasts
$1T Semiconductor Market by 2030
• Wi-Fi
Industry Ruffled by Germany's 6 GHz Stance
• FCC Launches "Operation
Clean Carts" for Security Threats
• Ties Deepen to
India Semi Production
The RF Cafe Homepage
Archive is a comprehensive collection of every item appearing daily on this
website since 2012 - and many from earlier years.
 Buckle your mental seatbelt before reading
this fast-moving rundown of the origins of many
measurement standards used in the cgs (centimeter-gram-second) system. It reminds
me of a video you might see of a physics dude "wowing" an audience of science laymen
as he rolls through one topic after another, among them being mass, acceleration,
time, electricity, magnetism, solenoids, pendulums, inertia, and gravity. There's
nothing you haven't seen and heard before in the first couple chapters of Physics
101 class in the way of equations and drawings, but you'll probably enjoy the review.
It appeared in a 1942 issue of Radio-Craft magazine...
 This "Electronics
Fundamentals" material is from the U.S. Air Force's Air University collection
of tutorials (Course 3050, dated 1960). It was found in a bin at Goodwill, bound
along with a few other sections by the Extension Course Institute including Introduction
to Radar and Television Principles. A few days ago I posted the Introduction to
Radar section. A very thorough introduction to electric principle is presented,
and is as useful as any modern text on the subject. Note in figure 21 that current
flow (electron flow, or EF) is depicted as going from negative to positive, which
is the correct physical model. Prior to World War II, current flow was considered
to be from positive to negative; that scheme is now called conventional current
flow (CCF). At semiconductor boundaries there is a sort of flow from positive to
negative called "hole" current. A "hole" is the absence of an electron in an atom's
valence bands...
 On-demand television is a concept that has
existed about since the time commercial broadcast TV first came on the scene. Known
as "Boxoffice
Television," it used a "Picture-caster" to scramble the picture so that a subscriber
needed a rented descrambler in order to view the program. A rented key (physical,
not digital) was used to turn the box on and off. The signal went out over a standard
local broadcast tower or even over coaxial line. Channels 2 through 13 were it for
the day. This particular article appeared in Radio & Television News
magazine in 1953. Also, "Will You Pay for TV?," in a 1957 Radio & Popular Electronics
and "Stop Pay TV!," in a 1958 Radio-Electronics...
 Nobody younger than about 35 years old was
alive when the "Iron Curtain" was still in place. That was where the Communist countries
were able to keep outside information from the rest of the free world from getting
to their oppressed citizens. The Soviet Union, China, North Korea, and other regimes
had a vested interest in keeping people from learning that not everybody lived in
squalor as they did. Maybe you remember the tales of Sears Roebuck and Montgomery
Ward catalogs needing to be secreted into the countries because the Communists feared
their influence. The type of
radio signal jamming mentioned in this 1959 issue of Popular Electronics
magazine was common during the Cold War era. Modern communications has made information
dissemination ubiquitous, even in the still-Communist countries - like Russia, China,
and North Korea...
 Homepage
Archives for December 2024. Items on the RF Cafe homepage come and go at a pretty
fast rate. In order to facilitate fast page loading, I keep the size reasonable - under a megabyte (ebay, Amazon, NY Times, etc., are multiple
megabytes). New items are added at the top of the content area, and within a few
days they shift off the bottom. If you recall seeing something on the homepage
but now it is gone, fret not because many years I have maintained
Homepage Archives.
 This week's crossword puzzle has an
RF
Directional Coupler theme in that many of the words are related to the devices.
All of the other words are, as usual, pulled from a custom-built dictionary containing
only terms pertaining to engineering, mechanics, astronomy, mathematics, chemistry,
and names of companies that make components for the aforementioned fields. Even
Dilbert characters appear sometimes. You will not, however, find names of numbnut
Hollywierd celebs or TV shows here...
 In 1962 when this Bell Telephone Laboratories
infomercial appeared in Electronics World magazine, scientists were in
the early stages of developing communications via light signals. Most lasers (light
amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) were still of the ruby type mentioned
here. In fact, it was only two years previous in 1960 that Theodore Maiman created
the world's first "optical
maser" using a ruby. The term "maser" ("microwave amplification by stimulated
emission of radiation") seems to be a bit of a misnomer, but under the proper conditions
it could operate in the visual or infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
"Could coherent light, for example, be sent through protecting pipes to provide
high-capacity communication channels between cities?," the copy asks. We now know
the answer to that question as optic fiber now spans the globe, literally. This
is one of the main reasons I like to post these items from vintage magazines: to
remind - or maybe to inform for the first time - people of who it was that developed
all the knowledge taken for granted by such a large fraction of the population...
 Merriam-Webster defines Christmastide as
"the festival season from Christmas Eve till after New Year's Day or especially
in England till Epiphany." In 1930 when this article appeared in Radio-Craft
magazine, most likely everyone knew what
Christmastide was, but not so much today; hence, I provide the meaning. Wikipedia
goes into more detail. While reading and scanning vintage magazine articles throughout
the year, I set aside ones specific to holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween,
etc., and post them during their respective seasons. This story is about the trouble
caused by a well-meaning but unqualified family member attempting to fix a radio
that wasn't broken by gifting dear old Dad a Balkite trickle charger (which the
radiomuseum.org website happens to have in their collection of data) for his battery-powered
radio set. It also mentions using a potato to test the DC polarity of a power supply
or battery. Last but not least is the "Hemco" 3-way socket plug adapter (this is
a single adapter), a type of which is still in use today - much to the dismay of
some safety advocates...
 Could this be the world's first publically
documented rack-mounted AC power strip? The
National
Company of Cambridge, Massachusetts, which began life as the National Toy Company,
ran a long series of advertisements in QST and other electronics magazines
that were heavy on text and light on pictures - definitely not the norm in advertising.
This one, number 62, from a 1939 issue describes, along with a reference frequency
oscillator, how their engineering team fabricated what we now call an AC power strip
for use in an equipment rack. According to the sketch provided, there does not appear
to be an On/Off switch and almost certainly not any form of surge protection as
is common (maybe even required by UL) for modern power strips. Someone at National
should have patented the idea; their heirs would be rich today.
 This
Microwave Engineering Theme Crossword Puzzle for July 11th contains only words
and clues related to engineering, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and other technical
words. As always, this crossword contains no names of politicians, mountain ranges,
exotic foods or plants, movie stars, or anything of the sort unless it/he/she is
related to this puzzle's technology theme (e.g., Hedy Lamarr or the Bikini Atoll).
The technically inclined cruciverbalists amongst us will appreciate the effort.
Enjoy!
 Anyone visiting RF Cafe (other than by
accident) almost certainly knows of Drs. Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley fame for
their
transistor invention while jointly working at the Bell Telephone
Laboratories. The trio shared The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956. Bell was so proud
of their employees' efforts that they ran full page advertisements to boast of the
accomplishment. This one appeared in the February 1957 edition of Radio &
Television News. Alas, Ma Bell's moment of glory was a bit diminished by needing
to add a footnote admitting that Drs. Bardeen and Shockley no longer work there.
Note that while the ad says the transistor was announced in 1948, the first demonstration
to Bell managers was in December of 1947...
 The main purpose for bothering to reprint
articles like this one on
analog color TV theory is to reveal the complexity and ingenuity that went into
cramming a lot of information into a relatively (at the time) small bandwidth. Signals
within signals and signals riding on top of and below other signals was the name
of the game, and pulling it off successfully required many well-designed and well-aligned
circuits. Anyone old enough to remember watching a show on analog television can
appreciate the difference between a high quality set with self-adjusting capability
and a cheap set that required constant fiddling with the tiny, fluted knobs on the
back. I, by the way, always had (and still have) the cheap sets. A bad picture on
today's digital displays consists of screwy color tones or a few missing pixels,
but at least you can stand to watch your movie or ball game. If an analog set started
acting up, the picture could creep to the top or bottom of the screen, the horizontal
and/or vertical scan synchronizations...
 The 1950s was a time of transition in the
television watching business. Broadcasters were experimenting with
pay-TV systems to replace or supplement over-the-air service. Much as people
today think that everything on the Internet should be free, the same mindset prevailed
then regarding television programming. Early coding and decoding schemes seem really
hokey by today's standards, using computer-type punch cards. I remember the area
around Annapolis, Maryland, where I grew up, had both over-the-air and cable-based
subscription services in conjunction with the open broadcasts. I spent at least
a little time playing with the horizontal and vertical picture sync settings on
the back of the TV set that, if lucky...
 Beginning in 2000, I have created hundreds
of custom technology-themed crossword puzzles for the brain-exercising benefit and
pleasure of RF Cafe visitors who are fellow cruciverbalists. The jury is out on
whether or not this type of mental challenge helps keep your gray matter from atrophying
in old age, but it certainly helps maintain your vocabulary and cognitive skills
at all ages. A database of thousands of words has been built up over the years and
contains only clues and terms associated with engineering, science, physical, astronomy,
mathematics, chemistry, etc. You will never find a word taxing your knowledge of
a numbnut soap opera star or the name of some obscure village in the Andes mountains.
You might, however, encounter the name of a movie start like Hedy Lamarr or a geographical
location like Tunguska, Russia, for reasons which, if you don't already know, might
surprise you...
 In 2012, while moving a heavy safe down some
stairs (using a hand truck),
something
snapped in my lower back that resulted in debilitating leg pain for a month.
Hydrocodone was required to enable normal locomotion around the house, and I couldn't
lift anything. After about three months, things returned to normal, with occasional
relapses. Since that time, I have tried to be careful to not overexert myself, and
kept up a regular regime of isometric and low weight, low impact exercise. Maintaining
muscle tone is essential for keeping the skeleton in proper alignment. As time went
on, I became a little bolder in terms of lifting, pushing, and pulling heavy objects,
and got away with it until early March of this year when I foolishly used a long
pry bar to tip over a huge tree stump. The stump finally broke loose, and so did
my back. This time, the pain was so bad that I couldn't walk more than a couple
feet without needing to recover, and finding a comfortable position to relieve the
hurt was nearly impossible. Even hydrocodone barely touched it. I have always avoided
taking any sort of medicine, even ibuprofen or acetaminophen, so at trip to a back
surgeon† ensued. An x-ray showed a few bone spurs on some of the vertebrae impinging
on my spinal cord, but nothing deemed severe enough to cause the level of pain I
was experiencing. My doctor likely thought I was exaggerating, so I requested that
he order an MRI...
 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...
Homepage
Archives for March 2024. Items on the RF Cafe homepage come and go at a pretty
fast rate. In order to facilitate fast page loading, I keep the size reasonable - under a megabyte (ebay, Amazon, NY Times, etc., are multiple
megabytes). New items are added at the top of the content area, and within a few
days they shift off the bottom. If you recall seeing something on the homepage
but now it is gone, fret not because many years I have maintained
Homepage Archives.
 Have you ever heard of a "nuvistor?"
I'm not sure whether I had prior to reading this article from the June 1959 issue
of Popular Electronics. If I ever used one, I didn't know about it. There is an
entry in Wikipedia for the nuvistor. It was supposed to be a real paradigm changer,
but alas, that never happened. RCA could have made billions off the concept. The
other subject of this article on miniaturization, micro-modules, definitely did
gain huge popularity. They are ubiquitous today in the form of multifunction hybrid
modules, plug-and-play system elements, mixed signal ICs with stacked die, etc.
A nuvistor was used in the front end of the HP3400A True RMS Voltmeter (thanks to
Michael M. for that). Also, thanks to Bob Davis for pointing out that the Lafayette
HB-400 CB radio sported a Nuvistor in the receiver front end... |