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Today in Science History -
 By the time this
Carl & Jerry episode entitled "Vox
Elektronik" was published in 1958, creator and author John T. Frye had
written the techno-dramas for Popular Electronics magazine for four years -
beginning with the first edition of the publication in October 1954 ("A New
Company Is Launched"). In this saga, the teenagers, both of whom already have
shared many adventures involving homemade electronic gizmos and Ham radio,
experience one of the instances of girl craziness competing for the attention of
one or the other. It involves a Charlie McCarthy-style wooden dummy named
"Splinter." Used in the story is a dummy-fide joke about onions and the River
Kwai, no doubt a reference to the World War II movie "Bridge on the River Kwai*,"
which had hit the movie theaters about a year earlier...
 "The Leonardo
Osprey MM AESA multi-mode surveillance radar is for helicopters, fixed-wing
aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Military unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV) experts at Northrop Grumman Corp. will upgrade a sophisticated surface-search
radar system on as many as eight of the U.S. Navy's MQ-8C Fire Scout shipboard unmanned
helicopters. Officials of the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval
Air Station, Maryland, announced their intention Monday to award an order to the
Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems segment in San Diego to provide as many as
eight AN/ZPY-8 radar aircraft-kits (A-kits) for MQ-8C UAVs..."
 If you are reading this, then chances are
you owe a part of your livelihood to three gentlemen by the names of Bardeen, Brattain
and Shockley. On this day 73 years ago the trio announced their discovery of a gain
producing semiconductor device that they dubbed a 'transistor' due to its dual nature
as a
transconductance amplifier and a variable resistance. This article by magazine
editor Hugo Gernsback, in celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the transistor,
mentions that somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 million of the little miracle
components would be sold that year. The microprocessor in the device you are using
to read this contains more than a billion. By comparison, the 'primitive' year-2000-vintage
Intel Pentium 4 itself integrated more than the 30,000,000 transistors...
 Jack Browne has an interesting piece over
on the Microwaves & RF website entitled, "Integrated
Simulators Study EM Effects." He begins: "Electromagnetic simulators are gaining
in power and ease of use but also becoming more available integrated into other
high-frequency simulation software programs. Computer software simulators come in
many varieties, tackling everything from passive circuit elements to full electronic
systems. As a form of 'thread' that ties them together, electromagnetic (EM) simulators
show the EM fields generated by devices, circuits, and systems. They may do it in
planar or two-dimensional (2D) form or in three dimensions (3D), showing EM fields
in all three axes. EM simulators are ever-evolving, providing increased insights
into electronic designs. As part of this evolution..."
 Lemos International Technologies is
both a designer and manufacturer of wireless products and a distributor of products
from other world-class manufacturers. A modular approach to wireless connectivity
helps eliminate much of the technical design and testing and also simplifies or
eliminates the need for expensive conformance testing and certification. Ready-to-use
Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, licensed and unlicensed band products are available. Custom
design services can help you achieve success with your project's unique needs.
 Radio-Craft magazine dedicated
its January 1947 issue to the fortieth anniversary of Lee de Forest's invention
of the
Audion
tube - the world's first successful controllable electrical signal amplifying
device. Many articles are presented that were written by people who knew de Forest
personally (including editor Hugo Gernsback) and followed his progress and/or actually
worked with de Forest during his experiments. This particular "Birth of the
Audion" piece was by Frank E. Butler, who provides "A first-hand account written
by an assistant of de Forest throughout the hard years which immediately preceded
the most revolutionary invention in all the history of radio." If you have never
read an account of the evolution of the Audion, you need to read this. It is akin
to the path Thomas Edison took when working to perfect his incandescent light bulb.
When you have no prior work to draw upon, success often requires tiresome repetition...
 "A space-based, virtually
unhackable quantum Internet may be one step closer to reality due to satellite
experiments that linked ground stations more than 1,000 kilometers apart, a new
study finds. Quantum physics makes a strange effect known as entanglement possible.
Essentially, two or more particles such as photons that get linked or 'entangled'
can influence each other simultaneously no matter how far apart they are. Entanglement
is an essential factor in the operations of quantum computers, the networks that
would connect them, and the most sophisticated kinds of quantum cryptography, a
theoretically unhackable means of securing information exchange. The maximum distance
over which researchers have thus far generated quantum cryptography links between
stations on Earth is roughly 144 kilometers..."
 The iconumerator (electronic particle counter),
the vidicon tube (TV image recorder), the Electro Importing Co.'s Telimco (world's
first home wireless outfit), the Wireless Association of America (founded before
ARRL), the Dynamophone (voice-activated switch), the "Swatties" (members of the
Society of Wireless Telegraph Engineers), the "Detectorium" (silicon crystal detector),
Ralph 124C 41+ and his sweetheart Alice 212B 423 (Gernsback sci-fi series) were
covered.
Radio Amateur News predated QST as America's premier magazine
for Hams, the famous 1919 "Verboten" cartoon (protested limitations on private radio
operators from the wartime era), the de Forest "Oscillion," Major Armstrong's superregenerative
circuit, the first "network" broadcast (WEAF in New York City and WNAC in Boston),
the Reinartz, the Super, the Autoplex, the Solo dyne, and the Neutrodyn (home radio
receiver kits), Tec-Teleducation (audiovisual classrooms)...
 RF Cafe's raison d'être is and always has
been to provide useful, quality content for engineers, technicians, engineering
managers, students, and hobbyists. Part of that mission is offering to post applicable
job openings. HR department employees
and/or managers of hiring companies are welcome to submit opportunities for posting
at no charge. 3rd party recruiters and temp agencies are not included so as to assure
a high quality of listings. Please read through the easy procedure to benefit from
RF Cafe's high quality visitors...
 LadyBug Technologies was founded in 2004
by two microwave engineers with a passion for quality microwave test instrumentation.
Our employees offer many years experience in the design and manufacture of the worlds
best vector network analyzers, spectrum analyzers, power meters and associated components.
The management team has additional experience in optical power testing, military
radar and a variety of programming environments including LabVIEW, VEE and other
languages often used in programmatic systems. Extensive experience in a broad spectrum
of demanding measurement applications. You can be assured that our Power Sensors
are designed, built, tested and calibrated without compromise.
 The
Triplett Electric Instrument Company has been in continuous operation since
1904, although today it goes by the name Triplett Test Equipment & Tools. It
was founded in 1904 in Bluffton, Ohio, by Ray L. Triplett. Mr. Triplett is
holding his company's first vacuum tube tester, the Readrite Model 201, which debuted
in 1921, in this full-page advertisement that appeared in a 1954 issue of Radio &
Television News magazine. Triplett claims it is the first commercial tube tester.
A pretty extensive search did not turn up any photos of the Model 201 tube
tester, but there is a follow-on Model 215 tube tester on Steven Johnson's
Readrite & Triplett history webpage. Here, too, is a very informative page outlining
Triplett's history, including a picture of the "portable" ammeter built into a pocket
watch case. The "new" Model 3423 Mutual Conductance Tube Tester, priced at $199.50
in 1954, is the equivalent of $1,901.50 in today's money...
 ConductRF's latest innovation is
High-Frequency RF Jumper Cables with 2.92 mm, 2.4 mm or 1.85 mm
connectors as standard. This assemblies use our optimized direct solder attached
connectors and our superior double shielded hi-frequency A61SW flexible cable with
shielding effectiveness greater than -100 dB. These cables are design to support
the latest requirements for 5G applications for cross connecting modules, but can
equally be used in any field where hi-frequency jumper cables are required. Beyond
our standard interconnect, we can also offer solutions with SMP, SMPM, SMA and many
other common connector interfaces. Hi-Performance right angled options are available
utilizing hard setting shrink tube to form the cable bend...
 "Establishing long-range tactical communications
for U.S. troops in remote locations currently requires giant parabolic dishes, tall
pole-mounted antennas, large antenna domes, and high-power amplifiers. Besides their
significant weight, power, and cost (SWAP-C), these antennas present large visual
and radio frequency (RF) signatures, are vulnerable to jamming, and constitute a
single point of failure. To break this dependence on big antennas and amplifiers,
DARPA recently announced the
Resilient Networked Distributed
Mosaic Communications (RN DMC) program. RN DMC aims to provide long-range communications
through 'mosaic' antennas composed of spatially distributed low SWaP-C transceiver
elements or 'tiles.' This approach replaces high-powered amplifiers and large directional
antennas with mosaics of dispersed tile transceivers. Transmit power is distributed
among the tiles, and gain is achieved through signal..."
 Please take a few moments to visit the
everythingRF website to see how they can assist you with your
project. everythingRF is a product discovery platform for RF and microwave products
and services. They currently have 267,269 products from more than 1397 companies
across 314 categories in their database and enable engineers to search for them
using their customized parametric search tool. Amplifiers, test equipment, power
couplers and dividers, coaxial connectors, waveguide, antennas, filters, mixers,
power supplies, and everything else. Please visit everythingRF today to see how
they can help you.
 An ad for Cornell Dubilier's new
Ultra-Flat Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors
that appeared in Aerospace & Defense magazine caught my attention.
Electrical energy density is a big topic these days with the need to cram extremely
large amounts of charge storage into extremely small spaces. The future of electric-powered
cars, airplanes, boats, motorcycles, portable tools and appliances, radios, phones,
lights, computers, etc., depends on high density energy storage. Supercapacitors
are being used in many applications in place of batteries, especially where cost,
space, and an ability to be recycled (charged / discharged) thousands of times without
loss of performance. Specs: 2 or 3 mm profile, high energy density of 0.4 J/cc,
replaces banks of solid tantalum chips, 3000 hr life @85?C without voltage
derating...
 When I read about Du Mont's
Iconumerator, the first thing that came to mind was the video of the Rockwell Retro
Encabulator and General Electric's Turboencabulator. As it turns out, the Du Mont
device is real. This article from a 1955 issue of Radio Electronics discusses a
new type of oscillator-amplifier that works on the principle of
microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (maser). It used
ammonia as a masing medium. Masers were quickly applied to commercial broadcast
systems, to military communications systems, and in laboratories. The state of the
art has of course advanced far beyond the relatively crude apparatus shown here,
but it is always good to have a working knowledge of the technology's history...
 MPDevice (MPD)
has become a trustworthy and reliable company in the global RF market as a manufacturer
of passive RF Devices. Included
are attenuators and terminations, coaxial connectors, adapters, and cable assemblies,
DC blocks, surge arrestors, power combiner / dividers, and directional couplers.
The Korean Telecommunication market is now entering into the era of hyperconnected
society. With continuous enhancement in R&D capabilities and quality control,
MPD will continue in an effort to become the No. 1 technologically innovative
company with a focus on the emerging 5G marketplace.
 "The squeaky wheel gets the grease," is an
old saw that has long been true when it comes to government policy, applying to
common citizens and paid professional lobbyists alike when attempting to influence
laws and regulations. Tactics range from letter writing, to peaceful town hall meetings
and outdoor public gatherings, to court challenges, to large organized terrorist
groups destroying property and livelihood (and often bodily harm). Some causes are
unarguably righteous, peaceful and honest, while others use subversive methods to
coerce policy makers into adopting their ideas. Such has been the case throughout
history in all nations. Amateur radio operators have had a mostly amiable relationship
with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) since its inception in the early
days of Marconi. However, due to the perceived needs (real and imagined) of wartime
and commercial radio success, amateurs' privileges have been encroached upon numerous
times, and it required the action of citizens to re-claim lost or prevent...
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