As is always the case, we've been busy adding plenty of new stuff to Microwaves101. We ain't been slack, Cap'n Walker!
New for October and November 2024. In retaliation for D-Day, the Wehrmacht lobbed thousands of V1 "Buzz Bombs" at London, starting on 13 June 1944. The V1 was an early example of an air-breathing cruise missile, with a weight of 2,150 kg (4,740 lb) and warhead of 850 kg (1,870 lb). Its Argus AS 014 pulse-jet engine was and still is a remarkable feat of engineering: it has almost zero moving parts, so it is cheap to produce. Watch one fire up on YouTube here and you will learn how it got its nickname. Combined with some plywood wings and a gyroscope for inertial guidance, it made for a formidable weapon. After the initial surprise wore off, British airmen tried to counter the offensive by flying beside V1s and literally tipping them over using a well-placed wing-tip. By October 1944 (eighty years ago), the Allies captured the last V1 site that was in range of London and this reign of terror came to an end. There has been interest in pulse jet engines by hobbyists for years, popularized on platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Here's an ice boat powered by a pulse jet (note the use of a leaf blower to get it started!) "Crazy Rocketman" has quite a following, here he is in a pulse-jet coffin car for Halloween. All of this interest has not been lost on the US Air Force, they just dropped a million dollars on start-up Wave Engine Corporation, to continue research on their pulse-jet decoy. You can see footage of their J1 Wave Engine flying here. The only thing the 1944 V1 was missing was an accurate guidance system, today you can take your pick from a toolbox that of course includes GPS and radar. What's old is now new! Here at Microwaves101, we don't like to see any weapons used for terror, but if there is a need for innovation, we enjoy seeing small businesses take the lead.
Meanwhile, what's new on the Microwaves101 site?
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Our what's new email blast this month is sponsored by Crane Aerospace, makers of integrated microwave assembly solutions. Many thanks for their support!
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Geoffrey Charles Bagley was a British engineer who had a storied career starting from the 1950s, and died only a few years ago. One of his three US patents, filed in 1982, could be interpreted (if you were a lawyer in a cheap suit) as the basis of IEEE 802-11b and g wireless standards. We did a little research on who's zooming who in regards to 31 lawsuits generated in the 2020-2021 timeframe against a who's who of well-known wireless companies. Nice try, better luck next time, QinetiQ! Thanks to the background that QinetiQ dug up for their court cases, some cool microwave history has come to our attention, and we even scored a photo of Mr. Bagley himself!
- G.C. Bagley had nothing to do with that legal mess. But the Bagley power divider has a new Microwaves101 page (for now, the legal activity and the cool hardware share the same URL). This network is a reactive splitter that provides odd numbers of division (3,5,7...) and has is somewhat related to a Gysel or rat race coupler. Before you get too excited, it has no isolation network...
- We posted a Microwave Office file on the Bagley power divider, be sure to grab a free copy from our download area.
- We had a specific reason to think about monopulse networks in October... so we broke up our monopulse comparator network page to highlight two separate examples. We have a new page on monopulse networks using branchline couplers (new analyses and a cool hardware photo that everyone is gonna want to rip off!) and a new page on monopulse networks using rat-race couplers (basically the the prior content on a new page.) As Madonna famously once said before she finalized her hit song, "we are living in an analog world, and I am an analog girl!"
- We posted a Microwave Office file on the branchline monopulse, be sure to grab a free copy from our download area.
- Which is the "coupled" port and which is the "through" port in a branchline coupler? It's not obvious, and it is up for interpretation, but we weigh in on this esoteric topic. This started off as a discussion with one of Microwaves101 biggest supporters, Hadrien.
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On our Cool Links page (which could use a lot or refreshing, honestly) we added a link to Hadrien's FNIX corner. Bookmark it and visit regularly as he adds microwave engineering-related content.
- On our where-are-they-now page, we note that Anokiwave was bought by Qorvo on 5 February 2024 for $94M. We also added some history of Trak Microwave, makers of ferrite circulators in Florida.
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Vahe' Adamian is now in the Microwave Hall of Fame! Vahe' was the father of electronic calibration module, known as "E-cal" which made every microwave engineer's life better. He's still involved in in test equipment development, at a small company called ATE Systems.
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On our discussion board, we've always got some questions that need YOUR answers. Please try to help out our members... Like Blind Boy Fuller, Step it up and go! Here are the newest threads:
https://forum.microwaves101.com/discussion/228/text-book-survey New topic on the future of an old industry
https://forum.microwaves101.com/discussion/227/bagley-power-divider Was looking for the original reference on the Bagley divider, question was answered off line
Pop on over to the discussion board to register and sign in, then chime in on existing threads, or start your own topics. Our user approval process is quick and anonymous, blocks most bots, and eliminates spam by more than 99%. At least that's what the sales rep told us.
We're always fixing typos and making corrections of one kind or another, mostly whenever one of you eagle-eyed viewers write to tell us when we've made a mistake. For this month, we did a small update on our maximally-flat hexaplexer design, contributed thanks to Louis, who pointed out an error. Thanks to all of our assistant editors out there!
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As always, we want you to sign up for the MW101Stuff newsletter, or submit a photo for our Microwave Mortuary. We'd love to hear from you, whether you have nice things to say about Microwaves101.com or just want to tell us how we've ruined your life.
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The Unknown Editor himself is hatching a plan to attend the next Automated RF and Microwave Measurement Society (ARMMS conference), which will be held on 18-19 November 2024 at The Cambridge Belfry, in Cambourne, England. This is a small but fun conference, unaffiliated with the IEEE. Look for this and other conferences on our Microwave Events page.