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 March 2025: In case you missed it, Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday for those of you who don't know rudimentary French) was celebrated on March 4th this year. It's a colorful parade with a long tradition of amazing floats created and staffed by krewes who traditionally throw beaded necklaces into the crowd. As the event was initially limited to white krewes, the first African American parade organization, Zulu Aid and Pleasure Club, was founded in 1916 to lampoon the older Rex Krewe. Instead of throwing necklaces, the Zulu threw hand-decorated coconuts. The coconut throw resulted in injuries and lawsuits over the years; in 1985 the Zulus lost their insurance policy and stopped the tradition. In 1987, state legislature passed SB188, providing immunity to injury so long as coconuts are handed out and not tossed. This separate parade became wildly popular. Satchmo (Louis Armstrong) was Zulu King in 1949, and Professor Longhair's "Going to the Mardi Gras" (1959) is a musical tribute to the Zulus. Zulu became the first krewe to desegregate in 1973, although it was not until 1993 that New Orleans officially desegregated Mardi Gras. Today, as one of the old-line krewes, Zulu starts up the official Mardi Gras parade and hands out coconuts which are the one souvenir that every parade watcher wants to take home. Meet the duly-elected 2025 Zulu King Rodney Paul Mason Jr. and Zulu Queen Kristen Bonds Mason here, and meet one of many coconut artists here. See some high-res images of the Zulu krewe here. Party on!
Meanwhile, what's new on the Microwaves101 site?
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This month's email blast is sponsored by Crane Aerospace, many thanks for your support!
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We posted a more in-depth look at the Schiffman 90-degree phase shifter, which dates back to 1958 and put Bernard Schiffman into the Microwaves Hall of Fame. Schiffman published six different phase shifter networks of varying complexity, in order to extend the bandwidth. We reviewed the best four.
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We posted a new 180 degree phase bit, related to the Schiffman 90 degree bit. We found it by accident, maybe 20 years ago, but never did anything with it. What could you possibly do with a 180-degree phase shifter?
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The first person that finds a slick way of significantly extending the bandwidth of our "Type A" 180-degree bit can collect $100 when we post their solution!
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Akins Laws of Spacecraft Design have been copied to our site, to give them some new audience members. Ordinarily we don't copy other people's hard work, but Dave encourages people to do this, and of course we give him full attribution. He is currently the Director, Space Systems Laboratory at University of Maryland. His "laws" are either hilarious or sad, depending on which side of the humor you are on...
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We have an update to RFI/CML Micro on our where-are-they-now page, thanks to Liam.
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Terry wanted us to clarify our Rule of Thumb #14 on converting "WR" numbers to broad wall waveguide dimensions. That rule applies to the interior dimension, which could cause some confusion, especially if you are trying to size up a waveguide that is bolted into a system. We made a note of this. Thanks!
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We were educated on who actually invented the "hot via", the packaging concept of bring RF and DC signals to the backside of a MMIC. Sorry, Jim, your claim been knocked off the block by Pierre Quenton. His European Patent Office EP 0 469 988 B1 was filed six years before your "DBIT" patent. Thanks to Alex for the tip!
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Not an IEEE member? Skip this bullet. If you are an IEEE member, join us in supporting Manfred (Fred) Schindler to get on the IEEE ballot for President-Elect for 2026. Here is a link to bios of the three candidates (including Fred's). To sign the petition (for IEEE members only) go here. You will need to log in with your IEEE member number and password. The deadline is coming up on 11 April 2025, so do this right now before you forget. The actual vote for IEEE President Elect starts in August and ends on 1 October 2025.
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On our discussion board, we've always got some questions that need YOUR answers. Pop on over and register and sign in, then chime in on existing threads, or start your own topics. Here are the newest threads:
https://forum.microwaves101.com/discussion/233/old-school-design learn how your grandmother calculated probability of detection, signal-to-noise and threshold-to-noise ratios, false alarm rate and more using an HP-67 calculator back when Carter was president
https://forum.microwaves101.com/discussion/232/waveguide-question-splitting-and-combining waveguide adapter conundrum
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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, in one example Jim helped us out by correcting some references on Rule of Thumb #110, which is an esoteric topic on the observation that RMS phase error of a group of amplifiers approaches the variance of a uniform distribution for a large number of samples. Anyone want to start up an SSPA company, we are there for you!
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