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 November/December 2025: In December 1975, the Byte Shop was founded by Paul Terrell and Boyd Wilson as a hobbyist store for computer enthusiasts. The first store was in Mountain View CA and the first month's sales were $7000. At a meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club in April 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak presented a computer they called Apple A, eventually known as Apple I. It was a bare-board processor (assembly required by the customer!) with 16 kB RAM that could connect to a tape recorder for data storage, and could be hooked to a video monitor and keyboard. Byte Shop owner Paul Terrell was in the audience liked it so much he offered Jobs $500 each for 50 computers, which was Apple's first order. The was one caveat, Byte Shop wanted the board to come already stuffed. Jobs worked out a deal where the future order revenue was used to entice a Cramer Electronics to supply the components. The two Steves worked day and night to build and test the product, and the rest is history. Today a functional Apple I computer can sell for $500,000. Here's a picture of one, keep an eye out for this hardware at yard sales. Cramer Electronics was once the second largest electronic parts distributor (the largest was Avnet), but was acquired by Arrow Electronics in 1979.
Meanwhile, what's new on the Microwaves101 site?
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We've gotten a little behind as one of our team finished up course work to become a Registered Nurse. Respect to all nurses out there! Now, if we can all quit taking college courses we should soon catch up on maintaining the site.
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We designed our first circuit using the freeware program, QUCS. The circuit is an improved version of the Steve March's coupler. We ended up doubling the bandwidth, while swearing at syntax errors. And we just scored a triple-Steve in this newsletter, another win.
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We have a nice update to atmospheric attenuation page thanks to Jacob. He steered us to a newer graphic that was part of Dr. Marian Klein's PhD thesis. Now you can see attenuation data to 1 THz!
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For his effort, Jacob was been awarded the coveted Microwaves101 pocketknife. To all you recent winners out there, we will catch up on shipping knives in the next week. Apologies!
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We are sorry to report that one of the founders of Virginia Diode, Jeffrey Hesler, has passed away at the young age of 59. Quoting from his obit, "his pioneering work in the development of terahertz components and instrumentation has greatly benefited the field and enabled innumerable research projects, including the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile." Rest in peace.
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We have a new submission to the Microwave Mortuary, thanks to Dave. We almost skipped an entire calendar year without a new posting!
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Qorvo/Skyworks merger was announced. We made a note of it on our where-are-they-now page. Also on our where-are-they-now page, we continue to document Wolfspeed's foibles. Did you notice that their stock surged 1700% in one day recently? We also noted that Marki Microwave has sold a stake in their company to investors.
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Speaking of Marki Microwave, Hungarian-American Ferenc Marki is now in our Microwave Hall of Fame. His focus on mixers at Marki Microwave put them in a class by themselves. He also led one of the most interesting lives in our industry, you will surely agree.
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Speaking of Hungarian immigrants that made their "mark" in the microwave industry, George Szentirmai is also now in the Microwave Hall of Fame. He was the father of the FILSYN program, which is arguably the first EDA software product. He was nominated by Desert Sage on our discussion board.
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Microwaves101's Katharine Franck Huettner award at the November ARMMS conference went to Dr. Samira Driad of United Monolithic Semiconductor for her paper, "A 0.1um GaN-on-SiC technology: Qualification and perspectives at high frequencies". Brava, and the check should finally be in the mail!
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The US First Circuit Court upheld the conviction of Tricon MMIC's Haoyang Yu for using trade secrets from Analog Devices, on 11 December 2025. We offer a short summary and opinion on this on our MMIC suppliers page.
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The Unknown Editor offers financial advice now that he is in his declining years. Who wants to be a millionaire when you can be a deca-millionaire?
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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/241/best-place-to-sell-microwave-testing-equipment new post on where sell valuable microwave equipment.
https://forum.microwaves101.com/discussion/238/george-szentermais-filsyn a nomination for the Microwaves Hall of Fame, which we agreed with and took care of.
https://forum.microwaves101.com/discussion/234/broadband-load-on-printed-circuit-board Still kicking ideas around, we will post some examples. Just need to do the analysis using QUCS or some other freeware!
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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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