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What's
new for December 2008?
As is always the case, we've
been busy this month adding plenty of new features to Microwaves101.
We ain't been slack, Cap'n Walker!

Merry Christmas
2008! There's plenty of parking down at the mall, and plenty of
pink slips in the future. Enjoy the going out of business sales
in January, but remember, your company might be next, you could
be a victim of 2009's peace
dividends!
- We took a look at using the
Lim Eom six-port
network to combine
two power amplifiers. (Recall that we previously looked at
it as a three-way
combiner). The two-way combiner idea was treated in an 2001
IEEE MTT Symposium paper, but not to our satisfaction. The concept
allows you to combine two power amplifiers without the need for
any isolation resistors, seemingly the next best thing since bottled
beer! We show you why you should consider just how stable this
network might be in practice. If anyone wants an assignment for
January, a full stability analysis of the network would be much
appreciated. Contact us if you are interested!
- Seoul National University
now has its very own college
page. The Applied Electromagnetics Lab is a regular contributor
to the IEEE microwave publications, and the AEL site contains
a link that provides many of their papers in downloadable pdf
files. Lim and Eom are just two of the authors from AEL!
- The Microwaves101 Hall of
Fame now includes Dr.
David Pozar, the author of the book Microwave Engineering.
If you only have one textbook on microwaves, there is no arguing,
Pozar's is the one!
- We offer a new spreadsheet
in the download area: a freespace
path calculator thanks to Robert! A word of caution before you
get your hopes up to try this out, you need Excel 2007 to run
it. So far we've been too cheap to spring for it, but now we all
have a good reason to cough up the cash!
- We have a new page on multipaction.
This page has almost zero technical content, but it provides a
link to some free software courtesy of an engineer working for
the European Space Agency named Simon. Thanks!
- A Momentum
bug has been uncovered and described, beware! Momentum is
Agilent's 2.5D electromagnetic simulation tool and ordinarily
it provides a fine playground. This particular problem is the
worst kind, it doesn't crash the program, it merely provides you
with bad data, and if you're too dumb to notice, the joke's on
you. What did you want for $50K per year?
- A new Microwaves101 rule
of thumb has been added, thanks to Glenn! This one will help
you estimate the gain of a phased
array.
- The Unknown
Editor has new material, this time he provides charts from
a recent IEEE talk he gave. We're pretty sure this is the only
IEEE talk that contains references to dinosaurs, beer pong and
a shameless ad for a vacant rental unit! The UE also makes sport
of Mustang drivers and the "Chinese Amish". He provides
links to videos of Si Cranstoun of The Dualers, which is
the answer to the question "what if there were completely
new and original Christmas songs sung by a cool cat in a video
so awesome that you could hardly stop watching?" The Unknown
Editor has something for everyone!
- The microwave
mortuary has two new subjects. At the top is a photo of a
National Weather Service radar near Reno that took a serious beating
on December 19 and will be out of service for a while (contributed
by Matthew). Below that is a photo of a burning dish on a tower,
contributed by Jim. Thanks guys!
- Be sure to check out the upcoming
issue of Microwaves and RF magazine!
There is a regular column called Crosstalk where MW&RF interviews
players across the microwaves industry, including CEOs, company
founders, and other big shots. In the next issue they interview
the Unknown Editor of Microwaves101. As they say in Mad
Magazine, this material will be suitable for wrapping fish
or lining the birdcage!
We've got some new questions--and
answers--on our Microwave
Message Board. We've have hundreds of topics posted on various
microwave engineering subjects, with many more replies; our message
board is an industry resource. Post your own questions, or help
us answer some of the ones that are already posted. Some of the
posted material may eventually get captured in our encyclopedia,
so do your part for posterity! We'll remove any postings that we
consider inappropriate.
Attention forward thinking microwave
marketeers: check out information on advertising with us. Sponsorship
information is but a click away... come and share the magic
of 10,000 page views per weekday. Hey that rhymes! Join our best
friends in the Virtual Lobby!
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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