Proceedings
SPRING 2018
PLAN AHEAD AS RCA RETURNS TO NEW YORK CITY FOR THE 2018 BANQUET
INSIDE Spotlight on 2017 Banquet & Technical Symposium Old Radios And Hanes RCA 2018 Banquet To Feature Ted Rappaport Next Generation Radios Remembering Sputnik on its 60th Anniversary 1
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2018 BOARD LISTING
THE PROCEEDINGS SPRING 2018 | Volume 90, Number 3
PRESIDENT Timothy J. Duffy
The Radio Club of America, Inc.
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Carroll L. Hollingsworth
Honoring the Past, Committed to the Future
VICE PRESIDENT John A. Facella, PE, C.Eng.
HEADQUARTERS OFFICE: 13570 Grove Drive #302 Maple Grove MN 55311 | (612) 405-2102 amy@radioclubofamerica.org | www.radioclubofamerica.org
VICE PRESIDENT/COUNSEL Chester "Barney" Scholl, Jr. TREASURER Ronald J. Jakubowski
CONTENTS
SECRETARY Margaret J. Lyons, PE, PMP DIRECTORS David P. Bart Richard P. Biby James “Ernie” Blair Karen J. Clark Michael Clarson Nathan “Chip” Cohen, Ph.D. Paul Z. Gilbert Ray Novak Mark D. Pallans Carole J. Perry Stan Reubenstein Andrew M. Seybold William R. Wangaman EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Elaine D. Walsh PRESIDENTS EMERITI Steven L. Aldinger Gaetano “Tom” Amoscato Sandra Black John “Jack” Brennan Vivian A. Carr Phillip M. Casciano Mercy S. Contreras Mal Gurian Bruce R. McIntyre Stan Reubenstein Anthony “Tony” Sabino, Jr. Raymond C. Trott, P.E. STAFF Amy Beckham, Executive Secretary Sue Sack, Membership COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSONS Awards & Fellows: Stan Reubenstein Banquet: Karen J. Clark Constitution & By-Laws: Chester “Barney” Scholl, Jr. Finance: Ronald J. Jakubowski Fundraising Coordination: Nathan “Chip” Cohen, Ph.D. Historical/Museums & Archives: Paul Z. Gilbert Keeping RCA Vibrant: Margaret J. Lyons, PE, PMP Marketing & Fund Development: Elaine Walsh Membership: James “Ernie” Blair Nominations & Elections: Nathan “Chip” Cohen, Ph.D. Publications: David P. Bart Regional Conferences: Stan Reubenstein Scholarship Fund: Richard P. Biby Technical Symposium: John A. Facella, PE, C.Eng. Website: John A. Facella, PE, C.Eng. Youth Activities: Carole J. Perry AEROGRAM EDITOR Elaine Walsh TECHNICAL EDITOR John S. “Jack” Belrose, Ph.D., VE2CV 811-1081 Ambleside Dr. Ottawa, ON K2B 8C8, Canada (613) 721-7587; jsbelrose@gmail.com
From Your President.........................................................................................................4 From the Publications Chairman......................................................................................5 RCA at 2018 Hamvention.................................................................................................5 2018 Banquet & Technical Symposium – Reasons to Attend...........................................6 RCA Welcomes the Sapphyre Group..................................................................................7 Welcome New Members!...................................................................................................7 RCA Announces Howard and Micheline Rosen Endowment..............................................8 Silent Key: Vivian A. Carr..................................................................................................9 RCA 2018 Banquet to Feature Ted Rappaport................................................................11 Next Generation Radios..................................................................................................13 Old Radios And HANES...................................................................................................17 Remembering Sputnik on its 60th Anniversary..............................................................25 2017 Technical Symposium & Banquet..........................................................................29 2018 Technical Symposium............................................................................................32 2017 Banquet At Pittsburgh’s Historic Duquesne Club..................................................33 2017 Award Recipients..................................................................................................35 Candids from the 2017 Reception and Banquet............................................................36 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award Address....................................................................39 2017 Armstrong Medal Address.....................................................................................41 2017 Jack Poppele Award Address.................................................................................43 2017 Fellows Address....................................................................................................45 Coverage of RCA’s 2017 Tour of KDKA.............................................................................48 2018 Awards & Fellows Nominations.............................................................................52 China Moves Forward With Next-Generation X-ray Observatory......................................57 Arecibo Saved – For Now................................................................................................58 ARRL Receives Byrd Antarctic Expedition Historical Materials.......................................59 The Book Shop................................................................................................................60 Qualcomm Founders Recognized With IEEE Milestone....................................................61 Book Review: Wiring the World.......................................................................................62 RCA Becomes an Associate Member of NATE..................................................................63 RCA Administering Tom Sorley Memorial Scholarship....................................................64 RCA Director Chip Cohen Receives Technical Achievement Award.................................65 RCA & IWCE Announce the Young Professionals Award Winners.....................................66 RCA Member Helps KDKA Restore Historic Recordings...................................................67 2018 Banquet Sponsorship Opportunities......................................................................71 Business & Professional Directory..................................................................................72 Event Calendar..............................................................................................................74
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR David P. Bart 8512 Kedvale Ave. Skokie, IL 60076 (847) 542-9873; jbart1964@gmail.com PROCEEDINGS EDITOR Glenn Bischoff
ADVERTISING CONTACT Amy Beckham (612) 430-6995; Amy@radioclubofAmerica.org PRODUCTION Sapphyre Group PROCEEDINGS SCIENTIFIC ADVISOR Nathan “Chip” Cohen, Ph.D.
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FROM YOUR PRESIDENT
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t is 2018 and the Radio Club of America continues to demonstrate its relevance and its strength. The outstanding 2017 RCA Awards Banquet and Technical Symposium, held at the prestigious Duquesne Club in Pittsburgh, witnessed a dazzling array of presenters and award recipients. Our Lifetime Achievement Award went to Dr. Ulrich Rhode, while the Armstrong Medal went to Dr. Eli Brookner. Many other notables attended one of our best banquets ever. Thank you to the planning committee for putting this wonderful event together. Earlier in the day, we hosted one of our largest Technical Symposiums ever, thanks to John Facella. The capacity seated audience was joined by hundreds of live online viewers, making this the largest outreach of this event yet. The weekend ended with a very memorable private tour of legendary radio station KDKA, both its current facilities and the historic broadcast center. We hope everyone can join us in November 2018 as we return to New York City!
• Transferred our contract management firm from the Harrington Company to the Sapphyre Group.
As I close out my final year as RCA’s president, I am reminded of the club’s continuing commitment to a full year of activities, administered by a legion of dedicated volunteers and leaders. In just the past 12 months, we undertook the following:
We continually are working to find new, fresh ways for RCA to provide real value to our members by helping you connect with your fellow members and the larger wireless community. I encourage you to let me know your thoughts on how RCA can expand its membership, activities and value for all concerned.
Industry Activities • Hosted a record crowd at the IWCE breakfast. • Participated in the NAB Show and AFCEA. Improved Operations • Obtained a sustaining endowment to help fund operations.
Maintained Ties • Maintained our booth at the Dayton Hamvention and participated in various programs attracting many new members. • Renewed our ties to partner organizations, including IWCE, AWA, QCWA, APCO, ETA, and NCVA. Provided Education Outreach • Continued to expand youth activities. • Maintained our annual QSO party. Expanded Publications • Expanded the Proceedings. • Revised and expanded the RCA website. • Continued to produce the Aerogram and distribute the ENews.
Thank you for your continued involvement in RCA! Please help us spread the word! If you have any comments or suggestions regarding the club, please do not hesitate to email me directly at tduffy@dxengineering.com.
TIM DUFFY, K3LR, President The Radio Club of America, Inc.
DISPLAY YOUR RCA MEMBERSHIP WITH OUR CUSTOMIZABLE MEMBER PINS! Wear it on its own, or add Life Member, Senior Member, or Fellow bars to reflect your unique membership distinctions. • $9.95 for the standard pin • $3 per bar for Life Member, Senior Member, and Fellow bars ORDER AT: www.radioclubofamerica.org/about-us/rca-memorabilia Prices include shipping & handling.
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SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS | www.radioclubofamerica.org
FROM THE PUBLICATIONS CHAIRMAN
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his issue of the Proceedings brings you a terrific lineup of articles from our growing stable of authors. The spring issue of the Proceedings recognizes our 2017 Banquet award recipients and new Fellows, and the successful Technical Symposium. It also includes the most up-to-date information about early planning for the 2018 RCA Banquet and Awards Ceremony and the Technical Symposium, all of which will be held in New York City. We encourage all of you to join your fellow RCA members at this much
anticipated, outstanding event in November. We have a wide range of articles and news items in this issue thanks to all of our contributors. We invite the entire membership, and outsiders, to participate in the Proceedings by sending in their own contributions. We seek a wide variety of news, current technical information, historical content, and biographical material to share with our membership. The Proceedings has never been better, but we do need your help, so please contribute material for a future issue so that RCA can continue to expand its premier publication. It is spring, and this is RCA award application season. I encourage
everyone to submit applications nominating 2018 award candidates and Fellows. The strength of the banquet depends on finding worthy recipients. The deadline is fast approaching in June. Finally, congratulations to all of RCA’s members for their continuing successes. We welcome your comments, recommendations, and suggestions on ways to further improve the Proceedings. We look forward to seeing all of you in New York City this November.
DAVID BART, KB9YPD Editorial Director and Chairman RCA Publications Committee
JOIN RCA AT HAMVENTION 2 018 MAY18-20 Dayton Hamvention is just around the corner on May 18-20, and once again, RCA will be highly visible at the show. We are looking forward to connecting with old friends and reaching out to new, potential members to share the value of belonging to RCA. We hope to see you at one or more of the following! Stop by to say hello to your fellow RCA members at Booth 1811!
RCA Announces Contest to win ICOM IC-7300 at Dayton Hamvention Radio Club of America (RCA) announces a contest to win an ICOM IC-7300 HF/50 MHz SDR receiver during the Dayton Hamvention. Contestants get one (1) chance to win for each year they join as a new RCA member, renew their membership, or for each $100 donation to RCA. The drawing will be held on Sunday, May 20, at the RCA booth, 1811, at 12:00 p.m. local time. The winner does not have to be present. “We appreciate the continued support and generosity of ICOM, and we are excited to have this radio available for our contest,” said Tim Duffy, President, RCA. “We look forward to seeing new and existing members at our booth to enter for a chance to win.”
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SAVE THE DATE 2018 TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM AND 109 TH BANQUET & AWARDS PRESENTATION SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17 | NEW YORK CITY Featuring Keynote Speaker Dr. Ted Rappaport
REASONS TO ATTEND THE RCA BANQUET AND TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM 1
Cutting edge technical learning This year's Technical Symposium in New York City will have a focus on new technologies with panels planned on 5G and FirstNet. Several other exciting topics are also in the works. Stay tuned!
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Strengthen your network The Radio Club of America is the oldest, most prestigious group of wireless professionals in the world. Make the most of your membership by connecting with old friends and developing new contacts.
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Honor the distinguished and deserving Join us to celebrate the people who invent, create, inspire and collaborate to create the products, services and companies that make this industry one of a kind.
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Support the next generation Help develop the future workforce by supporting RCA's youth efforts, and learn from this year's RCA Young Achiever Award Winner.
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Can you feel the energy? RCA continues to build on the momentum from last year, recruiting new members and developing strategic partner-ships with other organizations. Be a part of the excitement and help us shape the organization as we continue our vibrancy long into the future.
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Discover New York City Join us in the Big Apple as we immerse ourselves in the energy of the city!
Register for the 2018 Technical Symposium and Banquet at www.radioclubofamerica.org. SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS | www.radioclubofamerica.org
THE RCA PROCEEDINGS WELCOMES SAPPHYRE GROUP LLC
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he Proceedings of the Radio Club of America welcomes the Sapphyre Group as RCA’s new management company beginning January 1, 2018. RCA thanks Harrington Company and its team, especially Colleen Ayers and Emily Zniewski for their years of excellent service. The Sapphyre Group replaced Harrington, primarily due to the high costs of serving an organization the size of RCA. In fact, Harrington recommended Sapphyre, and after interviews and evaluations led by RCA Director Carroll Hollingsworth, RCA contracted with Sapphyre going forward. We will miss Harrington, but the good news is that the transition to Sapphyre has gone very well. The Sapphyre Group is an experienced association management company with over 125 years of cumulative experience in the fields of association management, accounting, event/meeting coordination and board governance. Darlyne Erickson and Amy Beckham formed Sapphyre in June 2015, after years of providing services to non-profits. Darlyne Erickson, President, has 30 years of experience in the non-profit world, with an impressive set of skills such as program development and management, leadership training, strategic planning, and project coordinating. Amy Beckham, Vice President, has over twenty-five years of experience, fifteen of them working with non-profit organizations, and twenty years of event planning. We welcome Darlyne, Amy, and the new Sapphyre team! Under terms of our arrangement, Sapphyre will be responsible for RCA member services and publishing activities, including the Aerogram, ENews, and the Proceedings. RCA’s publications will continue in their current formats. We thank all involved for their commitment to RCA, and we look forward to a terrific 2018!
Darlyne Erickson
Amy Beckham
Amy Beckham will be the regular contact for RCA member services. She can be reached at: Amy Beckham Amy@radioclubofAmerica.org Amy@sapphyregroup.com (612) 405-2012 (612) 430-6995 Sapphyre Group 13570 Grove Drive #302 Maple Grove, MN 55311
WELCOME
New Members! • William Armstrong
• Paul Kluwe
• Payton Rogers
• David Camin
• Ron Lyons
• William Stack
• Todd Dixon
• Thomas MacFarlane
• Manny Vierra
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RCA ANNOUNCES HOWARD AND MICHELINE ROSEN ENDOWMENT
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he Radio Club of America (RCA) is honored to announce a new endowment, dedicated solely to support RCA operations. The Howard (VE2AED) and Micheline (KM6FOH) Rosen Fund is being provided by two new RCA members. “It’s an absolute pleasure to support this club of very special members,” said Howard Rosen. “RCA is a hidden gem!” RCA President Tim Duffy, K3LR, stated that the Rosens were inspired to create this fund after attending the 2017 RCA Awards Banquet in Pittsburgh. “This endowment will make a critical difference in how quickly we progress with our many initiatives for young people, young wireless professionals and those in established careers,” Duffy said.
HOWARD AND MICHELINE ROSEN Howard, the son of a television technician, grew up in Montreal, Quebec Province, Canada. By age eight, Howard was reading his father’s books. He became consumed by the history of inventors, inventions, and electrical technology. Howard received his ham radio license in 1972. Obsessed with electronics, he excelled in his science and math courses, and filed his first patent application at age 16, an automatic dialing sensor used on smoke detectors and thermostats that telephoned a designated phone number and played a pre-recorded notification message to the listener. This was advanced technology 50 years ago. That invention launched Howard on a career dedicated to the invention and adaptation of electrical technology. By age 30, Howard was running his own company with 117 employees that developed C and Ku Band satellite receivers, he later branched off into development of a range of automatic sensors, remote controls, wireless systems, and mesh networks for a wide range of industries. Over the ensuing years, he was granted many patents. Still located in Montreal, Howard’s companies include AED Electronics, Inc., AED Satellite Systems, Ltd, and Verdant Environmental Technologies, Inc. His work included developing advanced security devices that automatically blocked the transmission of identifying information of a telephone calling party, and he designed satellite receivers for home television reception. Today, one of Howard’s patents is being used in cancer research utilizing radio waves. The research is seeking ways to kill or damage cancerous cells in a living body by introducing glucose or other organic material as a biasing component while heating the cancerous cells by bombarding them with energy from an external electromagnetic source, such as radio waves.
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Howard and Micheline Rosen.
Howard met Micheline Syvret, his wife, through his business ventures. She eventually became his chief financial officer, and they ran the latest business together. She also obtained a ham operating license, and they are known as an active husband and wife team who enjoy their radio-related activities together.
INVOLVEMENT WITH RADIO CLUB OF AMERICA Howard first learned about RCA when his son, Simon, attended the Youth Forum 15 years ago. They met Carole Perry and Tim Duffy, and assumed RCA’s role was primarily to inspire young people to learn about radio and to support their interests in technology. He was not aware of RCA’s other activities. Howard stated, “I have been very fortunate, and I am grateful for all that radio has given me. I owe my life to ham radio, which gave me a home and enabled me to be inquisitive from a young age. I have met so many amazing people over the years. As I have gotten older, I would like to give something back to this wonderful community.” Howard learned about the plight of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Irma and the damage it caused at the Arecibo Observatory. He met some amazing people—Nathan “Chip” Cohen, Jim Breakall, and Angel Vazquez—and supported their efforts at recovery relief. Those activities introduced Howard to a broader range of RCA members and showed him the full scope of club’s activities.
THE ENDOWMENT Howard joined RCA in 2016 and attended his first RCA banquet in 2017. He was so impressed by all of the fantastic people in the club that “My wife Micheline and I left the banquet and immediately decided to provide something that would really help the club. I want to offer my support to RCA. This is such a terrific organization that offers so much.” Talks with Tim Duffy ensued, and the Rosens decided to provide an endowment that helps support basic club operations.
AN INSPIRATION TO OTHERS RCA and the Board of Directors thank the Rosens for their generous support. Howard stated, “I want to help provide
continuity for RCA. Organizations like this need to continue inspiring others. RCA must continue for the future. I also hope others will see this as their opportunity to lend a hand, make a contribution, and help support this wonderful organization.” Tim Duffy replied, “We encourage any member who is impressed with the operations of the club to make a taxdeductible donation earmarked to sustaining operations. Donations to support our day-to-day operations are critical to our future as an organization.” The Radio Club of America is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and all contributions made to RCA are tax-exempt.
SILENT KEYS Silent key is a term of respect for a deceased amateur radio operator. The key in the term refers to a telegraph key, the instrument that all early amateur radio operators, as well as many contemporary amateur radio operators, used to send Morse code. The term SK is used in telegraphy to indicate an end of transmission. Today, the term is commonly used within the radio community as a sign of respect and condolence, regardless of whether the deceased was an amateur radio operator. • VIVIAN A. CARR • ALFRED H. GREBE, JR. • FRANK RODRIGUEZ • TOM SORLEY
VIVIAN A. CARR
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t is with great sadness that we report the passing of former RCA President Vivian A. Carr. We received this news as we were going into layout for the Proceedings. Vivian was 92 and passed away on April 29. The following are excerpts from her obituary. The Spring 2017 issue of the Proceedings published “A Visit With Vivian Carr-She Continues to Break The Glass Ceilings” by Carole Perry and Margaret Lyons, which offers additional biographical information. Vivian had a 40-year career in the electronic and telecommunications industry. President-Emeritus and Fellow of the Radio Club of America (RCA), Vivian was known for her work at Bell Telephone Labs, and most notably for her pioneering spirit and successfully breaking the glass ceilings at Bell Labs, the IEEE, and RCA, as the first woman member and officer in those organizations. The annual RCA “Vivian Carr Award”, established in 2004, is given for “substantial contributions” made by women to the world of communications. She worked for, held officer positions in and received numerous recognitions from the aforementioned firms as well as AT&T. She was the first female Member and served on Board of Director of the New York Engineers Club. She was a graduate of Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, graduating with a degree in Engineering
Economics in 1973, and she graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1981. Vivian was a steadfast Vivian A. Carr, Former RCA advocate President. of animal rights. She was a member of the Long Branch Women’s Club, Breakwater Beach Club, and Deal Golf & Country Club. She enjoyed gardening and bridge. Born in Orange, New Jersey in 1925, she lived in Maplewood and Ocean Grove before moving to Long Branch. She was predeceased by her husband John William Carr in 2002, and by her parents Pierre Laclare Alling and Katherine Vivian Haskard Alling. Surviving are her numerous friends, caregivers and grateful animals. Vivian was interred at Hollywood Memorial Park, Union, New Jersey. In lieu of flowers please make a donation to the Monmouth County SPCA.
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RCA 2018 BANQUET TO FEATURE
TED RAPPAPORT Founding Director of NYU WIRELESS
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he Radio Club of America (RCA) is thrilled to announce that Theodore S. Rappaport, Ph.D., will be featured at the 2018 banquet and awards ceremony. “Ted” has a long history with RCA: he was a youth scholarship recipient who went on to receive the Sarnoff Citation in 2000. He is the founding director of NYU WIRELESS, one of the world’s first academic research centers to combine wireless engineering, computer science, and medicine. He is a pioneer in radio frequency (RF) propagation, wireless systems simulation, and 5G networks. His research has influenced international standards bodies for three decades. Our members will not want to miss this incredible opportunity.
BACKGROUND
Dr. Rappaport is the David Lee/Ernst Weber chaired professor of electrical and computer engineering at New York University (NYU) Tandon School of Engineering and is a professor of computer science at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. He is also a professor of radiology at the NYU School of Medicine. Before launching NYU WIRELESS in 2012, he founded two large academic wireless research centers: the Wireless Networking and Communications Group (WNCG) at the University of Texas at Austin in 2002, and the Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group (MPRG), now known as Wireless@Virginia Tech, in 1990. He has advised or launched numerous high-tech companies in the wireless communications and computing fields, including Telephia (acquired by Nielsen), Motion Computing, Paratek Microwave (acquired by Research in Motion), Straight Path Communications (acquired by Verizon) and two
Professor Ted Rappaport (Courtesy Office of Communications, New York University Tandon School of Engineering)
university spin-out companies that developed some of the technologies now used in the wireless industry–TSR Technologies (acquired by Allen Telecom in 1993) and Wireless Valley Communications (acquired by Motorola in 2005).
LEADING RESEARCH Professor Rappaport’s research spans the fields of radio wave propagation and antennas for cellular and personal communications, wireless communication system design, analysis, and simulation, and broadband wireless communications circuits and systems. His research has influenced many international wireless standard bodies over three decades. Dr. Rappaport has authored more than 200 articles and 20 books covering a broad range of technical areas in communications engineering. He has received numerous awards for his work, and he is widely recognized as a pioneer in the fields of 5G and millimeter wave (mmWave) radio wave propagation and antennas for cellular and personal communications. He and his students have invented widely used measurement equipment, simulation methodologies, and analytical approaches for the exploration and modeling of radio propagation channels and communication system design in a vast range of spectrum bands for emerging wireless systems. He also invented the technology of site-specific RF channel modeling and design for wireless network deployment—a technology now used routinely throughout the wireless industry. More recently, he conducted work that proved the viability of mmWave mobile communications for future broadband access, and this work has influenced the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and 3GPP/ITU to develop 5G wireless networks throughout the world.
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ADVISORY WORK Dr. Rappaport has served on the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council, assisted the governor and chief information officer (CIO) of Virginia in formulating rural broadband initiatives for internet access, and conducted research for the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Defense, and dozens of global telecommunications companies throughout his career. He is one of the most highly cited authors in the wireless field, having published more than 200 technical papers and more than 20 books, and is a highly soughtafter expert. He has more than 100 patents issued or pending. As a faculty member, Rappaport has advised approximately 100 students in communications, electromagnetics, and circuit design.
RCA 2018 BANQUET RCA’s 2018 banquet will take place in New York City, Saturday, November 17, 2018, at the Westin New York Times Square. RCA would like to particularly thank President Tim Duffy for his role in inviting Professor Rappaport to join us at the 2018 banquet. We look forward to seeing everyone in November for this rare and very exciting opportunity.
REFERENCES NYU Wireless. Photo credit: NYU-Poly/Marian Goldman.
Recent Books by Theodore S. Rappaport.
NEVER STOP LEARNING White Papers • Case Studies • e-Books Research • Special Reports • Webinars RadioResource
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Editor's Note: The was following reprint wasUlrich submitted formembers, the benefit members, with The following reprint submitted by Dr. Rhode by forDr. the Ulrich benefit Rhode of RCA's withof theRCA's permission of IEEE. theoriginal permission IEEE. The original was K. Poddar andradios: S. A. Marius, The paperofwas published at: U. L.paper Rohde, A. published K. Poddar at: andU. S. L. A. Rohde, Marius, A. "Next generation SDR and"Next generation radios: SDR and Conference SDN," 2017 Topical Conference on Antennas and Propagation in Wireless SDN," 2017 IEEE-APS Topical onIEEE-APS Antennas and Propagation in Wireless Communications (APWC), Verona, Communications Verona, 2017, pp. 296-299. © 2017 IEEE doi: 10.1109/APWC.2017.8062305. 2017, pp. 296-299. ©(APWC), 2017 IEEE doi: 10.1109/APWC.2017.8062305.
Next Generation Radios Ulrich L. Rohde1, 2
Ajay K. Poddar1, 2
Silaghi A. Marius2
Abstract − This paper describes the emerging trends of
next generation radios for the application in modern communication systems.
1
INTRODUCTION
Unlike conventional radios, which are designed to work with specific waveforms (AM and FM, cellular, digital TV, and WiFi, for example), software defined radios can send and receive many different waveforms, and toggle between them on the fly by means of software code that defines their behavior at any particular moment. Wireless networks have evolved from 1G to 4G networks, allowing smart devices to become important tools in daily life. The 5G network is a revolutionary technology that can change consumers' Internet use habits, as it creates a truly wireless environment. It is faster, with better quality, and is more secure. Most importantly, users can truly use network services anytime, anywhere. With increasing demand, the use of bandwidth and frequency spectrum resources is beyond expectations. Current radios utilize 4th generation SDR (Software Defined Radio) technologies in which components/modules that have been typically implemented in hardware are replaced by software on an embedded computing device. The term SDR (Software Defined Radio) using digital processing of sampled analog signals was coined by author in 1985, which is the first public software radio initiative reported on Feb 26, 1985 as a US Classified Secret Session) [1]. In all previous generations, there was a single dominating technology, i.e., Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) for 1G, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) for 2G, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) for 3G, and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) for 4G. Figure (1) shows the typical evolution characteristics of 1G to 3G. To meet the ever increasing demand of higher peak data rate, more capacity, better cost efficiency, high reliability, long battery lifetimes, low response times (latency), and Internet of Things (IoT) call for 5G network, potential techniques to meet the requirements are ultra-densification, mm-wave (millimeter wave) communications, Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO), full duplex technology, adaptive three dimensional (3D) beam-forming, dynamic spectrum accesses, advanced multiple access schemes, SDR (software defined radio) and SDN (software defined networking).
Fig. 1 shows the evolution characteristics of 1G to 3G
A. 4G and 5G Interface and Technologies Needed for 5G Table 1 describes the critical deviation between 4G and 5G. What changes are required to deploy new 5G radios? 4G and 5G radio interfaces impact the RF front-end in several ways: one key way is that 5G phase-1 is not a standalone radio; it is always used in conjunction with 4G LTE. The anchor is 4G LTE technology and 5G sub -6 GHz is a supplement. Uplink MIMO for 4G requires multiple separate data streams driving discrete antenna elements, similar to sub-6 GHz 5G. These antennas are adjusted for relative phase to beam form as needed, but the lower frequency and lower number of antenna elements constrain the overall antenna gain and narrowest beam cross-section. Table 2 represents existing technology and spectrum, as well as the planned 5G radio spectrum, mapped those applications to the technologies needed to implement both power and low noise amplifiers, RF switching, RF-MEMS filtering, MIMO antenna integration functionality, SDR and SDN. Table 1: shows the critical deviation between 4G and 5G
________________________________________________________________________________________
Synergy Microwave Corp., 201 McLaen Boulevard, Paterson, NJ 0)7504, USA, http://www.synergymwave.com/ e-mail: akpoddar@ieee.org; tel: +1-(201)-560-3806, fax: +1-(973-8818361. 2 Oradea University, Department of Enginnering and Managaement, Romania; http://imtuoradea.ro/ingineria_sistemelor/index_en.php 1
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Table 2 represents existing technology and spectrum
capacity demand including many technical challenges of the ‘5G’ Networks and they can seamlessly be integrated with the current networks and access technologies. The capacity requirement of the nextgeneration wireless network would inevitably demand us to exploit the millimeter wave frequencies ranging 30GHz-300GHz which is still under-utilized but can offer huge spectrum. Most importantly, as the millimeter wave have extremely short wavelength; it becomes possible to pack a large number of antenna elements in a small form factor which consequently helps to realize massive MIMO at the base stations and user terminals. In a rich scattering environment, massive MIMO technique can enable significant performance gains with simple beam forming strategies such as maximum ratio transmission or zero forcing. Furthermore, millimeter wave frequencies can be used for outdoor point-to-point backhaul links or for supporting indoor high-speed wireless applications (e.g., high-resolution multimedia streaming). However, there are several challenges to be solved including propagation issues, mobility aspects, hardware imperfections such as power amplifier non-linearity and low efficiency of radio frequency components at these frequencies.
Fig. 2: A typical representation of a 5G environment
Figure (2) shows the typical representation of a 5G environment; break it up into segments based on frequency. RF front-end circuitry at mm-wave is becoming more complex in order to deliver the superior results that global consumers demand. For 5G mmWave wireless applications, requirements for massive MIMO and multiple beamforming means that transmit and receive functions will be in distributed array formats. As a result, there will be multiple PA streams and multiple receive chain streams to accomplish transmit and receive functionality to fixed wireless devices. Filter technology for mmWave 5G is likely to be based on transmission line and waveguide cavity technology. The 5G massive MIMO base station equipped with many more antennas as shown in Figure (4) would be able to serve more devices as envisioned by 5G and oT applications. Figure (4) shows a comparison of a typical 4G MIMO cell to that of a 5G massive MIMO cell that is equipped with many more base station antennas. Figure (5) shows the impact of Modulation, Bandwidth and MIMO to: (a) Downlink and (b) Uplink Data Rate as a Function of Distance to Cell Center. B. MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) Ongoing research work on Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) and millimeter wave technologies resolve spectrum scarcity problem and meeting
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Fig. 3 Shows the antenna technology from 4G to 5G MIMO
Fig. 4: System model of typical MIMO system
In addition to the existing multiple access schemes such as TDMA, FDMA, CDMA, OFDMA and Space
Division Multiple Access (SDMA), several multiple access schemes such as Polarization Division Multiple
range of the measurement setup increases significantly, which is beneficial for autocorrelation function.
(a) Downlink Data Rates Fig. 6: A typical signal propagation attenuation plot
2
(b) Uplink Data Rates Fig.5: Shows the impact of Modulation, Bandwidth and MIMO to: (a) Downlink and (b) Uplink Data Rate as a Function of Distance to Cell Center
Access (PDMA), Interweave Division Multiple Access (IDMA), Universal Filtered Multi-Carrier (UFMC), Sparse Code Multiple Access (SCMA), Generalized Frequency Division Multiple Access (GFDMA) and Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) schemes are promising multiple access techniques for 5G. Figure (6) shows the typical attenuation plot of illustrating the atmospheric window of propagation/attenuation. A recommended test solution for channel sounding is based on the pulse compression method. A vector signal generator transmits a frequency band limited signal into a channel. The signal and spectrum analyzer receives and processes the signal from the channel and forwards the resulting I/Q data to the data analysis software. The software algorithm auto correlates the received I/Q data with the originally transmitted signal. The transmitted frequency band limited signal is based on a special pseudo-noise (PN) sequence with a maximum length (m-sequence). This results in a direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) signal, which provides an additional processing gain. The dynamic
SDR ARCHITECTURE
SDR represents a major challenge in the design paradigm for radios in which a large portion of the functionality is implemented through programmable signal processing devices, giving the radio ability to change its operating parameters to accommodate new features and capabilities [2]-[3]. In addition to this, adequate computational capability for processing high bit-rate waveforms, within acceptable size, power consumption, cost, and weight are the critical parameters. The SDR architecture requires modular and high level design of embedded software to ensure portability across various hardware platforms. The processing elements used in SDR for signal processing and protocol processing consist of general purpose processors (GPPs), digital signal processors (DSPs) and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). FPGA performs high speed DSP and control processing while DSP performs symbol rate or slower algorithms. C. Integration of SDR and SDN for 5G In a 5G network, the relationship between spectrum and flow will become increasingly obvious as spectrum reuse can relieve traffic between different frequency bands. As one of the key enabling technologies of the fifth generation wireless network (5G), software defined network (SDN) offers a logically centralized control model, flexible programmability, and a flow-based paradigm that is ideally suited for highly scalable wireless networks, from access to core part. SDR and SDN are two different technologies, but both have a ``software-defied'' feature, namely, the capability of reconfiguration, allows easily collect signals or change parameters within the packet, and quickly find a suitable frequency band or path, as based on the gathered results, and ultimately move forward to a self-adaptive environment.
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In other words, if the flow is well-processed, the spectrum will avoid competition, and overloading of bandwidth can also be avoided. Therefore, it is expected that SDR can consider monitoring results when perceiving the frequency spectrum or switching bands, while SDN can refer to the SDR frequency. Figure (7) illustrates the typical architecture of SDR and SDN.
Fig. 8: A schematic of monitoring RX (R&S ESMD)
Fig. 7 shows the typical architecture of SDR and SDN
A fundamental challenge with SDR is how to achieve sufficient computational capacity, in particular for processing UWB high bit-rate waveforms, within acceptable size, power consumption, cost, and weight factors [2]. SDR offers the flexibility of varying bandwidth and range, the ability to adapt to environmental parameters and employ optimal broadband pulse characteristics for channel equalization and robustness, and finally the capability to easily adapt to current and later generation communication infrastructures. This paper provides the introduction of UWB technology implementation for applications such as detecting unknown signals, identifying interference, spectrum monitoring, spectrum clearance, and signal search over wide frequency ranges, producing signal content and direction finding of identified signals. The surveillance system is connected to a variety of active antennas as passive antennas are too frequency selective. The dynamic range of active antennas plays an important role and interesting for further investigation for ultrawideband (UWB) technology implementation on SDR platforms for next generation communication networks [2]. Figure (8) shows the typical block diagram of SDR radio monitoring receiver. Figure (9) shows the multi channel operation capability, 5-channel arrangement for signal analysis. The wideband monitoring receiver can handle five individual channels simultaneously, including transmission monitoring.
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Fig. 9: 5-channel arrangement for signal analysis
3
CONCLUSION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This paper describes the emerging trends of next generation radios for the application in modern communication systems. References [1] Ulrich L. Rohde, Digital HF Radio: “A Sampling of Techniques, presented at the Third International Conference on HF Communication Systems and Techniques”, London, England, February 26-28, 1985, Classified Session (U.S Secret). [2] Ulrich Rohde, Jerry Whitaker, “Communications Receivers: Principles and Design”, 4th Edition, McGraw-Hill, March 2017 [3] X. Wei, H. Liu, Z. Geng, K. Zheng, R. Xu, Y. Liu, and P. Chen,” Software Defined Radio Implementation of a NonOrthogonal Multiple Access System Towards 5G”, IEEE Access, pp.: 9604 - 9613, 2016.
OLD RADIOS AND HANES By Edwin (Ed) Lyon, III EDITOR’S NOTE: The following firsthand account provides a glimpse into the early test of High-Altitude Nuclear Explosions (HANE) and the impact on electromagnetic pulses (EMP). An earlier version of this article was published in the February 2018 edition of Radio Age. We are grateful to the author for contributing this article to the RCA Proceedings.
I
n today’s dangerous, politically charged environment, many wonder what would happen to our means of communication if a nuclear weapon detonated high over the United States. Such events often are referred to as HANEs, for High-Altitude Nuclear Explosions, and the popularly accepted effect of a HANE is an enormous electromagnetic pulse (EMP) of energy. According to scientific experts, the real-world impact of a HANE ranges from smartphones being rendered inoperable to the U.S. power grid being knocked out of commission for months.
JOHNSTON ISLAND The time was late March 1958, a little more than six decades ago. This writer and two colleagues, Bill Prechtl and Bob Mateer, finally got their Over-the-Horizon (OTH) radar reassembled and working, without highvoltage flash-overs. The work included rebuilding the master timing circuit chassis, whose plywood shipping case had been reduced to toothpicks by Military Air Transport Service (MATS) freight handlers. The work was conducted on Johnston Island, a tiny atoll located about 860 miles southwest of Hawaii that is about 6,000 feet long and 1,500 feet wide, most of which is an airfield runway. The total population at the time was 110 U.S. Air Force airmen, two lieutenants and one captain, plus us three “company-grade” contractor representatives who were to be left alone with our highly secret mission, which was to determine whether OTH radar could detect the high-altitude burst of a nuclear weapon some 1,500 to 2,000 miles distant. The goal of the project was to find a means for detecting clandestine nuclear weapons tests, presumably deep inside (and high above) impenetrable countries. A U.S. Air Force (USAF) unit named AFOAT-1, located near Haines Point, District of Columbia, was responsible for detecting and analyzing foreign atomic bomb tests. AFLOAT-1 was scheduled to move to Hybla Valley, Virginia, by the following year or so, and planned to change its name to AFTAC, the Air Force Technical Applications Center. They sponsored the Johnston Island
OTH radar operation through an Office of Naval Research contract with our Riverdale, Maryland, company, ACF [1].
CONCERNS There were many theories about the dangers of HANEs to delicate electronics. California’s Silicon Valley was beginning to develop ideas, in addition to the advances in electronics coming out of Boston’s Route 128 beltway and Maryland’s Rockville corridor. Earlier nuclear tests, even at low altitudes and on the desert surface, had shown that an electromagnetic pulse of energy accompanied many such tests, and that some electronics circuits within line-of-sight of nuclear blasts suffered immediate damage, long before the bomb’s blast wave reached the electronics device. Rumors abounded regarding the effects of high-altitude blasts, where the fireball is not limited in size by the atmospheric pressure at lower altitudes—the air molecules tending to be in the way of the spreading of radioactive bomb materials and their secondary radiation. Many of the airmen and officers on Johnston Island had small radios, and with some difficulty could sometimes pick up Hawaiian stations in daylight, but they had no trouble at night getting all Hawaiian stations and many from all over the Pacific. These fellows worried about such bomb tests, and how best to protect their radios, electric shavers, phonographs, tape recorders—and their manhood. Even the power plant operator worried about the health of his 3-megawatt, 16-cylinder Worthington Diesel enginedriven generators —behemoths that had withstood typhoons, tsunami, and artillery fire from Japanese sub¬marines. So, Prechtl, Mateer, and I spent some evenings after radar checkout and test runs (and supper) trying to ease their fears. The best protection procedure was to unplug radios from their wall power sockets when not in use. If it was a tube type radio, which most were, not much damage would occur, anyway, we said. A couple of airmen had small transistor radios, and their “experts” had told them to keep them shut off, and stored in a tinfoil wrap when tests were expected. We three were not convinced that simple thin shielding was enough, because we had at least rudimentary high-energy physics educations and knew that more than half the energy released in a hydrogen fusion bomb would be in the form of hard X-rays, which, if exploded less than 60 or 80 kilometers height above the “shielded” radio, likely would melt the shield unless it was extremely thick. Old tube-type radios might spark-over at their front-ends, and
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their on-off switches might fuse in the “on” condition, but they likely would survive and operate.
APRIL 1958—THE FIRST TEST When the first so-called high-altitude bomb test took place over Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands in April 1958, our OTH radar was ready for tentative tests, and operated well. Evidence detecting the bomb explosion, though, was delayed for more than two minutes after the actual detonation, because the bomb had been carried aloft by a helium balloon, not a Redstone rocket, as we had been led to believe. The HANE altitude was only about 80,000 feet, so the effects largely were atmospheric and must have included a vertically moving shock wave, which took minutes to reach ionospheric altitudes that would affect our radar raypaths.
SETTING UP FOR THE SECOND TEST One day in early May 1958, the OTH radar team had completed its warm-up tests. We had produced a dozen or more 100-foot rolls of 35mm film records of the earth backscatter characteristics of the central Pacific, including Eniwetok (the site of many surface blasts) and the planned HANE-launch (a massive C-124 aircraft landed at Johnston Island). About 20 USAF officers and Holmes & Narver hard-hatted supervisors emerged from the plane and swarmed over the island, while their helpers surveyed the whole place and drew up maps of where “everything” would be placed. At supper that evening, one of the leaders from this contingent, a Colonel Siefert, sought me out, opened his briefcase, and showed what “everything” was. The HANE tests would not be occurring as planned, because of concerns over retinal damage to the eyes of native Marshall Islanders living near the Eniwetok proving grounds. They planned, instead, to move the HANEs launch site from Eniwetok Island—the current location of the rocket launchers and the target point of our OTH radar that had just been pronounced “operational”— to Johnston Island, not 100 feet from where we were sitting. I asked him, “What is the sense of operating an Over-the-Horizon Radar against something that is directly overhead?” He said they planned to move our radar to another location. His explanation was interrupted by Johnston Island’s commanding officer, Captain Shigamura, who stopped at the table and asked me to accompany him to the message center where an “ops immediate” classified message was coming in, addressed to me. The message said essentially the same thing as Siefert had been explaining, but it added that I should fly back to Eniwetok on the C-124 with the survey crew the next morning. We were ordered to survey the islands to find and stake out a site for our OTH radar. Nobody said that a C-124 flying westward against the usual headwinds, would be flying for almost 12 hours to get to Eniwetok,
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with a fuel stop at Kwajalein. Well, that used up a perfectly good weekend—particularly as the trip crossed the International Date Line! I stepped off the C-124 on Parry Island in the Eniwetok Atoll. Two airmen and a Navy yeoman helped get me around the islands on the commander’s yacht and acted as stick-men as I surveyed several places that might accommodate the OTH radar. We made sure there was access to fresh water, shelter, and power for the radar; meanwhile, our two stalwart operators, Mateer and Prechtl, who remained on Johnston, started dismantling and carefully labeling and packing each component of the radar. Alongside the radar was a communications suite, consisting of a Johnson Viking 500-watt transmitter and a National HRO-60 receiver, plus a three-band Yagi antenna on a 50-foot guyed mast. The communications suite would be left at Johnston for the onsite observer/communicator Willie Williams, another ACF member who had a ham license, and had been at Eniwetok since March. Meanwhile, Williams’ own communications setup, an identical equipment complement, would have to be moved from Parry Island in the atoll to the small island where we staked out the radar location. In other words, the radar would be switched from Johnston, looking toward Eniwetok, to Eniwetok, aimed at Johnston, but the associated communications gear remained roughly where it had been first installed that spring. These two island locations were about 1,700 nautical miles apart, with Eniwetok situated almost due west of Johnston. After surveying the radar site and securing dieselelectric power for it, as well as living quarters and mess facilities, I left Eniwetok for the return trip to Johnston. My new orders stated that I was a Colonel-grade civilian, a “rank” considered necessary to martial the help and transportation needed to move our radar. On arrival, the island was buzzing with activity. An LST (landing ship, tank) had been dispatched from Eniwetok in my absence. Docked at Johnston, it discharged 1,600 Holmes & Narver laborers, who were busy dredging alongside the island to make it larger. They were building Cape Canaveral-style missile launching towers at the eastern end of the island. To my surprise, the U.S. Coast Guard LORAN station, with its 550-foot antenna mast, was being dismantled to be relocated on a small outlying island in the Johnston atoll, Sand Island. The island had new undersea power cables and fresh-water pipelines linking Johnston to Sand. These HANE tests certainly were disrupting the routine! I then arranged for the military air transport of our radar and its supplies, plus our two radar operators, Mateer and Prechtl. We needed to arrive in Eniwetok in about two weeks. I also prepared to return to Riverdale, Maryland, to respond to worried messages from our ACF boss, Bill Whelan, calling for urgent help. He was trying to get another duplicate radar working, for another urgent secret mission.
A DUPLICATE RADAR After enjoying a badly needed week’s leave to visit my family and taking them on two day-trips to places we always had wanted to see—in addition to laboring around the homestead for 15 to 20 hours on other days fixing the TV, clothes dryer, FM tuner and back porch—I arrived back at the ACF plant, where I found the duplicate radar had not been upgraded from the yellowtablet drawings originally created for our first radar. Only after these upgrades were installed did things begin to work. One remaining problem was pulse sag, meaning that the output pulses from the radar transmitter started off at the full 100-130-kilowatt (kW) level—input to the 4-1000 kW final level—but immediately sagged to 50 kW or less. Whelan believed that a better impedance match to the feed line and antenna would fix the problem. His loading coil approach helped, but the real problem turned out to be a soldering iron burn on the schematic drawing that damaged a capacitor call-out label, making it appear as “4 μF, 15,000-volts.” This was a filter capacitor for the final amplifier’s 12,000 volt B+ supply, and so that is what the technician, Dick Gaylor, had installed. The value we had designed into the circuit was actually “40 μF at 15,000 volts,” a huge difference. Gaylor remarked, as he manhandled the new capacitor into place, that he was surprised to find so much room allotted for the filter capacitor he originally had installed. In fact, back on Johnston Island, when we started packing that radar for the move to Eniwetok, we added a porch-like shelf to the back door of the transmitter rack on which a second 40 μF, 15,000-volt capacitor, taken from the spares kit, could be set. This allowed us to wire it in parallel with the original 40 μf capacitor through a hole in the rear rack door. We wanted to lengthen our pulses up to 100 percent, from 1 millisecond to 1.5 - 2.0 milliseconds each, in the event the rumored “Christofilos” theory [2] was a fact. Once the 40 μF capacitor was installed, the radar transmitter operated wonderfully, but the receiver seemed to recover quite slowly after each transmit pulse. This radar had a new receiver design, and was now actually a heavily modified National HRO-60. The automatic volume control (AVC) circuit was the culprit, getting a huge charge when the transmitter pulsed, and then slowly discharging, taking up to 6 or 8 milliseconds [3]. Each millisecond lost after the transmit pulse meant another 150 kilometers of range blindness, and although we did not need to detect anything that close to Riverdale, we used the characteristics of that firsthop earth backscatter, or clutter, as an indication of the ionosphere’s composition. The ACF’s ionospheric wizard, Marcella Phillips [4], added the warning that we needed to see the early returns because they also showed the details of the overhead ionosphere, by simply shifting to a frequency
of 30 percent of the trial operating frequency. Her full prescription for successful frequency choice was to operate on a progression of low frequencies, say from 3 megahertz (MHz) upward to perhaps 10 MHz, until we had a good plot of direct-overhead ionospheric echo ranges (actually ionosphere heights). Only then did we obtain the proper operating frequency found on the nomographic charts she had developed during the war. Later, we would network with Patuxent River Naval Air Station’s ionosonde operator, Al Barolet, who operated that ionosonde during Cape Canaveral missile-launch countdowns, to produce plots of ionospheric reflection heights versus operating frequency.
PREPARING FOR THE SECOND TEST—JULY 1958 Soon it was late July 1958, and we received orders on our secure teletype link with AFOAT-1 that the first of two high-altitude bomb tests (called TEAK and ORANGE) was imminent. This meant we had to train the new OTH radar at Riverdale to a bearing of about 283 degrees (clockwise, CW, from true North) and start continuous operation, because no rocket-launch countdown or other warning of the shot could be expected, owing to security classification. The new transmit/receive switcher (T/R box) we had developed seemed to work well, and regular earth backscatter records from 500 km distant to “the end of the earth” on 100-foot rolls of 35mm Plus-X film began pouring out of the lab darkroom, all marked SECRET, until analyzed. The primary data display was developed on two identical oscilloscopes in the form of what we called A+Z plots. One oscilloscope, used for the operator observation, only, showed the A plot, which is signal amplitude (on the Y, or vertical axis) versus range (on X, or horizontal axis). The second oscilloscope, used to produce the permanent record of the radar observation episode, displayed a Z plot. In this plot, there is no Y-axis deflection at all, so the trace stays in the center of the oscilloscope screen. The radar receiver’s output signal amplitude is displayed via the Z axis, which is the trace brightness input terminal of that Tektronix oscilloscope. The X axis represented range, just as in the operator’s oscilloscope, and so it runs from zero on the left to any desired maximum range on the right, sweeping at uniform speed at an equivalent of 150 km radar range per millisecond of sweep time. We hoped to get an echo from the HANE burst at Johnston Island, about 9,080 kilometers away. This range is equivalent to slightly more than 60.5 milliseconds’ roundtrip time of flight of the radar’s transmitted pulses. Allowing for extra time taken by the transmitted pulse to slant upward to the ionosphere and back down in hops to and from the targeted explosion, we mentally added a couple more milliseconds, for an expected total time of 63-64 milliseconds. Thus, the transmitter could be operated at 10 pulses per second,
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which allows 1 millisecond pulse duration plus 99 milliseconds until the next pulse starts. Phillips told us not to worry if we could not see ground echoes (so-called ground backscatter) all the way out to the 60-plus millisecond target area, because there was a better way to ensure that the selected frequency would provide illumination of the target zone. We were concerned that if we could not clearly see ground clutter reflections beyond the second hop, maybe 5,000 km away, how would we know the frequency used was appropriate for the next 4,000 km beyond that, to get radar energy to the target zone? Her logic was so simple, yet profound, that I marvel at it today, some 25-30 years after her death. She told us to watch for, and maintain, a sharp echo, or backscatter return, at 140-to-145 milliseconds time of flight. It was as simple as that. When that time interval is translated to distance, it turned out the sharp return she wanted us to hold sacred was slightly more than 21,000 kilometers distant, the antipodal point [5] from the radar at
Riverdale, Maryland. An echo from Riverdale could have an enormous amplitude, except for energy lost along the way, and it should arrive back at the radar receiver all within a short timeslot a little more than 142 milliseconds after the start of each transmit pulse, with a few milliseconds variation at most. A reflection at the distant antipode of the Riverdale transmitter’s pulse would have very high amplitude because of the convergence of all the transmitter’s raypaths toward that spot, raising the incident power density to enormous levels, limited only by absorptive or divergence losses along the way. Wow! A simple way to choose frequencies, when trying for echoes from so very far away! And, this radar trial would be over the greatest distance ever attempted by OTH radars. Phillips brought out ray-trace diagrams showing the elevation view of radar rays leaving a transmitter at the origin, then fanning out to the right (see Figure 1), and being repeatedly refracted down to earth, to begin another “hop” along its way. After about two or three hops, the rays virtually fill the earth-ionosphere
Figure 1. Generic elevation view of HF transmitter raypaths, for elevation angles of fire from 0º to 60º, from a transmitter located at 0.0 on the figure. Note that, in this example ionosphere and at this operating frequency, raypath angles of fire greater than about 24 degrees elevation are lost to outer space.
Figure 2. Same raypath elevation view as Fig. 1, but at a higher frequency. Note the phenomenon we termed the “Phillips Effect,” where, for ranges beyond the second hop, the entire earth-to-ionosphere space is filled with raypaths, and could elicit echoes from reflective objects.
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volume, leaving no space where targets could be missed (see Figure 2). But the loss of energy along the way calls for careful accommodation for time of day in the earth-ionosphere space where the raypath travels. If the raypath passes into daylight, the radar operator must expect D-region absorptive losses (which worsen at lower frequencies). If the raypath passes into nighttime, care must be taken to keep the frequency lowered to prevent utter losses out the top of the “thin” nighttime ionosphere. Phillips’ logic showed that if there is undue loss of radar signal energy—due to leakage of rays out the top of the ionosphere or in earth contacts or D region—then there will be little or no antipodal echo, Therefore, if the antipodal echo is present, and is strong and sharply defined, there MUST be a significant radar raypath population within the azimuthal beam at ranges beyond the second or third hop.
THE SECOND TEST—JULY 1958 So we took turns, two operators per shift, starting Sunday of the last week of July 1958. We operated day and night, focusing the Riverdale OTH radar toward 280285 degrees azimuth (just north of true west), adjusting in frequency as required to try to maintain a sharp return echo from the antipode. Whelan, the general manager of our research group, and I had the night shift on the last day of July, after working all that day, too. We were both dead tired. Whelan told me to catch up on the log entries, get a new ionosonde report from Pax River, and keep an eye on the antipodal echo, which, on our 10-Hz sweep rate would be wrapped around the 99-millisecond range-axis trace and would appear at about 40-45 milliseconds on the X axis of the oscilloscopes. He then went into the adjacent conference room and fell asleep on the table.
The Z-plot oscilloscope trace was not visible because it constantly was recorded by a Fairchild 35-mm camera that drew film from a supply reel upward to a take-up reel, via a capstan and pinch roller, just like a tape recorder, except all enclosed in the camera. Because the film moved upward, the trace on the oscilloscope screen ran directly across the film, and the constant, slow movement of the film (about an inch per minute) enabled the film to capture the history of everything reflecting an echo back to the radar and its range. It appeared on the film as bright specks along closely packed sweep lines across the film (see Figure 3, which is printed from the actual film for that date). An electronic timer recorded a dot on the edge of the film each minute (WWV time). The range axis on the picture runs from zero to about 15,000 km. The antipodal reflection can be seen as the constant-range trace marked with an arrow, at 42 milliseconds range (to which must be added the 100 milliseconds between radar pulses because the echo is from the previous pulse). I made a tiny adjustment to the radar frequency, to escape what appeared to be voice splatter from another shortwave station, and turned on the radar receiver’s external loudspeaker, so I could hear the putt-putt-putt of the radar’s transmitter pulses being “dunked” by the timing system. This was a technique to keep the main output power from overwhelming the receiver, which shares antenna connection with the transmitter. I wanted to hear the system operating so I could divert my attention to updating the station log, based on yellowtablet scribbles from the previous-shift operators and any earlier adjustments Whelan or I had made.
Figure 3. Time history of the Z-plot OTH radar data for the time period from just before the HANE to about 17 minutes after the shot. Horizontal (time) axis has ticks each minute, EST, with even numbered minutes labeled. The antipodal echo can be seen before the shot (which was just after 0550 EST, at about 43 milliseconds (actually 143 milliseconds, wrapped, due to the 100-millisecond sweep period) roundtrip time of flight. The HANE echo (at about 63 milliseconds) and HANE-induced plasma-wall echoes are dominant after the shot.
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Every so often over the next five minutes, the putt-puttputt became a putta-putta-putta sound, like an extra drum-beat added to each main pulse. But when I looked up to see what it was, it had always stopped. Suddenly, while I was watching the oscilloscope, I saw what it was—a meteor-trail echo at about 10 milliseconds’ worth of range (1,500 kilometers). The echo was sharp and large in amplitude, large enough to add an extra syllable to the putt-putt sound. So I returned to log-keeping. I had just finished and was about to teletype Pax River, when the putta-putta-putta sounded again. This time it did not quit after a few seconds, as it had been doing. I glanced at the A-plot oscilloscope, and there was a high– amplitude sharp echo at about 63 milliseconds’ range. Jackpot! I shouted for Whelan to get there right now, and I flipped the Magnecord two-channel tape recorder on, shouting the date and time into the little two-channel microphone. There, on the oscilloscope was the HANE echo, standing tall, right where we expected it, but much larger than we ever imagined. Whelan came running, and it was all I could do to keep him from twiddling the controls. He was speechless, but soon recovered, and grabbed the phone. Despite the hour (about 5:15 a.m. local time) he called Dr. Bill Thaler, original sponsor of our OTH radar work, who was division manager for Earth Sciences Division of the Office of Naval Research. Thaler had been the arm-twister who convinced AFOAT-1 to sponsor the radar at Johnston Island (and then Eniwetok), and to pay for this new radar and its unbelievably long-range operation against the HANE test high over Johnston Island. Thaler answered the phone and within an hour was in the lab, wearing trousers over his pajamas, excitedly talking with Whelan. I quickly set up a second Fairchild camera and oscilloscope to take over the recording, so I could process the film in the original camera, which still was running. Our photographic technician made up trays of fresh developing/fixing chemicals for each shift of radar operators just for this purpose. I marked a few relevant times alongside the minuteby-minute dots on the processed film strip for the period from about 0445 to about 0650 (0945 to 1100 Greenwich). I also made a series of prints on 8x10 paper, each capturing about six minutes of real time, using a standard Omega enlarger in the darkroom. Whelan and Thaler soon joined by Phillips, Marvin Oleson (from AFOAT-1), and several others. They now could see what we had experienced. These 8x10 prints, hurriedly made that night, are all that remains of the data from that historic test. These prints formed the basis for Figure 3 in this article. Meanwhile, the original film was carefully rewashed and dried, then labeled and put into the safe in a metal can. I broke out my Gerber “rubber-ruler,” so the experts could measure ranges to various HANE-related radar echo features, and theorize about how these echoes developed.
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OTHER CONTACTS Earlier, Whelan had called two of our communication operators to work. When they arrived, about 6:30 a.m., they started trying to raise either Johnston Island’s Willie Williams, NER-3, or Bill Prechtl on Eniwetok, NER-4, from our own Navy rig, NER. Because the radar still was running and recording the most fascinating series of echoes from the Johnston vicinity on 13.9 MHz, I suggested the attempts at raising NER-3 or NER-4 might succeed if they tried using one of the assigned frequencies near that value. We soon had Prechtl at NER-4 (Eniwetok) communicating using Morse Code. He complained of a very quiet shortwave spectrum, with none of the usual tropical thunderstorm background “crash-static.” Our NER signal was coming through with shimmering modulation on the Morse tones, and voice signals were unintelligible. He signed off to respond to an “all hands” call made to him. Next, our NER operator (who I think might have been Bill Knouse) contacted Williams (at NER-3 Johnston). He reported, again by Morse, that he had to report quickly and then hide for a while, because he had ignored orders to join other non-essential personnel off the island to remain on an LST for the duration of the launch and explosion. He noted that the sky above was as bright as day at about 2:00 a.m. Johnston time (see Figure 4.). Personnel were not allowed outdoors from their bunkers except for three minutes at a time, for personal relief. He reported that his antenna survived, but many other electronic systems were out of order. He had disconnected the receiver antenna before the HANE rocket launch, but did not have time to take down the feeder from his Johnson Viking transmitter to its antenna connection. His transmitter took the full brunt of the electromagnetic pulse.
Figure 4. Official Joint Task Force Seven photo of Johnston Island launch area at HANE+10 minutes, about 2:00 a.m. Johnston time.
THE TEAK HANE The HANE that exploded over Johnston Island that first day of August (Greenwich time/date), nicknamed TEAK, was massive, running about 3.75 megatons, at an altitude of very nearly 80 kilometers. It damaged
parts of the power grid on Oahu, 1,500 kilometers east of the explosion, and blew out some mercury-vapor street lights. Directly under the shot on Johnston, some launch-tower electronics and exposed wired devices were damaged, but Williams’ Johnson Viking came through the event with no sustained damage. He reported later that he heard a loud “pop” in the transmitter when the announced countdown on the public address (PA) system got to zero. However, a system check before he powered it up, some 20 minutes later, showed a scorched spot on the chassis near the antenna connections terminal. That is all the damage he found. The contingent of USAF airmen who were present when we first landed on Johnston, and who we talked to about the effects of a HANE, had been taken off the island for this test. So, we never learned about the impact on small transistor radios. “Official records” of this test show that many communications systems between California and Hawaii and places beyond were inoperable for more than six hours after the test. Some of these never returned to operation until new equipment was installed. The official (unclassified) record claims that nothing was heard from Johnston Island until eight hours after the test, but we know that is incorrect, based on the Morse Code messages from Willie Williams.
tests showed that low earth-orbit satellites all failed. This time, the HANEs were observed by nine of our ACF OTH radars, located in Australia, Hawaii, New Mexico, Alaska, Maryland, Puerto Rico, Libya, and two in Pakistan.
Our OTH radar received echoes from the bomb blast’s plasma ball, followed by two high-altitude (probably 100 kilometers high) tsunami-like walls of charged particles (plasma), one moving east and one moving west. The Maryland radar system tracked these massive walls of ions for more than an hour. The eastbound wave moved at Mach 6, and the westbound wave moved at Mach 5. About an hour and a half after the shot, the 142-millisecond antipodal echo returned to view, meaning that HF signals possibly were penetrating the area again. It is possible, however, that this late antipodal echo, seen some 90 minutes after the HANE, might have been borne by sidelobes of the radar, occurring over somewhat different azimuths than through the bomb zone.
[1] We worked for ACF Industries, in Riverdale, Maryland, at the ERCO plant where Ercoupe aircraft and B-24, B-29, and B-50 gun turrets were made before, during, and after World War II, and where flight simulators for training military air crews were produced by the hundreds.
IMPLICATIONS AND SUBSEQUENT TESTS We are certain that vacuum-tube technology is far stronger against HANE effects than most other alternatives. Today, the worst effects from any HANE that might launch these days will not likely be a sudden dramatic loss of all smartphone connections, caused by the EMP, but a gradual loss of all low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellites. This might require several months or even years to be restored. In the meantime, our ability to do business in the western world will be thrown back to pre1980 methods, a disaster for moderns. The full details of this potential satellite-damaging process are explained by Dennis Papadopoulis, professor of physics at the University of Maryland [6]. That process inadvertently was demonstrated in 1962 by two HANEs above Johnston Island, in the FISHBOWL test series. Those
The Riverdale OTH radar, and the Eniwetok OTH radar were the only OTH radars operating against the first real HANE, called TEAK. The same two sets operated successfully against the second one, ORANGE, two weeks later. The surprising high-altitude effects of these HANEs soon were tested again, on a much smaller scale, in three South Atlantic trials in Project ARGUS, in late August/early September, 1958. These three rocket-lofted HANEs were again detected and recorded by the Riverdale OTH radar. Curiously, neither the Stanford University’s OTH radar in California nor the Naval Research Laboratory’s MUSIC OTH radar located at Chesapeake Beach, Maryland, were operated for any of these tests. Oddly, the rationale stated that “the tests were too far away to expect any effects.” The reality is that none of these radar operations had a Marcella Phillips to goad or guide them.
END NOTES (Note: that this article uses the spellings of place names as presented in 1958.)
[2] Nicholas Christofilos was an eminent physicist who postulated that a high-altitude nuclear explosion (HANE) would create high-energy charged particles, including relativistic-speed (Compton) electrons creating the EMP, but also irradiating the lowest ionospheric levels under the HANE, including the D region, 20 to 80 km altitude. This region normally is charged with ions and low-energy electrons only in daylight hours. A nighttime HANE would illuminate it and produce much higher levels, with accompanying absorption of radio and OTH radar signal energy. Therefore, we thought it would take higher transmitter signal energy to traverse this region. [3] We developed a terrific fondness for cathode followers in this project, for their ability to act to “stiffen the backbone” of any delicate signal paths, such as pulse circuits and the grid returns and screen-grid feeds for RF amplifiers in receivers, [4] Mrs. Phillips had been a long-time employee of the National Bureau of Standards, preparing worldwide ionospheric usage prediction charts for the armed services during World War II. She was a resident consultant to ACF, the U.S. Air Force’s Cambridge Research Center, Bendix Radio, and the Office of Naval Research on ionospheric behavior and characteristics. Her late husband, Major General James Phillips, was
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a founder of the U.S. Air Force Cambridge Research Center. [5] The antipode from any point on earth is that spot exactly opposite the original point, meaning that it is the same distance from the original point no matter what straight-line direction one travels. The antipode from Riverdale is in the Indian Ocean. At that antipode, all the transmitted radar energy, except that lost due to leakage out of the ionosphere or absorbed along the way, arrives approximately simultan¬eously, generating a massive echo. [6] Papadopoulos describes a scenario in which a high-altitude nuclear detonation (he uses HAND to mean the same thing as our “HANE”) may cause an electromagnetic pulse of enormous energy. He further describes a more sinister, long-term (up to a year or more), effect where large quantities of energetic electrons are deposited into the inner Van Allen Belt above the ionosphere. This will poison the solar panels of essentially all LEO satellites over time. He has a relevant slide-presentation on the internet, easily found by searching on his name, Dennis Papadopoulos.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Like many early RCA members, Edwin (Ed) Lyon, III grew up tinkering with radio, then earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics at John Carroll University (Cleveland), before settling down in Maryland as an electronics engineer. He became occupied in designing aircraft radios, flight simulators, and nuclear reactor controls. By 1956, he was fully engaged in over-the-horizon radar design and test, and became chief engineer developing the first operational OTH radar system, which his group fielded and set into 24 x 7 operation in August 1966. He and his engineering group at ACF (acquired by ITT in 1966) designed, constructed, fielded, and operated OTH radars on every continent except Antarctica in that 10-year span. Ed then began sharing his radar and electronics expertise with the military services (mainly Air Force and Navy) in their pursuit of OTH and microwave radar system design and operation. This work continues to occupy part of his time, while tending, with his wife, Millie, a small “truckgardening” farm in western Maryland; collecting and writing about radio and its history takes up the rest of his time. 24
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REMEMBERING SPUTNIK ON ITS 60TH ANNIVERSARY By David and Julia Bart
S
ixty years ago, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first satellite and the first manmade object to reach space. Launched on October 4, 1957, Sputnik was expected to have a short lifespan because the satellite's electric batteries only would function for two weeks. However, Sputnik stayed in its elliptical low-earth orbit for three months. Sputnik burned up on January 4, 1958, while reentering Earth's atmosphere after completing 1,440 orbits and travelling a distance of about 43 million miles/70 million kilometers.
THE YEAR WAS 1958
A Soviet space scientist with Sputnik before the launch. (History.com)
The International Geophysical Year was an international scientific project that lasted from July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958. It was celebrated around the world with scientific programs and initiatives. Sputnik was a spectacular feat Logo for the Internadesigned to coincide with the tional Geophysical Year. International Geophysical Year. A byproduct of Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev’s quest for an intercontinental missile and the desire of Soviet scientists to design a vehicle for manned space flight, Sputnik was at once both small and spectacular.
Electronics, QST, and other periodicals explained how to obtain the QSL cards and included pictures of those received.
A RADIO IN THE SKY Sputnik demonstrated the Soviet Union's technological advancement and spurred the United States into stepping up its game in the newly christened “space race.” Sputnik, which means "traveling companion" in Russian, was a sphere approximately 23 inches / 58 centimeters in diameter, with four long antennas protruding from its head. It weighed 184 pounds / 83 kilograms, and included a radio beacon that transmitted a beeping sound as it orbited the earth every 98 minutes. The transmitter’s beeping could be heard on the world's radio stations, and the satellite could be seen with the naked eye in the night sky as it passed overhead. News reports at the time stated that anyone with a shortwave receiver could hear the new Russian satellite as it hurtled overhead. Worldwide amateur radio organizations like the Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL) gave instructions to their members. Radio operators sought QSL cards as a written confirmation of their one-way reception of the radio signal from Sputnik. Popular
THE RADIO TRANSMITTER AND ANTENNAS Sputnik was made of two hemispheres, each twomillimeters (mm) thick and covered with a highly polished one-mm-thick heat shield made of aluminummagnesium-titanium AMG6T alloy. Sputnik contained the following items in its heat-resistant sphere: a radio transmitter; power supply system made out of three silver-zinc batteries; remote switch; thermal system fan; dual sequencer switch for the thermal control system; thermal control switch; and a barometric switch. Sputnik’s transmitters are described as D-200 units, which are characterized as “vacuum valve-type” with a power of one watt. One transmitter operated on a frequency of 20.005 megahertz (MHz)—megacycles in 1957—and the other on 40.002 MHz. These frequencies allowed reception by amateurs using existing equipment. They also enabled a receiver set at exactly 20 or 40 MHz to produce an audio tone plus or minus the Doppler shift without ever going through zero hertz (Hz). This ensured that Sputnik’s telemetry was audible throughout an entire pass without additional tuning of the receiver. Sputnik’s antennas consisted of four whips attached to the aluminum sphere through insulators that were spaced symmetrically around the circumference of the spherical casing. These elements extended at a 70-degree angle to each other and gave the satellite its iconic shape. The antenna configuration blended the need for simplicity with the space constraints of the launch vehicle and function. During launch, the antenna elements were compressed against the side of
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0.35 kilograms per square centimeter, thermal and barometric switches were activated that changed the length of the radio signal transmitted by the satellite. A special fan was used to maintain normal temperature inside the satellite. The fan was activated when the interior temperature exceeded 30 degrees Celsius. If the temperature fell below 20 degrees Celsius, the fan would turn off. A dual thermal switch was responsible for turning the fan on and off.
THE SPACE RACE Michael Stillwell-illustrated video capture of Sputnik’s components. (Popular Mechanics)
the rocket at an angle of 45 degrees and were held in place by clips and a conical shroud that protected the satellite. The antennas are described as matched pairs, one 2.4 meters and the other 2.9 meters in length. They were likely some variation of a center-fed dipole, with the longer pair radiating the 20-MHz (14-meter) signal and the shorter pair set up for 40 MHz (7.5 meters). Sputnik had no mechanism for spin-stabilization that would maintain its antennas in any particular orientation relative to a receiving station on earth. However, the antennas had an almost spherical radiation pattern, so that the satellite transmissions were made with equal power in all directions, making reception of the transmitted signal independent of the satellite's rotation. ption of the transmitted signal independent of the satellite's rotation. Sputnik was filled with nitrogen at an internal pressure of 1.3 atmospheres. The power supply to the radio transmitter and the thermal control system were activated by a remote switch that was triggered by a sensor at the moment the launch vehicle and the satellite separated. The radio transmitter emitted signals lasting 0.4 seconds. If the temperature onboard the satellite ever exceeded 50 degrees Celsius or fell below zero degrees Celsius, or if the pressure inside fell below
Original circuit of the Sputnik transmitter. (Radiomuseum.org)
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On November 3, 1957, the Soviet Union launched a second, heavier Sputnik carrying a dog, Laika (“Barker” in Russian), providing evidence of a significantly advanced capability to use the outer-space environment. At the time, Sputnik I and II's significance gave the Soviet Union tremendous prestige and provoked great anxiety in the United States and amongst its allies. Today, historians conclude that the artificial satellite's biggest impact was the incredible legacy of space exploration achievements that it inspired. Sputnik is credited for instigating President John F. Kennedy's 1961 declaration that America would put a man on the moon before then end of the decade, and with stimulating an international technology “space race” that generated spectacular accomplishments.
Sputnik QSL card. (QST, Oct. 2007).
Sputnik’s launch led the U.S. government to focus and consolidate space exploration programs in different agencies. On January 31, 1958, the Army launched Explorer I. This American satellite carried a small scientific payload that discovered the magnetic radiation belts around the Earth, later named after principal investigator James Van Allen. That summer, Congress and President Dwight D. Eisenhower created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which came into being October 1, 1958. Sputnik went on to inspire a generation of engineers and scientists. Sputnik’s launch created an international rivalry that lasted decades and sent Americans to the moon, but which ultimately gave way to cooperation and collaboration. Sixty years later, Americans and Russians not only work alongside each other, but also alongside astronauts from many other countries aboard the International Space Station.
SPUTNIK’S ENDURING FAME
Sputnik-2, 1964 QSL card. (Authors’ collection)
The launch of Sputnik I and II occurred in late 1957 and early 1958. Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space in April 1961, followed by John Glenn in February 1962 and ultimately the astronauts of Apollo 11 who walked on the moon in July 1969. Today, young people can barely name Gagarin, Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins. The Apollo program, Soyuz program, the moon landing, and the Apollo-Soyuz project are distant, fading memories. The International Space Station captures periodic news attention. The end of the Space Shuttle Program terminated, for the time being, America’s frequent journeys into space. Yet, Sputnik remains easily identifiable. Its heritage can be seen in the enduring popularity of Sputnik collectibles. Sputnik's shape and sounds continue to appear in our pop culture. Perhaps today we need another Sputnik moment to inspire the nation and the world about space, radio, and the quest for science in the way that a little satellite did 60 years ago.
1957 Sputnik commemorative items: top left - cigarette case, “4 October 1957. First in World”; top right – desk model “Space 4-X-1957 USSR First Satellite”; bottom – cigarette case “4 October 1957. Soviet Sputnik Globe.” (Authors’ collection)
Sputnik with antennas fully extended. (Courtesy NASA).
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REFERENCES Ralph Didlake, KK5PM, “Sputnik and Amateur Radio,” Ham Radio QRZ internet site, accessed April 18, 2018, http://hamradio.qrz.ru/viewtopic.php?id=625. Brian Dunbar, “60th Anniversary of Sputnik: Dawn of the Space Age,” NASA.com, accessed April 18, 2018, https://www.nasa.gov/specials/60th/sputnik/. Clara Moskowitz, “How Sputnik Changed the World 55 Years Ago Today,” SPACE.com, October 4, 2012, https:// www.space.com/17894-sputnik-anniversary-changedthe-world.html. “Sputnik 1 Transmitter,” Radiomuseum.org, accessed April 18, 2018, https://www.radiomuseum.org/forum/ sputnik_1_transmitter.html?language_id=3.
Anatoly Zak, “How Sputnik Worked - Sixty years later,” Popular Mechanics, Oct. 4, 2017.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS David Bart is a fellow, director, and life member of RCA and Chairman of the RCA Publications Committee. He is a director and life member of the Antique Wireless Association, treasurer of the IEEE History Committee, and vice president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago. Julia Bart is an advisor to AWA and coauthor of numerous articles for AWA and RCA.
JOIN RCA AT HAMVENTION 2 018 MAY18-20 Dayton Hamvention is just around the corner on May 18-20, and once again, RCA will be highly visible at the show. We are looking forward to connecting with old friends and reaching out to new, potential members to share the value of belonging to RCA. We hope to see you at one or more of the following! Stop by to say hello to your fellow RCA members at Booth 1811!
The Radio Club of America, Inc.
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RCA'S 2017 TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM AND BANQUET
WERE A HUGE SUCCESS!
T
he Technical Symposium held in Pittsburgh on Friday November 17, 2018 was a huge success by all accounts. This is RCA’s annual opportunity to hear from the wireless industry’s finest contributors at an all-day symposium has become a premier event.
Preparations are already underway for the 2018 Technical Symposium in New York City. If you have suggestions or comments, please share them with RCA’s leadership team.
We tied the symposium to the KDKA tour by having four presentations on a broadcast theme, including: the KDKA tower, the new ASTV 3.0 digital TV standard, Datacasting for Public Safety, and TV Channel Repacking. Dr. Eli Brookner, the father of modern radar, gave a very fast paced presentation on “Amazing Breakthroughs and Future Trends in Radar,” and the father of fractal antennas, Dr. Chip Cohen, gave a presentation and demonstration on “Fractal Metamaterials and the New Class of Directional Antennas.” If that was not enough, we also had a presentation on mesh networks for emergency communications in the state of Delaware, and our youth presenter, Carissa Ferguson, presented on “Robots and Radio.”
THANK YOU TO OUR 2017 TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM PRESENTERS
The presentation slides are available under the Technical Symposium tab on the RCA website. Thanks to iCOM, the presentations were videoed, live streamed, and archived on the RCA Channel on You Tube. Those who attended the event and needed continuing education units (CEUs) for their professional engineering licenses were able to do so for a nominal fee. The Technical Symposium audience voted for the best presenters based on numerous criteria. This year, first place was awarded to Dr. Chip Cohen and Ryan Thistle for their presentation “Fractal Metamaterials and the New Class of Directional Antennas.” Second Place was awarded to Carole Perry for her “Progress Report on RCA’s Youth Initiative.”
Chip Cohen, Ph.D. and Ryan Thistle receiving the First Place Award for their 2017 Technical Symposium presentation at the 2017 RCA Banquet.
We hope to see you all in 2018!
In case you missed it, the presentations are available on RCA’s website. • Moderator: John Facella, P.E. • The KDKA Tower: Mike Rhodes, P.E. (Cavell & Mertz & Assocs.) • The New ASTV 3.0 TV Standard: Dennis Wallace (Meintel, Sgrigoli, & Wallace, LLC) • Robots and Radio: Carissa Ferguson (Youth Presentation) • Progress Report on RCA’s Youth Initiative: Carole Perry • Datacasting for Public Safety: Mark O’Brien (SpectraRep) • TV Channel Repacking: Joe Seccia, P.E. (GatesAir) • Amazing Breakthroughs and Future Trends in Radar: Eli Brookner, Ph.D. • Fractal Metamaterials and the New Class of Directional Antennas: Chip Cohen Ph.D. and Ryan Thistle (Fractal Antenna Systems) • Mesh Network for Emergency Communications for the State of Delaware: Bill Greenhalgh
Carole Perry receiving the Second Place Award for her 2017 Technical Symposium presentation at the 2017 RCA Banquet.
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2017 TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM AND AWARDS BANQUET
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John Facella, moderator of the Technical Symposium.
Mike Rhodes gave the history of the KDKA Tower.
Carissa Ferguson gave the annual Youth Presentation discussing Robots and Radio.
Carole Perry provided a progress report on the latest RCA Youth Activities.
Mark O’Brien explains datacasting for public safety.
Dr. Eli Brookner explains amazing breakthroughs and future trends in radar.
SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS | www.radioclubofamerica.org
2017 TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM AND AWARDS BANQUET
A full house attended the Technical Symposium.
The Technical Symposium was live streamed to the internet.
Dennis Wallace explained ASTC standards.
Joe Seccia outlines TV channel repacking.
Chip Cohen presented the latest developments in Fractal Antennas.
Bill Greenhalgh introduces mesh networks for emergency communications.
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2018 RCA TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM The Technical Symposium this year will be in the Westin Hotel in New York City, on Saturday, November 17th (NOTE the change to Saturday). We already have an interesting agenda lined up, with at least two panels: • 5G (millimeter wave) technology • FirstNet, the new broadband nation-wide network for first responders. We will have a presentation on the current state of the art in carrying medium speed data over high frequency (HF) networks, which is quite difficult because of selective fading and interference issues. Several other additional topics and speakers are being lined up, including one possible surprise topic! Get your reservations early – information is on the RCA Website: https://www.radioclubofamerica.org. If you have particular suggestions or ideas, please contact John Facella at pantherpinesconsulting@gmail.com.
THANK YOU TO OUR 2017 SPONSORS! Contributions from our sponsor companies make it possible for RCA to offer high quality events and further the mission of advancing wireless art and science for the betterment of society.
Kirmuss & Associates, LLC Group of Companies Advanced Radio Technologies
Anderson
Smart battery
Smarts for Icom, Relm and Motorola Radios
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Margaret J. Lyons, P.E.
RCA’S 2017 BANQUET WAS A SPECTACULAR AFFAIR
AT PITTSBURGH’S HISTORIC DUQUESNE CLUB
including Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Ronald Reagan. The hotel is a member of Historic Hotels of America. The RCA Banquet is our opportunity to honor the radio and wireless industry’s finest contributors at the premier event in this industry. This gathering of members and non-members is unique in its continuing effort to recognize the significant contributors to radio and wireless. Elaine Walsh again served as a terrific Master of Ceremonies.
T
he 2017 Awards Banquet was held Friday, November 17, 2018 at the famed Duquesne Club in Pittsburgh. The Duquesne Club was founded in 1873. Its present home is in a Romanesque structure designed by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow in 1890, located on Sixth Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh. The building achieved landmark status from the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation in 1976, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. In 2009, the Duquesne Club was ranked as the second best city club in the nation. Notable guests have included five U.S. Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant, Herbert Hoover, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton.
• The 2017 Keynote Speaker was Director Glenn Cannon who has spent his entire career in emergency communications, emergency management, and public safety services, at the city, county, state, and federal levels. He made significant contributions at FEMA and PEMA and gave the crowd unique insights into the state of emergency communication services in the U.S. and in the State of Pennsylvania. • RCA presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to Dr. Ulrich Rohde for his significant achievements. Dr. Rohde is a “Microwave Legend” for his work in microwaves and antennas, and the IEEE has established two awards in his name. His acceptance speech and article contribution are presented separately in this issue of the Proceedings.
Other activities and overnight accommodations were provided by The Omni William Penn Hotel. It opened on March 11, 1916 and was hailed as the Grandest Hotel in the nation. General and Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall and four U.S. Presidents have been guests,
• RCA presented the Armstrong Medal to Dr. Eli Brookner who is legendary for his work at Raytheon and his contributions to the field of radar. He continues to lecture and the IEEE has recognized his work with multiple awards. His acceptance speech is also presented separately in this issue of the Proceedings.
Omni William Penn Hotel.
Omni William Penn Hotel.
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The other awards included: • Dr. James Breakall—Sarnoff Citation for exceptional contributions of a technical or non-technical nature to the advancement of electronic communications. • Peter J. Madsen, K2PM— Fred Link Award for notable achievements in land mobile radio communications.
RCA President Tim Duffy.
• Michael Kalter, W8CI—Barry Goldwater Amateur Radio Award for unique contributions to the field of amateur radio. • Thomas F. Peterson, Jr.—Ralph Batcher Memorial Award for significant work in preserving the history of radio and electronic communications. A copy of his acceptance is separately presented in this issue of the Proceedings. • Dr. Mary Ann Weitnauer—Vivian A. Carr Award for outstanding achievements by a woman in the wireless industry. • Robert Hobday, N2EVG—Jack Poppele Award for outstanding achievements and long-term contributions to the field of radio broadcasting. A copy of his acceptance is separately presented in this issue of the Proceedings. • Kevin McGinnis—National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) Richard DeMello Award for his many contributions to national public safety and homeland security. • Charles Kirmuss, W0CBK—RCA Special Services Award in recognition of dedicated service to RCA for his many contributions to the Club’s Youth Activities Program as a sponsor and volunteer. • Carissa Ferguson, KJ4EZA—RCA Young Achiever Award for demonstrated excellence and creativity in wireless communications by a student of high school age or younger. • David Bart, KB9YPD—Presented the acceptance speech on behalf of the entire 2017 Fellow Class. A copy of the Fellows Speech and the list of 2017 Fellows are separately presented in this issue of the Proceedings. The 2018 Awards Banquet and Symposium will be on Saturday, November 17, at the Westin Times Square. Registration is open, and rooms at the 4-Star Westin can be reserved at this link (http://www.guestreservations.com/westinnew-york-at-times-square/booking). If you have suggestions or comments, please share them with RCA’s leadership team. We hope to see you all in 2018!
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Elaine Walsh, Master of Ceremonies.
RCA’S 2017
AWARD RECIPIENTS
Dr. Ulrich Rohde, Lifetime Achievement Award.
Dr. Eli Brookner, Armstrong Medal.
Director Glenn Cannon, 2017 Keynote Speaker.
Dr. James Breakall, Sarnoff Citation.
Peter J. Madsen, K2PM, Fred Link Award.
Michael Kalter, W8CI, Barry Goldwater Amateur Radio Award.
Thomas F. Peterson, Jr., Ralph Batcher Memorial Award
Dr. Mary Ann Weitnauer, Vivian A. Carr Award.
Robert Hobday, N2EVG, Jack Poppele Award.
Kevin McGinnis, NPSTC Richard DeMello Award.
Charles Kirmuss, W0CBK, RCA Special Services Award.
Carissa Ferguson, KJ4EZA, RCA Young Achiever Award.
John Facella on behalf of the Technical Symposium.
David Bart on behalf of the RCA Fellows.
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SOME CANDIDS FROM THE
RECEPTION AND BANQUET
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THANK YOU: 2017 BANQUET SPONSORS GOLD
Kirmuss & Associates, LLC Group of Companies Advanced Radio Technologies
Anderson
Smart battery
Smarts for Icom, Relm and Motorola Radios
BRONZE
Margaret J. Lyons, P.E.
BRASS
THANK YOU: 2017 DONORS • James Breakall • Alan Caldwell, Fellow • Karen Clark, Director & Fellow • Mercy Contreras, President Emeritus & Fellow • Richard Ferguson • Larry Hazelwood • Ronald Jakubowski, Officer & Fellow 38
SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS | www.radioclubofamerica.org
• John Oblak • June Poppele, Fellow • Rich Reichler, Fellow • Lloyd Bankson Roach, Fellow • Howard Rosen • Robert Walsh, Fellow
RCA'S 2017
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD ADDRESS EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Ulrich L. Rohde, N1UL, received RCA’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the 108th Radio Club of America Banquet and Awards Ceremony. It was awarded for a lifetime of outstanding work that has advanced the art and science of radio and wireless technology. The following text presents Dr. Rohde’s acceptance speech.
Dr. Ulrich Rohde’s giving his acceptance speech.
D
ear friends and colleagues, I am surprised and very happy that you have determined to select me for the Radio Club of America Lifetime Achievement Award. Going back in time to around 1983, I was responsible for highly classified communication systems and applications, at the Radio Corporation of America in Camden, New Jersey. During these times, I had the pleasure to meet Fred Link who recommended me to be a Fellow of the Radio Club of America, your organization. In these days, we already worked on software defined radios and very special aircraft radios with two antennas, close side-by-side; really difficult co-site problems. We also introduced the world’s first power PIN Diodes for switching off antenna tuner components for this application developed by my friend, Arye Rosen, at the David Sarnoff Labs in Princeton who also belonged to the Radio Club of America. Fred Link and I had endless discussions about modern technology, and I remember giving a presentation at your club about the performance of field effect transistors replacing vacuum tubes.
General Electric bought the Radio Corporation of America back because of duplication of effort. My activities were dissolved; and, as in corporate culture, not unusual, I lost my job. The successor of my organization is now called L3; and at the physical location where I was situated, there is now an aquarium, which is probably more scenic than what we had to offer. Fred Link and I lost contact. Thanks to some members of your organization, the club Dr. Rohde’s Lifetime and I not only reconnected, Achievement Award. but you also gave me your highest award. I hope you still think this was a good idea. For those of you not that familiar with me, here is a website where you can find a good write up. http://www.badw.de/fileadmin/ members/R/3685/Rohde_CV_EN.pdf. The website is at the Germany based Bavarian Academy of Science located in Munich. They are very happy to report that amongst their members were Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and other spectacular names. In 2013, they elected me as an Honorary Member next to the Duke of Bavaria. He is a descendant of the King of Bavaria. This is more of a political appointment, and hopefully mine is based on scientific contribution. I am also happy to see that our paper on Software Defined Radios will be reprinted in your May issue of the Proceedings of the Radio Club of America. I hope to see many of you soon, and often. I am happy to be available for technology talks. Recently, I am involved in designing and developing high frequency signal sources and signal processing components for 5G and Internet of Things (IOT) applications, using inventive techniques for optoelectronic oscillators. In addition to this, I have my finger on fundamental physics for applications involving metamaterial based electronic components for medical and industrial applications that includes the philosophy of defeating gravity to some degree. Again, thanks to all, and I hope to see you again soon.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Ulrich L. Rohde, N1UL, is an owner of several companies in the U.S. and a partner in the global company Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG, and he holds many patents. He is also the author of numerous publications in his field. He holds professorships in electrical engineering and microwave engineering at four universities in Germany, Romania and the U.S.; teaching and researching in both electrical engineering and computer sciences regarding communications theory and digital frequency synthesizers. He holds four dozen patents and has published more than 350 scientific papers in professional journals and conferences. He contributed to or authored 15 books. Dr. Rohde is a recipient of numerous awards including, the 2014 IFCS C.B. Sawyer Award; 2015 IFCS I. I. Rabi Award; and 2015 IEEE Region 1 Scientific Innovation Award; the 2016 Microwave Application Award; and the 2017 W.G. Cady Award of the ARRL. He is a Fellow of the IEEE; Member of IEEE Technical Committee for HF, VHF, and UHF Technology MTT-17; Member of IEEE Signal Generation and Frequency Conversion MTT-22;
Invited Panel Member for the FCC’s Spectrum Policy Task Force on Issues Related to the Commission’s Spectrum Policies; Member of the Board of Trustees Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (EMFT) for Modular Solid State Technology, Member of the Board of Trustees of the Bavarian Academy of Science and Honorary Member of the Academy of Science, all in Munich; ETA KAPPA NU Honor Society; Executive Association of the Graduate School of Business Columbia University; The Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association; Fellow of the Radio Club of America; and the former Chairman of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Advisory Board at New Jersey Institute of Technology. Dr. Rohde was honored in 2006 as a Microwave Legend by Microwave & RF Magazine, and he was listed among the Divine Innovators of 2011 in the Microwave Journal. IEEE has established two awards in his name: the “IEEE Ulrich L. Rohde Innovative Conference Paper Awards on Antenna Measurements and Applications” and “IEEE Ulrich L. Rohde Innovative Conference Paper Awards on Computational Techniques in Electromagnetics.” His hobbies include sailing, U.S. Merchant Marine Officer, Master of Steam or Motor Vessels, photography and ham radio (N1UL).
Advancing radio technology for over 60 years.
#IcomEverywhere www.icomamerica.com/amateur ©2018 Icom America Inc. The Icom logo is a registered trademark of Icom Inc. 20866
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5/1/18 3:04 PM
RCA'S 2017
ARMSTRONG MEDAL ADDRESS EDITOR’S NOTE: Dr. Eli Brookner received RCA’s Armstrong Medal at the 108th Radio Club of America Banquet and Awards Ceremony. It was awarded for outstanding achievements and lasting contributions to the radio arts and sciences and wireless communications. The following text presents Dr. Brookner’s acceptance speech.
I
t is a great honor for me to receive the Radio Club of America’ most prestigious Armstrong Award.
Armstrong was always a hero of mine. With his invention of the super heterodyne receiver that revolutionized radio and the invention of high quality wideband FM, he is a true giant in the field of electronics. As a teen, I built one of his super heterodyne radios. In college, I most admired that he did not let the highly mathematical rigorous proof in an IRE paper by Carson, indicating that FM radio would not perform any better than AM, keep him from showing that FM radio performs much much better than AM. The problem was that Carson did his analysis for the WRONG FM, narrow band FM. Armstrong showed that wideband FM performs much much better and is the basis for FM as we know it today.
The Armstrong Medal.
I believe that Armstrong subconsciously inspired me to similarly not let the rigorous, highly mathematical proof that the recent, newest type of electronic scanned array radar called MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) radar provides orders of magnitude better resolution and accuracy in angle than conventional array radars, stop me from showing otherwise. For an N = 10 element array radar, the mathematical proof showed that we get a factor of 10 times better resolution and accuracy in angle, for N= 100, 100 times better and for N = 1,000, a 1,000 times better. This conclusion has led to
Dr. Eli Brookner giving his acceptance speech.
much research work on MIMO radar around the world. I showed that the only problem with this conclusion is that it is NOT TRUE. It is NOT TRUE. Again: IT IS NOT TRUE. Similar to the Carson highly mathematical paper which applied to the wrong FM, the conclusion is being drawn for the wrong conventional array radar. I showed that not enough diligence was spent on examining what conventional array radars can do. Specifically, I showed that with the right conventional radar you can do just as well as with the new MIMO array radars. Moreover, at the same time, you do not suffer the waveform design problems you can have with MIMO radars as well as usually having a much higher signal processing load. In pointing out these results I have been accused of being against MIMO radars. The problem is not that I am against MIMO radars at all, but that the people working on MIMO radars are effectively against conventional array radars since they are not giving them their due. As a matter of fact, I actually have a patent on a MIMO array radar: Eli Brookner, et al, Patent, US 2005/0231420 A1, 10/20/2005. One research group claimed that MIMO radar can defeat a main lobe, hot clutter jammer and conventional could not. Hot, main lobe clutter is a jammer signal coming into the main lobe of a radar after reflecting from the ground. This jammer problem is most severe because you have the jammer and the target signal in the main beam. Usually for this case, when cancelling out the main lobe jammer you also have to cancel out much of the signal. They were able to cancel out the hot clutter jammer without cancelling out the signal amplitude at all. Amazing. They had no physical explanation for why they got these amazing results for the MIMO radar. www.radioclubofamerica.org | SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS
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They showed me their very mathematical proof. It referenced another highly mathematical paper which showed how you can reduce the rank of the interference matrix. Lying in bed one night thinking about these results, it became immediately clear what physically had to be done to cancel out the main lobe, hot clutter while not effecting the signal. And, conventional array radars can do the same thing, and do it just as well. So, MIMO radar is no better than conventional array radars in this respect also. No esoteric mathematics are necessary. Just a physical understanding of what is needed. The people working on MIMO array radars have to give due diligence to what conventional radars can do. Thank you Armstrong for your inspiration!
FRESH CONTENT – ON THE –
RCA WEBSITE RADIOCLUBOFAMERICA.ORG
Armstrong and I have a kinship in that I, like Armstrong, studied and worked at Columbia University. And, our times at Columbia University overlapped. Having Dr. Nathan (Chip) Cohen put me up for the prestigious Armstrong Medal and personally presenting it to me give it extra special meaning. Coming from the RCA, a friendly family of accomplished doers, also gives it very special meaning. Thank you all.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Brookner was the Principal Engineering Fellow (retired) with Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems at Raytheon Corporation. He is a global radar authority with a lifetime of outstanding accomplishments that advanced the fields of radar technologies in airborne, intelligence, space, air-traffic control and defense mission systems, including phased-array radar system design and radar signal processing designs as well as signal processing and continuing commitments to education programs for radar engineers. Dr. Brookner has lectured in 26 countries and has authored four books and contributed to three others about radar technology. He received numerous awards, including the Journal of the Franklin Institute Premium Award; IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Harold A. Wheeler Applications Prize Paper Award; IEEE Aerospace and Electronics Systems Society (AESS) 2003 Warren D. White Award and IEEE AESS 2017 Outstanding Organizational Leadership Award; and 2006 IEEE Dennis J. Picard Medal for Radar Technologies and Applications. He received the IEEE Centennial Medal and an IEEE Millennium Medal, and the IEEE Education Activities Board Meritorious Award. He has served as a Distinguished Lecturer for both the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society and the IEEE Aerospace and Electronics Systems Society. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, the AIAA, and the Military Sensing Symposia and a member of both Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu honor societies. 42
SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS | www.radioclubofamerica.org
The RCA website is the go-to place for RCA news and events. VISIT THE SITE FOR: • 2017 Technical Symposium slides and videos • Updated membership list, including email address and call sign (login required) • Calendar of upcoming RCA and industry events • Updated committees page • Updated publications archive • New products in the RCA store • Membership, awards, and advertising forms • Current articles about youth outreach • And more!
TROUBLE LOGGING IN? Please email Amy@radioclubofamerica.org if you need a new password or have difficulty logging in.
RCA'S 2017
JACK POPPELE AWARD ADDRESS EDITOR’S NOTE: Mr. Robert Hobday received RCA’s Jack Poppele Award at the 108th Radio Club of America Banquet and Awards Ceremony. It was awarded for outstanding achievements and long-term contributions to the field of radio broadcasting. The following text presents Mr. Hobday’s acceptance speech.
relocated the transmitter control room and one of the transmitters from California to Rochester, New York where they are preserved and on display in the AWA Museum for future generations to learn about broadcasting’s role in society. We need to be proactive in preserving our industry’s history. Once lost, history is lost forever. We at AWA hope we have contributed in some small fashion to that preservation effort. I want to thank RCA for this award. I am truly honored.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
(L-R) Ginny Poppele, June Poppele, and Robert Hobday with the Jack Poppele Award.
I
am humbled and honored to receive the Jack Poppele Award this year. I am especially honored that Jack Poppele’s lovely daughters, June Poppele and Ginny Endres, traveled to Pittsburgh to present the award. Thank you so much. Although I never had the honor of meeting Jack, from talking with June and Ginny and reading many of his papers, you gain the sense that Jack was a very special individual. He maintained a sharp vision for the future of radio and television throughout his career, well grounded in the history of our industry. His leadership qualities and vision were well recognized and engaged on many levels including the Directorship of the Voice of America from 1953 to 1956. The Delano, California VOA Station was named after Jack in 1992. Jack approached his leadership responsibilities with grace, humor and vision. That is a great model for all of us to follow. I am proud to be part of the rescue of the Jack Poppele VOA Station at the Antique Wireless Association. We
Robert Hobday, N2EVG, is the Deputy Director of the Antique Wireless Museum in Bloomfield, New York. He graduated from Union College with a BA in Industrial Administration. He was employed by Rochester Gas and Electric (RG&E) in the Pricing and Regulatory Department rising to Manager of Pricing and subsequently, Manager of Marketing. In 1998, he led one of two teams assigned to create Energetix Inc., a new unregulated subsidiary of RG&E. Mr. Hobday retired from Energetix as its Managing Director in 2007 and established the firm Robert Hobday Consultants. Mr. Hobday is a Life Member of the Rochester Amateur Radio Association (RARA) and served as Secretary, Vice President, President, and Member of the Board. He is a longtime member of the Antique Wireless Association and became its Deputy Director in 2009. He is Chairman of the Development Fund for the AWA Museum. Mr. Hobday was instrumental in efforts to rescue and preserve the Voice of America’s Delano, California broadcasting control room and one of the three Collins 821A 250,000W transmitters. Mr. Hobday was also instrumental in establishing the Radio Club of America’s historical archive containing original documents from the club since 1909, which are housed at AWA. Mr. Hobday is an RCA member and Fellow, a two time recipient of the AWA’s Director Award and a recipient of the AWA’s Museum Award.
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2018 Wireless Technical Symposium
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS The World’s Oldest Professional Society Devoted to Wireless Invites You to Submit Abstracts for Consideration for our 2018 Wireless Technical Symposium to be held on Saturday, November 17, 2018, at the Westin Hotel in New York City. We seek interesting or important work in any of the following areas of wireless communications: • Antennas and supporting structures (towers, etc.)
Submit the following information by Friday, May 25, 2018 (earlier submissions are encouraged) to be considered (Note: ALL information must be submitted to be considered): 1. Title of presentation 2. Presenter (s) names and contact information
• Broadband Communications
3. Short bios of the presenter (s)
• Broadcast
4. A 1-3 paragraph synopsis or abstract of the
• Cellular Communications Systems
work to be presented and why you think the work is
• Ham (amateur) Radio
interesting or important to the wireless industry
• Land Mobile Radio
5. A medium resolution headshot of the presenter (s)
• Military Communications • Satellite • 4G/5G Cellular • Semiconductors or other devices supporting wireless communications • Other Wireless Technologies of any kind We welcome early work, even if it’s still in process. RCA offers a unique opportunity to get an early reaction to important work in wireless communications, prior to later publication in other technical journals and societies such as the IEEE.
Those that are selected will be given a ~45 minute presentation opportunity to present, and your presentation slides will be made available on the RCA Website after the event. Also, thanks to iCOM, we are now videoing all presentations and they are placed in the RCA Channel on You Tube. (Note that participants will have to fund their own travel to the event in New York.) If you wish to perform a demonstration, we can accommodate that, but it must be within your allotted 45 minutes.
For additional Information, and to see prior presentations, go to https://www.radioclubofamerica.org/about-us/ past-technical-symposiums. The videos of prior Technical Symposiums can be found at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ query=radio+club+of+america+technical+symposium Send abstracts to: info@radioclubofamerica.org and join Armstrong, Godley, Link, Sarnoff, and the countless other wireless pioneers of the RCA.
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RCA'S 2017
FELLOWS ADDRESS
RCA 2017 Fellows recognized at the 108th Banquet and Awards Ceremony. L-R: David Bart, Nathan Cohen, Cheryl Greathouse, James Roden, Nancy Smith. Not shown: Brent Finster, Sean Johnson, Bruce Roloson.
EDITOR’S NOTE: David P. Bart spoke on behalf of the 2017 Class of Fellows inducted at the 108th Radio Club of America Banquet and Awards Ceremony. Each year RCA inducts those who have made outstanding achievements and contributions to the art and science of radio communications or broadcast or the Radio Club of America. The following text presents Mr. Bart’s acceptance speech. Biographical information about Mr. Bart is located at the end of his comments.
O
n behalf of the new Fellows, let me express my thanks and appreciation to the Radio Club of America. Recognition as a Fellow is indeed a real honor, and I am flattered to speak on everyone’s behalf. Here at the RCA, we trace our roots to 1909. The Club instituted By Laws in 1914, designating two grades of membership: Members and Honorary Members. The first Honorary Members were inducted in 1915. They included radio legends: Robert H. Marriott, John V.L. Hogan, John Stone Stone, and Alfred N. Goldsmith. Oddly, Reginald A. Fessenden, the Club’s original “consulting engineer,” declined his honorary membership, stating that he was no longer interested in radio since his departure from National Electric Signaling Company. In 1926, RCA added a new membership grade, the Fellow, to recognize broader industry accomplishments. That year, RCA held its first regular banquet in New York City. Attendees included Michael Pupin, David Sarnoff, Gano Dunn, Edwin H. Armstrong, and John V.L. Hogan. That night, both Pupin and Sarnoff were named as RCA Honorary Members, and W.E.D. Stokes was named as RCA’s first Fellow. Fifteen years earlier, Stokes founded RCA, together with George Eltz and Frank King. It took another 15 years to broaden the list of Fellows to 22. Among those notables were:
• Thomas T. Goldsmith, a 30 year director of research DuMont Television and who first conceived the CRT video game in 1947; • Jack R. Poppele, who built WOR’s transmitter in New York City and later served as director of the Voice of America; and, • M.B. Sleeper, who popularized radio research with his Radio Experimenters Handbook and other publications. By the time of RCA’s 50th anniversary in 1959, RCA had 8 honorary members and 190 fellows. Today, there are 355 Fellows. And the legacy continues, consider that tonight’s Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Dr. Ulrich Rohde, another RCA Fellow. Congratulations to the 2017 RCA Fellows: • David P. Bart, KB9YPD • Dr. Nathan Cohen, W1YW • Brent Finster, K6BEF • Cheryl J. Greathouse • Sean E. Johnson • James M. Roden, W5JR • Bruce Roloson, W2BDR • Nancy Smith But what does Fellowship mean at RCA? The Club was founded with a unique mandate: to promote cooperation among individuals interested in all kinds of study in the communication arts. RCA’s broad range of members, and the broad scope of their interchange, are treasured. Our members are scientists, academics, inventors, professionals, and amateurs. www.radioclubofamerica.org | SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS
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Blending old and new vernacular, RCA promotes the gentleman-amateur scientist, and the Club encourages everyone to contribute his or her creativity, practicality, and idealism to the world of wireless communications. Tonight, RCA welcomes a historian, an astrophysicist inventor, a public safety communications leader, a museum curator, a former president of APCO, an antenna and infrastructure manufacturer, a cellular industry executive, and a wireless industry management consultant. Think about this range: from history to consulting, from invention to management. Five of these new fellows hold amateur radio licenses. These special individuals encompass leadership and achievement spanning a tremendous breadth of contributions to our field. Indeed, all of our award winners and our Fellows share the goals first envisioned by RCA’s founders: to foster camaraderie and mutual respect among all those pursuing the radio arts. In 1934, George Eltz stated, “There is no other radio association quite like the Radio Club, no other group quite so free of commercial taint, old and young, we are [all] amateurs when we meet in the Radio Club, let us remain so.” I asked our new fellows for their thoughts about tonight’s recognition. • One stated, “I am humbled to be honored in an organization that is made up of so many esteemed individuals. Those that have been Club members
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during the last century are some of the best and brightest inventors, operators, and imaginers in science, industry and public safety.” • Another stated, “I have known many RCA members through the years, most of them are fellows, and I can tell you it is a tremendous honor just to be in the same company as these folks. From pioneers to trendsetters these people have shaped this industry we love and I’m proud to be able to rub elbows with them.” Michael Pupin gave his reason for this sustaining legacy more than 90 years ago, stating, “You love this art for its own sake and not for what profit it brings you.” On behalf of all the new Fellows, we are humbled to join the ranks of the Fellows that came before us. We are honored to be part of this history, and we thank you for recognizing our contributions.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR David P. Bart, KB9YPD, is Chairman of the Radio Club of America Publications Committee and Editorial Director of the RCA Proceedings. He is a Life Member and Director of the Antique Wireless Association, and a Life Member and Director of RCA. He is also treasurer of the IEEE History Committee and vice president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.
In celebration of Carole Perry’s 30th Annual Dayton Hamvention Youth Forum
On the occasion of this momentous occasion and to recognize Carole’s contributions RCA Youth Activities Committee Member Charles Kirmuss replicated the portable Code Practice Oscillator (CPO) that Carole designed in the 80’s for use as both a Morse Code teaching aid and fund raiser. At Dayton: Every RCA Young Achiever received one as well as many were given away to youth present as a door prize. Sales of the CPO at her Youth Forum at the event raised close to $3,000 benefitting Carole’s RCA Youth Programs..
SAVE THE DATE
2018 TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM AND 109 TH BANQUET & AWARDS PRESENTATION
AS A THANK-YOU TO RCA MEMBERS, For every 3 year New Membership, or a 3 Year Renewal, or a donation received of over $30 to the RCA Youth Program, Kirmuss & Associates, LLC will send you a commemorative CPO.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17 | NEW YORK CITY ...Share the Love !
Register for the 2018 Technical Symposium and Banquet at www.radioclubofamerica.org. All the costs of manufacture and this ad space are borne entirely by Kirmuss & Associates LLC/Anderson iNTELLi-SMARTBATTERY.
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AS AA THANK THANK-YOU AS YOU TO TO RCA RCA MEMBERS, MEMBERS, For Forevery every3 year New Renewal, or or a donation re3-year NewMembership, Membership,orora a3 Year 3-Year Renewal, a donation ceived of of over $30$30 to the RCARCA Youth Program, Kirmuss & Assore-ceived over to the Youth Program, Kirmuss & ciates, LLC will send you a commemorative CPO. Asso-ciates, LLC will send you a commemorative CPO.
...Sharethe theLove Love!! ...Share All Allthe thecosts costsofofmanufacture manufactureand andthis thisad adspace spaceare areborne borneentirely entirelyby byKirmuss Kirmuss&&Associates AssociatesLLC/Anderson LLC/AndersoniNTELLi-SMARTBATTERY. iNTELLi-SMARTBATTERY.
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CBS PITTSBURGH
Radio Club of America Tours Historic KDKA Transmitter Site
Members of the Radio Club of America at the historic KDKA transmitting facility.
PITTSBURGH (NewsRadio 1020 KDKA) – The world’s oldest radio communications association, The Radio Club of America, hosted its Technical Symposium and Annual Banquet in Pittsburgh over the weekend. As Pittsburgh is the birthplace of radio, the Club made it a point to take a tour of the world’s first commercial radio station, Pittsburgh’s KDKA-AM. Founded in 1909, the Club’s purpose is “to promote cooperation among those interested in the advancement and scientific study of radio communications.” Over 60 members of the club boarded buses and headed to the studios of KDKA, where they were treated to a tour of the broadcast facility and its broadcast theater, where they watched a video tribute to the 97-year history of radio station KDKA. From there, the tour headed to the KDKA transmitter location, situated on a hill in Allison Park, Pennsylvania. Built and launched in November of 1939 on the station’s 19th anniversary, the site houses the original 50,000 watt Westinghouse transmitter and intricate electrical system that powered it. Also on display were multiple
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historic artifacts from former KDKA Radio Engineer Mel Check. Items such as a crystal set constructed by KDKA’s founding engineer Dr. Frank Conrad, vintage microphones, audio speakers dating back to the 1920s, various radios from crystal, tube to transistor were on loan from the Check Radio Museum and showcased during the transmitter portion of the tour. KDKA Program Director Jim Graci hosted an event for the Radio Club of America, along with chief engineer Vic Pasquarelli and engineer Ron Honeychuck. KDKA transmitter chief engineer Chris Hudak conducted a video tour of some of the highlights at the historic transmitter site. KDKA Radio celebrates the 100th Anniversary of its first regular broadcast, radio’s 100th anniversary on Nov. 2, 2020.
REFERENCES CBS Pittsburgh, November 21, 2017.
RCA’S 2017 TOUR OF KDKA
T
he Radio Club of America’s adventure in Pittsburgh on the weekend of the Annual Awards Banquet and Technical Symposium included a private tour of the legendary KDKA studios. Sixty RCA members and guests left Saturday morning after the banquet for a bus tour that ended Saturday afternoon. The day’s activities included a tour of the current operating studios as well as a trip to the historic broadcasting facility and antenna locations. This was a rare opportunity to receive a custom private tour of this legendary radio station. Activities commenced when KDKA Program Director Jim Graci talked with RCA members in the station’s Bowser Nissan Theatre about the station’s history, and then led a tour of the facilities. On display were carious crystal and Radiola sets and microphones, as well as transmitting station equipment from the early days of broadcasting. A table of early documents, including photos and station schematics, was available to peruse. The crystal set on display was built by Dr. Frank
Conrad, KDKA’s founder. Buses then took the RCA members to the historic broadcast facility in Allison Park, Pennsylvania, where the KDKA tower stands 718feet tall on a hill. The day ended with an impromptu auction of an original segment of the 1936 KDKA antenna, with the proceeds going to RCA’s education fund. CBS Pittsburgh covered the event. The following photo montage shows highlights of this outstanding day. RCA will return to Pittsburgh in 2020 to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of KDKA becoming the first commercial broadcast station in the United States, which occurred when it broadcast the results of the Harding-Cox presidential election on Nov. 2, 1920. Another tour of the KDKA facilities, which was so successful in 2017, is being planned, as well as several other activities centered on this historic milestone. Don’t miss this future event!
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IT'S TIME TO HONOR THE
DISTINGUISHED AND DESERVING While technology is important to wireless technology, this industry is really about the people. People who invent, create, inspire and collaborate to create the products, services and companies that make this industry one of a kind.
accomplishments of both RCA members and nonmembers.
We are currently taking applications for two different categories of honors bestowed by the Radio Club of America on an annual basis. One is the elevation of existing members to the grade of Fellow. RCA Fellows are selected based upon their outstanding contributions and extraordinary qualifications in the art and science of radio and electronics. All Fellows will be recognized at the annual Banquet in November. The form and instructions for submission can be found on the following pages.
To submit a nomination, complete the form on the following pages and submit it with the instructions on the form.
The Radio Club has also established awards recognizing the outstanding achievements and
Not all awards are given every year and descriptions of each award can be found on the RCA website at: www.radioclubofamerica.org/about-us/awards.
Fellow and Award nominations are reviewed by the Awards Committee and their recommendations are forwarded to the full RCA Board of Directors for a final decision. Recipients are notified in advance so they can make their plans to attend the RCA Banquet and Awards Ceremony in New York City on Saturday, November 17.
NOMINATIONS DUE JUNE 1, 2018
To submit a nomination, complete the form on the following pages and submit it in accordance with the instructions on the form.
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2018 Award Nomination Form The Club recognizes achievement with several major awards which are presented at the annual Awards Banquet. These awards are meant to provide public recognition to outstanding individuals. Club membership qualifies you to submit nominations for individuals who meet the criteria of an individual award at the highest level. Qualifications for each award are on the RCA website. Please review the qualifications carefully prior to making your nomination. Please note that all sections of the form are mandatory and all nominations require a fully completed form to be considered. Nomination forms should be submitted by June 1, 2018 to allow time for the Awards Committee to do their initial review of the nominations and submit a list of nominees to the RCA Board of Directors for final approval. Submit the Awards Nomination Form to the Club’s Awards Committee in any of the following ways: • Print the form and fax it to (612) 430-6995 • Email the form to amy@radioclubofamerica.org • Print the form and mail it to Radio Club of America, 13570 Grove Drive #302 Maple Grove MN 55311 Name of RCA Award: __________________________________________________________________ Full name of candidate: ________________________________________________________________ Please share the three main reasons why this individual should be considered for this award, listing significant achievements and contributions that are alignment with the award’s intention. 1.
2.
3.
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2018 RCA Award Nomination Form | Page 2 Please attach or provide a link to a biography, resume, and list of prior awards or published articles that support the specific requirements of this award nomination and your candidate’s eligibility. Please attach separate pages if needed.
All awards are presented in person to the winner during the RCA Awards Banquet. To the best of your knowledge, if selected, will the nominee be able to attend the 2018 Awards Banquet in New York City? ____________________________________________________________________
Please provide contact information for the nominee: Name: __________________ Phone number: __________________ Email address: __________________
Please provide your contact information: Name: __________________ Phone number: __________________ Email address: __________________ Date submitted: ___________________
Radio Club of America, Inc. 13570 Grove Drive #302 Maple Grove MN 55311 www.radioclubofamerica.org | amy@radioclubofamerica.org (612) 405-2102
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2018 Fellow Nomination Form The Club annually recognizes contributions of Club members by elevating them to the grade of Fellow. Qualifications for elevation to Fellow are detailed below. Please review the qualifications carefully to be considered. Nomination forms should be submitted by June 1, 2018 to allow time for an initial review of the Fellow Nomination and final approval of the Fellow elevation by the RCA Board of Directors. Please note: Fellow Nominations require the support of two (2) RCA members in good standing. According to Article I of the RCA by laws: Section 4: Elevation to the status of Fellow is by invitation only to those persons who have been a member in good standing for the previous five years and whose contributions to the art and science of Radio Communications or Broadcast or the Radio Club of America are deemed outstanding by the Club. Nominations for Fellow must be submitted in writing to the Awards Committee and must be supported in writing by at least two members in good standing. The Fellows Committee will report to the Board of Directors the names of nominees for Fellow, including any relevant information regarding each nominee. Invitations to persons to become a Fellow will be made pursuant to a majority vote of the Board of Directors. Submit the Fellow Nomination Form to the Club’s Awards Committee in any of the following ways: • Print the form and fax it to (612) 430-6995 • Email the form to amy@radioclubofamerica.org • Print the form and mail it to Radio Club of America, 13570 Grove Drive #302 Maple Grove MN 55311 Full name of candidate: Please share, up to 40 words, why this individual should be elevated to the rank of Fellow.
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2018 Fellow Nomination Form | Page 2 Please attach or provide a link to a biography, resume, list of prior awards or published articles that support the elevation to Fellow. Please attach separate pages if needed.
To the best of your knowledge, if selected, will the Fellow nominee be able to attend the 2018 Awards Banquet in Pittsburgh, PA?
Please provide contact information for the nominee: Name: __________________ Phone number: __________________ Email address: __________________
Please provide the contact information for each nominating RCA member: Nominating member #1 Name: __________________ Phone number: __________________ Email address: __________________ Nominating member #2 Name: __________________ Phone number: __________________ Email address: __________________ Date submitted: _______________ Radio Club of America, Inc. 13570 Grove Drive #302 Maple Grove MN 55311 www.radioclubofamerica.org | amy@radioclubofamerica.org (612) 405-2102 56
SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS | www.radioclubofamerica.org
NEWS ITEM
China Moves Forward With Next-Generation X-ray Observatory
China’s enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry mission is expected to launch by 2025. (Courtesy: Institute of High Energy Physics)
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hina is building an x-ray observatory to study black holes, neutron stars, and quark stars. The enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry mission (eXTP) is estimated to cost more than $480 million. It is planned to launch by 2025 and will involve collaboration with European scientists. Beijing’s National Space Science Center and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) indicate that it should become “China’s flagship science satellite.”
X-rays are used to study objects under extreme conditions by measuring the electromagnetic fields in and around these objects over time. The eXTP time studies will enable scientists to investigate how black holes spin and determine the “equation of state” for neutron stars focusing on x-ray sources in the energy range 0.5-30 keV. The eXTP satellite will be carry four instruments: Spectroscopic Focusing Array; Polarimetry Focusing Array; Large Area Detector (LAD); and Wide Field Monitor (WFM).
China is new to x-ray astronomy and space science. Its Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), China’s first and only x-ray satellite to date, was launched last June. The eXTP will be the most expensive space-science satellite China has approved.
REFERENCES Ling Xin, “China unveils plans for next-generation X-ray observatory,” Physics World, March 8, 2018.
Support RCA Youth Activities by Donating Your Frequent Flyer Miles Due to the efforts of Carole Perry, the Youth Activities Program has been very successful. During the year, Carole travels all over the country to meet with people and to speak on behalf of the program. Almost all of the travel is at Carole’s personal expense. You can help by donating your frequent flyer miles to the Radio Club. If you would like to participate, please contact Carole Perry at wb2mgp@gmail.com and she will assist you. www.radioclubofamerica.org | SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS
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NEWS ITEM
Arecibo Saved – For Now NSF currently spends approximately $8 million annually to maintain operations at the observatory, which suffered significant damage caused by Hurricane Maria in September 2017 that caused massive devastation throughout the island. Arecibo’s main electricity was restored in December and operations have since resumed at reduced capacity. The observatory will move forward, but with less money. The new UCF agreement is valued at $20.1 million over five years, but is “subject to the availability of funds.” UCF was scheduled to assume responsibility for operations in April 2018. The NSF’s annual contribution gradually will reduce to $2 million. The new consortium, known as the Arecibo Observatory Management Team, will be led by UCF and includes the Metropolitan University in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Yang Enterprises in Oviedo, Florida, a company that operates and maintains facilities for both the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States Air Force.
Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. (Courtesy: SI Puerto Rico)
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he Arecibo Observatory is the world’s most famous radio telescope. Located in Puerto Rico, it is operated by Cornell University in partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF). It has the largest single aperture ever built with a diameter of 305 meters, and the receiver is located on a platform 150 meters above the dish. It uses a spherical reflector that is built into a giant sinkhole. Because
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the dish cannot be moved, the receiver is moved instead. Long rumored to be shut down due to a steady erosion of funding over the past several years, the telescope has been saved, under an agreement with a new consortium led by the University of Central Florida (UCF), which the NSF announced on February 22. The NSF has been looking for a new sponsor since 2006.
SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS | www.radioclubofamerica.org
Although the telescope’s main uses are focused on radio astronomy, space weather and atmospheric science, it is renowned for its planetary radar facility, which NASA uses for nearEarth asteroid tracking and the characterization of planetary surfaces. In return, NASA makes a $3.7 million annual contribution to Arecibo’s budget. UCF’s Florida Space Institute hopes that the consortium will cover some of its costs by making telescope time available to new users.
REFERENCES Mark Williamson, “Arecibo observatory saved from closure,” Physics World, Feb. 28, 2018.
NEWS ITEM
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ynn Burlingame, N7CFO, donated to ARRL a Kilbourne & Clark Morse key used by the late Howard Mason (1ID, 7BU, and K7QB) to let the world know that Rear Admiral Richard Byrd and his crew had overflown the South Pole for the first time during Byrd’s 1928-1930 Antarctic expedition. Mason and his 80 colleagues were awarded U.S. Congressional Gold Medals for their efforts in establishing the Antarctic outpost “Little America,” the first of a series of bases bearing that name.
Byrd 1928 Expedition Morse Key Used By Mason.
Mason was a lifelong radio amateur from Seattle who was an active ARRL National Traffic System participant and manager. In 1923, he relocated to Connecticut to serve as an editor of the ARRL’s journal, QST. Mason’s
ARRL Receives Byrd Antarctic Expedition Historical Materials
first polar experience was as a radio operator with the Wilkins-Detroit News Arctic expedition that traversed the North Pole by air in 1928. This led to his selection by Byrd to be a radio engineer with his first Antarctic expedition. Mason was co-operator of Little America’s base radio station, WFA, which was used to keep Byrd in contact with the rest of the world. Mason continued to use the key in his ensuing and varied endeavors. Prior to his death in 1996, he gave the key to Burlingame of Bellevue, Washington, a collector and biographer who generously donated it to the ARRL Heritage Museum. The museum plans to display the key as part of an exhibition tentatively scheduled to open on April 15. The exhibition also will include a large wooden key, engraved with “WFA” and bearing the signatures of some expedition members. Also on display will be a first edition of Admiral Byrd’s book Little America: Aerial Exploration in the Antarctic, the Flight to the South Pole and an album of contemporary newspaper clippings, both part of the Burlingame donation. A complete narrative will be posted to the Heritage Museum section of the ARRL website. The key and the Little America radio operators can be seen in action in
Howard Mason at WFA in Little America.
an original film available on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR9PysOaxI), which offers a first look of the towers erected there (at the 15:00 mark).
REFERENCES “ARRL Receives Byrd Antarctic Expedition Morse Key, Historical Materials,” ARRL Letter, Feb. 15, 2018, by Michael Marinaro, WN1M, ARRL Volunteer Staff Historian/ Archivist.
Display your RCA membership with pride! We are pleased to announce that you can now purchase RCA apparel from our online store. Options are available for men and women. Order now at https://stores.goldmedalideas.com/rca.
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THE BOOK SHOP EDITOR’S NOTE: The following books have been suggested as interesting reading or as useful resources, and edited descriptions from the publishers are provided. These books have not been reviewed, and RCA is not advertising or endorsing the books or their authors. We welcome suggestions and recommendations from RCA’s members regarding your book suggestions to share with RCA’s membership. The scope can include technical, regulatory or other subjects. We encourage you to send your suggestions to David Bart at jbart1964@gmail.com for publication in a future issue of the Proceedings.
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G Mobile and Wireless Communications Technology offers a comprehensive overview of the current state of 5G. It covers everything from the most likely use cases, spectrum aspects, and a wide range of technology options to potential 5G system architectures. It is an essential reference for academics and professionals involved in wireless and mobile communications. The book summarizes global research efforts and key component technologies, including D2D, mmwave communications, massive MIMO, coordinated multi-point, wireless network coding, interference management and spectrum issues. It describes and explains the significance of 5G for the automotive, building, energy, and manufacturing economic sectors. It also addresses the relationship between IoT, machine type communications, and cyber-physical systems. This resource equips you with a solid insight into the nature, impact and opportunities of 5G. 5G Mobile and Wireless Communications Technology. Afif Osseiran (Ed.), Jose F. Monserrat (Ed.), Patrick Marsch (Ed.). Cambridge University Press, October 2016. ISBN: 978-1107130098. Hardcover, 410 pages.
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ognitive Radio Engineering is a reference book about cognitive radio architecture and implementation, intended for readers who want to design and build working cognitive radios. It takes the reader from conceptual block diagrams through the design and evaluation of illustrative prototypes. An important goal is to bridge the divide between radio engineers, who often have little experience with the computational resource and timing issues inherent in cognitive radios, and computer engineers who often are unaware of RF issues such as dynamic range, intermodulation products, and acquisition time. A cognitive radio is a transceiver which is aware of its environment, its own technical capabilities and limitations and those of the radios with which it may communicate. It is capable of acting on that awareness and past experience to configure itself in a way that optimizes its performance and is capable of learning from experience. In a real sense, a cognitive radio is an intelligent communications system that designs and redesigns itself in real time. After treating RF subsystems, the book considers computational platforms and computation issues in cognitive radios, followed by system integration, evaluation methods for cognitive radio, and cognitive radio design for networking. The book concludes with coverage of cognitive radio applications in communications. Cognitive Radio Engineering. Professor Charles W. Bostian, Nicholas J. Kaminski and Almohanad S. Fayez. Scitech Publishing, 2016. ISBN: 978-1613532119. Hardcover, 264 pages.
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NEWS ITEM
Qualcomm Founders Recognized With IEEE Milestone
Irwin Jacobs (l) and Andrew Viterbi (r) with Qualcomm’s new IEEE Milestone plaque.
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wenty-eight years after Qualcomm‘s code-division multiple access (CDMA) technology for encoding wireless transmission first was demonstrated, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recognized the company with a Milestone plaque. Qualcomm’s Milestone plaque was unveiled dramatically by a drone, which pulled a covering cloth skyward. The Qualcomm plaque citation reads: On 7 November 1989, Qualcomm publicly demonstrated a digital cellular radio system based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) spread spectrum technology, which increased capacity, improved service quality, and extended battery life. This formed the basis for IS-95 second-generation standards and third-generation broadband standards that were applied to cellular mobile devices worldwide. IEEE established the Milestones program in 1983 to recognize major technological innovations that have benefited humanity. They include
unique products, services, seminal papers, and patents. Each milestone recognizes a significant technical achievement that occurred at least 25 years ago and had at least regional impact. Currently, a little more than 185 IEEE Milestones have been awarded around the world. Other plaques recognize the first telephone transmission in 1876, the first transatlantic radio signal in 1901, the first general purpose computer in 1946, and the first integrated circuit in 1958. The IEEE Milestone award “recognizes the seminal importance of CDMA,” said James Thompson, Qualcomm’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, during a ceremony outside the company’s corporate headquarters in Sorrento Valley near San Diego. Thompson and Kathleen Kraemer, IEEE Region 6 director, unveiled the plaque. Following the presentation, a panel discussion moderated by Matt Grob, Qualcomm’s executive vice president of technology, was held. The event featured the following Qualcomm executives: • Dr. Irwin M. Jacobs, founder • Dr. Andrew Viterbi, founder
• Dr. Roberto Padovani, retired chief technical officer • Lindsay “Butch” A. Weaver, former executive vice president • Dr. Chuck Wheatley, senior vice president of technology • Dr. Ed Tiedemann, senior vice president of engineering As if to underscore the innovation at Qualcomm, the award came a day after the company received an unsolicited, $130 billion takeover bid from Broadcom, which said in making the offer, “we have great respect for the company founded 32 years ago by Irwin Jacobs, Andrew Viterbi and their colleagues, and the revolutionary technologies they developed.”
REFERENCES (1) Qualcomm Press Release: “Qualcomm Honored with the Prestigious IEEE Milestone in Electrical Engineering and Computing Award,” Nov. 7, 2017; (2) Chris Jennewein, “Qualcomm and Its Founders Recognized for Historic Electronics Milestone,” The Times of San Diego, Nov. 7, 2017. Photo credit: Chris Jennewein.
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BOOK REVIEW Wiring the World by Simone M. Müller Reviewed by David Bart, RCA Fellow, Director, Life Member EDITOR’S NOTE: The following book has been suggested as interesting reading or as a useful resource. The following review does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by RCA. We welcome suggestions and recommendations from RCA’s members regarding books to share with RCA’s membership. The scope can include technical, regulatory, or other subjects. We encourage you to send your suggestions to David Bart at jbart1964@gmail.com for publication in a future issue of the Proceedings.
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iring the World, by Simone M. Müller, explores the politics, cultures, and economies of the North Atlantic telegraph cable system in the late nineteenth century. The author focuses on “inventors, electricians, manufacturers, financiers, journalists, and statesmen.” She defines “actor networks” that enabled the system to propel nineteenth-century globalization. The book is not a technical history. It follows a “global history” approach that emphasizes “interand nongovernmental modes of regulation and coordination, transboundary processes of scientific and business exchanges, and alternative notions of identity beyond and outside of the primarily EuroAmerican nation-state and empire, respectively.” This is heady academic jargon cloaked in the context of modern historical studies. Nevertheless, Müller has made an important addition to the historical literature on telegraph cables and the networking of international transport, communications, and capitalism. The opening chapter outlines the Great Atlantic Cable (1854-66) expeditions led by British and American engineers and businessmen. It follows Cyrus W. Field and his associates, and later entrepreneurs, financiers, and engineers who made the cable-laying possible. Müller defines the “Class of 1866,” which succeeded in becoming a “cable royalty,” and which exerted considerable financial, political, and technological influence until the late 1880s. The subsequent chapter explores business competition around transatlantic cables in the 1870s and the Atlantic “telegraph war” between John Pender, the Globe Telegraph and Trust Company, and a consortium of cable companies working in the North Atlantic, versus William Siemens and the Direct United States Cable Company. Müller goes on to explore the cultural impact of the telegraph cables by following contemporary
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nineteenth century concepts of an electrical union, achieving universal peace, and Euro-America’s civilizing mission, including ideas for a unified Christian globe, the engineer as the great civilizer, and a legally governed internationalism. Müller describes the types of messages sent and their cost, and the impact on news organizations such as newspapers, Western Union, and the Associated Press. She explores the social role of global communication versus the need to generate profits and returns for investors, and the impact on commerce. She further outlines the creation and dispersal of professional telegraphic engineering knowledge through the growth of professional engineering and electrical societies, which originated from the telegraph industry. Finally, Müller examines British and U.S. government interactions, including landing rights, the role of the British General Post Office and the International Telegraph Union, and American perspectives. Müller shows that the success of “lone inventors” depended on transnational networks that, in turn, relied upon preexisting connections. She reveals how globalizing processes built upon these preexisting early modern international connections. Although Müller refers to the “world” and “global” networks, she is focused on the North Atlantic particularly American and British enterprises. She mentions but does not discuss the transatlantic cables operated by French and German companies, or cables to South America, the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa. This book attempts to cover an enormous amount of material, drawing many diverse connections between activities, ideas, and people. Consequently, some sections appear disjointed or cursory. However, it offers much more than a brief survey, and it does try to prove its basic themes and concepts with a reasonable degree of thoughtful development. Many of her themes have clear parallels in the twentieth century’s experiences with the growth of radio, and even the development and expansion of the internet.
The ocean cables of the late nineteenth century comprised nothing short of a communications revolution, shortening the time for transatlantic communications from weeks to minutes, with dramatic consequence for commerce, government, and society. Wiring the World offers numerous insights into the cultural significance of the Atlantic cable as one of the most important infrastructures that made globalization and modernity possible. She argues that “social and cultural considerations…played an equally important role” as technology, capitalism, and imperialism in…the wiring of the world and ultimately globalization processes.” The writing is clear and accessible, the logic and supporting discussion are linked successfully, and it is a highly recommended resource about the first global electronic revolution in communication. Simone M. Müller has a Ph.D. in history from Freie Universität Berlin. She is project director and principal investigator at Emmy Noether Research Group’s “Hazardous Travels: Ghost Acres and the Global Waste Economy,” which is sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and located at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich, Germany. She has received numerous awards and fellowships, among them from the Smithsonian Institutions and
the German Historical Institute, both in Washington, D.C. In 2015, she received the Maria Gräfin von Linden Preis award for her research on the global waste economy. In 2016 she was elected junior fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research of Bielefeld University (ZIF), as well as at the Center for Advanced Studies at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. In 2017, the Robert Bosch Foundation named her among the leading scientific female scholars of Germany. Wiring the World. Simone Müller. ISBN 9780231174329. Columbia University Press. Pages: 384; 6.5” x 9.5”.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER David Bart is a Fellow and Life Member of RCA, a Director and Chairman of the RCA Publications Committee. He is also a Life Member and Director of the Antique Wireless Association, Treasurer of the IEEE History Committee, and Vice President of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.
RCA BECOMES AN ASSOCIATE MEMBER OF NATE
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he Radio Club of America (RCA), the world’s oldest professional wireless organization, has become an Associate member of the National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE).
in the industry. We look forward to participating in NATE events.”
NATE Chairman Jim Tracy said, “We welcome the Radio Club of America to our membership in NATE, and look forward to their participation. As the original wireless organization, they represent a critical component in our collective history and began the journey that helps us all create a better society through technology.”
ABOUT NATE
RCA President Tim Duffy said, “RCA supports all aspects of the wireless industry. In wireless, antennas must be high and clear, and NATE members perform tower work for the broadcast, cellular, land mobile radio, and military communication industries, in which many of our members work. NATE has strived to promote worker safety in the tower industry. Both organizations are diligently working to attract more people to a career in wireless, and have emphasized the need for women
National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) is a non-profit trade association in the wireless infrastructure industry providing a unified voice for tower erection, service and maintenance companies. Today the Association boasts over 825 member companies located throughout the United States, Australia, Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Jamaica, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Trinidad. For additional information on NATE, please visit www.natehome.com. www.radioclubofamerica.org | SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS
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TOM SORLEY PASSES UNEXPECTEDLY— RCA ADMINISTERING MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP
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he Radio Club of America (RCA) is very sorry to report that Tom Sorley, chairman of FirstNet’s Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC) and a leading technical voice for public-safety communications, died unexpectedly on February 3 at his home after suffering an apparent cardiac event. He was 53. RCA has been selected to administer a scholarship fund that has been established for Tom Sorley. Tom was deeply involved with public safety communications in many capacities. Recently, he served as the chair of PSAC. Tom was a long time RCA member. Those wishing to donate to his memorial scholarship can use the form on RCA’s website (https://www.radioclubofamerica.org/donate-torca/). Make certain you check “Tom Sorley Memorial Scholarship”. Tom was the deputy chief information officer and deputy director of information technology for public safety for city of Houston, where he had worked for the last decade. Tom led the deployment of Houston’s $130 million P25 system, led a city-county interoperability initiative, and played a key role in the city’s communications efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey hitting the city last fall. He began his public-safety-communication career more than 30 years ago, working in the 911 center for the city of Orlando. Marilyn Ward, who worked in the Orlando 911 center at the time and is now the executive director of the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC), said that Tom’s natural technical savvy quickly became obvious, and he “was instrumental” in writing requirements for the center’s first computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system. “It was natural; this guy was brilliant,” Ward said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “He was off-the-charts smart.” Tom was promoted as the 911 center’s shift supervisor, but he was moved to the radio-manager position as the city of Orlando built its 800 MHz LMR system. In 2000, Sorley became the radio manager for Orange County, Florida, where he improved and regionalized the county’s land mobile radio (LMR) network prior to moving to Houston a decade ago. Although he was not an engineer, Tom was known for his technology expertise, which he coupled with a quick wit and the ability to explain even difficult concepts to non-technical people. On a national level, Tom became a leading advocate for public-safety communications, serving as the longtime chairman of the NPSTC technology committee. Tom stepped down from that NPSTC position last year after being named chairman of the FirstNet PSAC. NPSTC
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issued a prepared statement noting, “Tom was a long-time participant of NPSTC and chaired the Technology and Broadband Committee for many years. His presence and wisdom will be greatly missed in our community. We benefited from knowing him, being challenged by his intellect, and enjoying his humor. We are all profoundly impacted by this Tom Sorley. loss. His contributions to public safety will be felt for decades.” In 2015, NPSTC selected Sorley as the recipient of RCA’s Richard DeMello Award, which “recognizes an individual in public safety communications who has demonstrated the highest levels of personal and professional conduct and performance in local, state and national public-safety communications.” Tom was selected as the FirstNet PSAC chairman last spring after serving as a PSAC vice chairman since the organization’s establishment in 2013. As PSAC chairman, Tom succeeded Harlin McEwen, who retired after FirstNet awarded its nationwide contract to AT&T. Tom Sorley was “the logical guy” to assume leadership of the PSAC, and “he turned out to be a good leader,” McEwen said. Even after retiring, McEwen spoke often with Sorley, which made news of Tom’s unexpected and sudden death even more difficult to grasp. FirstNet provided the following statement about Sorley’s passing. “We are deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Tom Sorley. Tom was a dedicated leader in public-safety communications who was committed to the first responder and the people of Houston, as well as public safety across the country. FirstNet was privileged to have him leading the FirstNet Public Safety Advisory Committee. His passion for public safety’s mission was evident in not only his years of work on the PSAC, but through numerous other organizations he participated in. On a personal level, Tom was a longtime friend to many here at FirstNet, and he will be deeply missed. Our condolences go out to his wife and their children at this difficult time.”
REFERENCES Radio Club of America and Donny Jackson, “PSAC Chairman Tom Sorley passes unexpectedly at 53,” Urgent Communications, Feb 5, 2018.
RCA DIRECTOR CHIP COHEN RECEIVES TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
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r. Nathan “Chip” Cohen, W1YW, of Belmont, Massachusetts, received the 2018 Technical Achievement Award at the recent Dayton Hamvention.
A LIFETIME IN RADIO Licensed for 52 years and bitten by the antenna bug, Cohen became a radio astronomer and astrophysicist. He studied under Jack Pierce and Irwin Shapiro at Harvard University and Frank Drake and Carl Sagan at Cornell University, and he has worked at the Arecibo Observatory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston University, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the Very Large Array (VLA). While a Boston University professor, Cohen connected fractal geometry with antennas, pioneering a paradigm shift in the design of antennas and what they make possible. He built the first fractal element antenna in 1988. Chip Cohen holds his prized 9-band Today, he holds DXCC plaque. 45 United States patents, including fractal antennas, fractal metamaterials and electronics, and fractal lenses. He is known for inventing the invisibility cloak using fractal antenna techniques. He has published more than 80 articles and three books. His innovation has been widely recognized by Scientific American Microwave Journal, Discover, CNN, Business Week, Wireless Week, and many other media. Cohen bootstrapped his original ideas for fractal antennas with modest gear and employed ham radio to report on the success of his new technology. Starting 30 years ago, he began with simple, flea market-sourced equipment. In 1995, he launched Fractal Antenna Systems, Inc. with his father, Hy Cohen, WA1ZWT (SK), and is presently its CEO.
FRACTAL ANTENNAS A fractal antenna is an antenna that uses a fractal, self-similar geometric design to maximize the length, or increase the perimeter (on inside sections or the outer structure), of material that can receive or transmit
electromagnetic radiation within a given total surface area or volume. Fractal antenna solutions deliver more powerful performance for multiband and wideband applications than traditional aerial systems, in much more compact and more versatile form factors.
A NEW PATENT The Unites States Patent Office granted the source patent on cloaks and deflector shields under patent number 9,847,583 in December 2017. The new patent—which took five years to be awarded—covers electromagnetic cloaking/deflection of satellites, rockets, towers, antennas, vehicles, body coverings, people, ships, spacecraft and many other objects. The patent recognizes the use of close-packed arrays of small fractal antennas to produce an evanescent surface wave that deflects around such objects. Cloaking applications utilize microwave and infrared wavelengths, although the technology and patents apply to visible light as well. Invention of the invisibility cloak was acknowledged in an earlier U.S. patent, number 8,253,639. That was a watershed moment, as a new field of applied science was created. Deflection is brought about through novel technology, including deflecting electromagnetic waves around an object so that it remains invisible and undisturbed. That applied science is emerging with real applications under development.
A TOP AMATEUR WHO BELIEVES IN INNOVATION Cohen is a Top of the Honor Roll DXer—a designation of the ARRL’s DX Century Club (DXCC)—and a strong advocate for technical “innovation culture” through amateur radio. He is an ARRL Life Member and a Fellow of the Radio Club of America, for which he has served as vice president and director.
REFERENCES “Valerie Hotzfeld, NV9L, is ‘Amateur of the Year,’ as Hamvention Announces Award Winners,” ARRL Letter, March 8, 2018; “Hamvention Honors Hurricane Responders, Antenna Innovator and Ohio Radio Club,” CQ Newsroom, March 6, 2018; Dayton Hamvention 2018 Awards, Technical Achievement Award: Chip Cohen, W1YW, http://hamvention.org/event-details/ awards/; “Ham Patents Harry Potter Cloak,” QRZ.Com, Dec. 24, 2017. www.radioclubofamerica.org | SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS
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RCA AND THE INTERNATIONAL WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS EXPO (IWCE) ANNOUNCE THE YOUNG PROFESSIONALS AWARD WINNERS
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he Young Professionals Award program is an IWCE initiative, operated in cooperation with RCA. These industry leaders, all under age 35, were nominated for their creativity, initiative and significant contributions to their organization and to the field of communications technology. A committee of RCA members selected the final roster of winners, which is shown below. These individuals are executing some of our industry's most innovative ideas.
careers and proud to welcome them as RCA members.”
Each Young Professional awardee received a one-year RCA membership or extension of their current membership. They were publicly recognized at the RCA Breakfast during IWCE 2018 on Thursday, March 8.
The 2018 winners are as follows:
“This is an exciting program, and we are honored to partner with IWCE in presenting it,” said Tim Duffy, RCA president. “The Young Professionals Award winners represent an impressive next generation of experts in engineering, operations, public safety, software design, product development, marketing, information technology, finance and strategy, from a wide range of wireless organizations. We are all eager to follow their future
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Stephanie McCall, IWCE show director, stated, “Congratulations to the 2018 Young Professional Award winners. These individuals are the up-and-comers in the telecommunications industry, honored for their spectacular work and accomplishments. We are looking forward to seeing their contributions in the years to come.” • Tamim Akimi – LTE engineer, Booz Allen Hamilton • Rodrigo Batista de Moura – deputy planning coordinator – critical communications, State Secretariat of Public Safety, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Colton Engel – emergency management and communications director, Saline County (Arkansas) Emergency Management • Carrie Johnson – lead manager – FirstNet, AT&T • Alex Lorello – chief engineer, SecuLore Solutions • Stephen McConnell – service technician, Turris Communications Ltd. • Thomas Meno – information technology specialist, Federal Emergency Management Agency • Benjamin Morgan – developer – professional services, Avtec • Jared Vanden-Heuvel – project coordinator, Public Safety Broadband Program, Texas Department of Public Safety
• Steven Cheng – regional product manager – North America, Comba Telecom
• Ross Vanhuizen – software strategy and operations consultant, Motorola Solutions
• Brandon Edelman – product manager – value-added services, Motorola Solutions
• William Wong – distributed antenna system engineering manager, Advanced RF Technologies, Inc.
• Reinhard Ekl – vice president – product and public safety, RapidSOS, Inc.
SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS | www.radioclubofamerica.org
• Minghua Xu – controller, Hytera America, Inc.
RCA MEMBER HELPS KDKA RESTORE HISTORIC RECORDINGS
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nspired by the Radio Club of America’s visit to KDKA that was held in conjunction with the November 2017 banquet and technical symposium, Charles Kirmuss is assisting the station with its historic record collection after he discovered many records stored in the transmitter site’s basement. KDKA has thousands of shellacked 78 RPM and 33 1/3 LPs that were used for broadcasting pre-recoded programming. These have been hidden away since the 1960s. Kirmuss & Associates has proudly donated to KDKA serial number 00001 of its patented “In The Groove” ultrasonic vinyl record restoration system. This gesture is an effort to revive KDKA’s recorded history for all to enjoy! All of this is in anticipation of the upcoming 100th Anniversary of KDKA on November 2, 2020. Now an Entercom Station, KDKA has been described by many as the pioneer broadcasting station of the world for its broadcast of the 1920 Harding-Cox presidential election results on the evening of November 2, 1920.
Charles Kirmuss (l) and KDKA Program Director Jim Graci (r) at KDKA’s historic transmission facility during the Radio Club of America visit on Nov 18, 2017.
Kirmuss plans to provide further assistance as the station decides which items in its huge recording inventory it wishes to restore for the centennial.
Donated ultrasonic washer on display at AXPONA 2018, Chicago, April 13-15 2017, before shipping to KDKA.
KDKA Program Director Jim Graci inspecting KDKA’s record collection.
Sample recording of Les Rawlings’ March 15, 1962, editorial supporting WQED before and after cleaning.
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FREE COMMEMORATIVE CODE PRACTICE OSCILLATOR IF YOU DONATE TO THE RCA YOUTH PROGRAM
W
e all know that students today are often more interested in computers than wireless. As a result, the future of wireless depends on getting more youth interestesd in wireless.
commemorative code practice oscillator. Your donation will be used to assist with costs like awards to the children, donation materials for school radio clubs, travel expenses for youth presenters to the Technical Symposium, and more.
Here is a great opportunity to support our RCA Youth Program under Director Carole Perry and obtain a free gift as a result. Carole has been driving our Youth Program for 30 years this year! As a surprise to her, Director Charles Kirmuss commissioned a CW Morse code practice oscillator that was the same design Carole used years before with her early amateur radio classes with middle school and high school.
In addition, if you renew your RCA membership for three years, you will also receive a code practice oscillator.
If you donate at least $30 to Carole's RCA Youth Program, you will receive a
If you have interest in donating to the Youth Program, please email Director Carole Perry directly (wb2mgp@gmail. com) and she will provide instructions as to how to send a check. If you wish to renew your membership for three years, contact Amy Beckham (Amy@radioclubofAmerica.org) for details on getting the code practice oscillator.
JOIN RCA AT THE WESTIN NEW YORK FOR THE 2018 BANQUET NOVEMBER 18, 2018 68
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__________________________________________________________________________________
Seeking 2018 Technical Symposium Presenters SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2018 New York City
AWA ANNUAL CONVENTION AUGUST 14 - 18, 2018 __________________________________________________________________________________
The AWA Annual Convention is four and a half days of Fellowship, Fun and Education. It’s an opportunity to find that special treasure you have been looking for. Announcements will be forthcoming. Watch the website! Enjoy a full 4 1/2 Day Schedule: Tuesday evening – Saturday Dual Themes: “Spark Era” & “Firsts – First of a Kind or First of a Series” 17 Presentations including many New Speakers Outdoor Vintage Electronics Flea Market, Book Sale, and Saturday Auction The World Famous Antique Wireless Museum will be open Wednesday night and Saturday afternoon during the Convention New Pricing $60 Convention Registration when prepaid before August 1st includes unlimited outdoor flea market space and auction bidder’s card $65 Convention Registration after August 1st $30 Flea Market Seller Fee (no convention) with unlimited outdoor space
If you are interested in presenting on a technical wireless topic please email a 1-3 paragraph synopsis and also include your bio and a shoulders-up photo. Please send abstracts for articles
Easy On-Line Registration Online Pre-Registration & Online Payments With Paypal
**Visit the AWA website at www.antiquewireless.org** Doors Are Open - The Public Is Welcome To Attend The Book Fair Returns To Main Hall Onsite Registration opens Tuesday at 1 pm Hotel Renovations Completed – New / Improved Facilities
and editorials to be published in the Proceedings to: John Facella at pantherpinesconsulting@gmail. com with copies to David Bart at jbart1964@gmail.com.
2018 Annual dues: $35 per year USA, $40 elsewhere. New Museum Membership Options Available (see website) Address: AWA Membership, P.O. Box 421, Bloomfield, New York 14469-0421. Phone: 585-257-5119. Email: awamembership@rochester.rr.com.
2017 TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM VIDEOS AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING! The 2016 Technical Symposium Videos are now available on YouTube. Many thanks to ICOM America for recording and uploading these videos. To view, visit:
https://bit.ly/2jiyyh8.
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CALL FOR PAPERS & EDITORIAL COMMENTS The Proceedings of the Radio Club of America is known for bringing you a wide mix of papers, ranging from sophisticated technical material to historical surveys of subjects related to electronic communications. RCA also is known for fostering discussion and sharing the viewpoints of its members. RCA is therefore issuing a call for papers and editorial comments for publication in upcoming issues of the Proceedings.
• Antennas and supporting structures (i.e., towers) • Broadband communications • Broadcast
The Proceedings is published semi-annually, and has been issued since 1914. The Proceedings is considered to be the first publication geared to promoting and sharing the intellectual development of all aspects of radio and wireless communications. Coverage has expanded to include relevant articles encompassing science, technology development, marketing and regulatory topics. We seek articles from knowledgeable engineers, professionals, academics and amateurs who are participating in building future applications, as well as those who want to document the history of relevant technologies.
• Cellular telephony
As a fellow reader of the Proceedings, we would like you to author an article or editorial for publication. We welcome “early work,” even if it is still in the process of being drafted. RCA offers a unique opportunity for you to get an early reaction to important work now underway in wireless communications. It is also a unique opportunity to air your views, inviting commentary and response from the membership.
• Robotics
Please submit an abstract (1-3 paragraphs) including the title, author(s) and contact information, a synopsis of the material to be published, and a note as to why you think the subject is interesting or important to the wireless industry. Authors of papers selected for publication in the Proceedings may be given an opportunity to present at one of the RCA’s upcoming events, such as the annual Technical Symposium. (Note: participants are responsible for their own travel expenses to RCA events.)
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We seek interesting or important technical articles, editorials and discussion pieces in any of the following areas:
SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS | www.radioclubofamerica.org
• FirstNet • Ham (amateur) radio • Land mobile radio • Long-Term Evolution (LTE) • Military communications • Regulatory topics
• Satellites • 4G/5G Cellular • Semiconductors, LED or other devices supporting wireless communications • Any other wireless/radio technologies
Please send abstracts for articles and editorials to be published in the Proceedings to: John Facella at pantherpinesconsulting@gmail.com with copies to David Bart at jbart1964@gmail.com. Please send abstracts for potential presentation topics at RCA events to: John Facella at TechSymp2018@radioclubofamerica.org. For general questions about RCA, an article idea or submission, please contact Amy Beckham at Amy@radioclubofAmerica.org.
2018 SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
109th Radio Club of America Awards Banquet SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2018 New York City
WHY SPONSOR THE RADIO CLUB OF AMERICA BANQUET? The RCA Awards Banquet is the premier industry event to honor exceptional achievements by those who devote themselves to the improvement all forms of wireless communications. The event also showcases the achievements of middle and high school students involved in the RCA Youth Activities Program. Your sponsorship makes it possible for us to keep this event affordable for attendees and shows your support for our industry’s finest performers—both established and up-and-coming— whose invention, ingenuity and dedication benefit us all. SPONSORSHIP BENEFITS
TITANIUM COCKTAIL SPONSOR $5,000
TITANIUM SYMPOSIUM SPONSOR $5,000
WINE SPONSOR $2,500
KEYNOTE SPONSOR $1,500
PLATINUM SPONSOR $2,000
GOLD SPONSOR $1,000
SILVER SPONSOR$750
BRONZE SPONSOR $500
BRASS SPONSOR $250
Exclusive sponsor of cocktail reception, including signage, logo on napkins and specialty drink of your choosing to be served to attendees
Exclusive sponsor of Technical Symposium, including signage at food/drink tables and continental breakfast, and company logo on the podium sign Company name on red/white wine bottles at each Banquet table Logo on signage on speaker table, 2 Banquet tickets with seating at keynote speaker/RCA Presidents table Company logo on event banners at Banquet Recognition on PowerPoint at Banquet Company logo in printed commemorative program Company logo on table signage at Banquet Company logo and URL on RCA website Company logo on signage for Technical Symposium Company logo on signage supporting Young Achievers Opportunity to provide attendee gift/logo item
We can also create a custom sponsorship that meets your needs. Radio Club of America is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization, therefore, your sponsorship can qualify for a tax-deduction. Please consult with your tax advisor for specific information. COMPANY NAME (as you would like it to appear in promotional materials):
YOUR NAME ADDRESS PHONE EMAIL WEBSITE
You can pay online at www.radioclubofamerica.org or call Karen Clark at 303.979.0621 for more information, to pay by check or for the specifications for your company logo.
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BUSINESS & PROFESSIONAL
DIRECTORY ADVANCED WIRELESS MARKETING Jack Armstrong, President 200 Warren Road Cockeysville, MD, 21030 PHONE: (443) 823-5100 jack@advancedwirelessmarketing.com www.advancedwirelessmarketing.com
Manufacturer’s Representative
ANDERSON-INTELLI-SMART BATTERY DIVISION KIRMUSS & ASSOCIATES, LLC Charles Kirmuss, Founder, Principal 51 West 84th Ave., Suite 301 Denver, CO 80260 PHONE: (303) 263-6353 ckirmuss@frontier.net www.anderson-intellismartbattery.com
Manufacturer of OE and replacement batteries for the two way radio industry. iNTELLi Smart Battery™ technology at lower cost than traditional OE standard batteries.
CAPITAL AREA COMMUNICATIONS Stephen J. Shaver, Project Manager 4120 Swatara Drive Harrisburg, PA, 17113 PHONE: (717) 561-0800 CELL: (717) 645-0086 FAX: (717) 561-9805 steves@cacradio.com www.cacradio.com
Wireless Communication Systems Solutions Provider
KIRMUSSAUDIO DIV OF KIRMUSS & ASSOCIATES, LLC Charles Kirmuss, Founder, Principal 51 West 84th Ave., Suite 301 Denver, Co. 80260 PHONE: (303) 263-6353 FAX: (303) 862-7170 ckirmuss@frontier.net www.kirmussaudio.com
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DH SALES GROUP LLC Carroll Hollingsworth, CPMR, Manufacturer Representative PO Box 5680 Lago Vista, TX 78645 CELL: (512) 751-5472 TOLL FREE: (800) 966-3357 FAX: (512) 267-7760 dhlago@aol.com www.dhsalesgroup.biz
Independent Manufacturers Representatives and Consultative Manufacturers Representative
BLUE WING Andy Maxymillian, PMP, Principal Consultant 235 Summer Hill Drive Gilbertsville, PA 19525 PHONE: (610) 473-2171 CELL: (610) 316-2660 FAX: (610) 473-2536 andrew.maxymillian@bluewing.com www.bluewing.com
Consultant Services
INFINITY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES/WORLDWIDE TECHNOLOGIES DIRECT A DIV. OF KIRMUSS & ASSOCIATES, LLC, SINCE 1979
Charles Kirmuss, Founder, Principal 51 West 84th Ave., Suite 301 Denver, Co. 80260 PHONE: (303) 263-6353 ckirmuss@frontier.net www.wwtechnologiesdirect.com Radio pioneer, Director of RCA and Rampart Search & Rescue: Custom solutions & products for the Public Safety, Search & Rescue and Military markets. Proud supporter & sponsor of RCA’s Youth Program.
LEONARDO
PANTHER PINES CONSULTING
William P. Fredrickson 11300 W. 89th Street Overland Park, KS 66214 PHONE: (913) 495-2614 CELL: (913) 909-4492 Bill.fredrickson@ leonardocompany-us.com www.leonardocc.com
John Facella, P.E., BSEE, MBA, Principal PHONE: (978) 799-8900 pantherpinesconsulting@gmail.com www.pantherpinesconsulting.com
Land Mobile Radio Manufacturer: DMR, P25, Tetra
SPRING 2018 PROCEEDINGS | www.radioclubofamerica.org
Communications & Management Consulting
BUSINESS & PROFESSIONAL
DIRECTORY RFI AMERICAS
TOWER INNOVATIONS, INC.
TSR CONSULTING ®
Sean Johnson, President 2023 Case Pkwy Twinsburg, OH, 44087 PHONE: (330) 486-0706 x302 CELL: (330) 541-6585 FAX: (330) 486-0705 sean.johnson@rfi.com.au www.rfiamericas.com
Bruce R. McIntyre, President 107 Dunbar Ave., Suite E Oldsmar, FL 34677 PHONE: (813) 818-8766 CELL: (727) 439-3683 FAX: (813) 925-0999 bruce@towerinnovationsinc.com www.towerinnovactionsinc.com
Dr. Theodore S. Rappaport, P.E., Ph.D PO BOX 888 Riner, VA 24149
Manufacturer of antennas and RF conditioning equipment for LMR
Wireless consulting, Communications structures
UTILITY TELECOM CONSULTING GROUP
WIRELESS TOWERS, INC.
George R. Stoll, President 9850 S. Maryland Pkwy Las Vegas, NV, 89183 PHONE: (303) 840-2878 CELL: (303) 475-0414 FAX: (303) 840-1129 george.stoll@utcg.com www.utcg.com
Consulting Engineers
Larry Shaefer, President 115 N. Walker St. Angleton, TX 77515 PHONE: (713) 522-7000 CELL: (713) 526-8000 Lshaefer@sbcglobal.net www.wireless-towers.com
Texas Tower Site Leasing
Technical consulting, engineering and design services in the field of wired and wireless communications systems, equipment and devices.
MASSIVELY BROADBAND ®
YOUR AD HERE Would you like to be listed in the next issue of the Proceedings? Contact RCA at (612) 405-2102 or Amy@radioclubofamerica.org to reserve space.
THE RCA PROCEEDINGS ARE AVAILABLE ONLINE RCA’s bi-annual publication is now available to all Club members in the members-only section of the RCA website. Don’t have a login or not sure if your membership is current? Contact us at amy@radioclubofamerica.org or (612) 405-2102.
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RCA CALENDAR
EVENTS
CALENDAR
Visit the event calendar on the RCA website for the most up-to-date event information.
RCA EVENTS
INDUSTRY EVENTS DAYTON HAMVENTION
2017 RCA TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM November 17, 2018 New York City
May 18–20, 2018 Xenia, OH
PCIA WIRELESS INFRASTRUCTURE SHOW 2017 RCA AWARDS BANQUET November 17, 2018 New York City
May 21–24, 2018 Charlotte, NC
AGL LOCAL SUMMIT June 4, 2017 Philadelphia, PA
APCO INTERNATIONAL August 5–8, 2018 Las Vegas, NV
2017 WIRELESS LEADERSHIP SUMMIT October 10–111, 2018 San Antonio, TX
AWA ANNUAL CONVENTION August 14–18, 2017 Rochester, NY
MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS AMERICAS September 12–14, 2018 Los Angeles, CA
AFCEA MILCOM 2018 October 29 - 31, 2018 Los Angeles, CA
AGL LOCAL SUMMIT November 8, 2018 Atlanta, GA
SUPPORT RCA WITH A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTION Help RCA continue its mission of advancing wireless art and science for the betterment of society by making a tax-deductible donation today! RCA believes in the future of the industry and your contribution will help us with the important work of encouraging the next generation of wireless pioneers and entrepreneurs. Consider making a donation in someone’s honor as a memorial or gift. Donate online at www.radioclubofamerica.org/donate-to-rca/ or call us at (612) 405-2102 to contribute.
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SAVE THE DATE 2018 TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM AND 109 TH BANQUET & AWARDS PRESENTATION SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17 | NEW YORK CITY Register for the 2018 Technical Symposium and Banquet at www.radioclubofamerica.org.
Advancing radio technology for over 60 years.
#IcomEverywhere www.icomamerica.com/amateur ©2018 Icom America Inc. The Icom logo is a registered trademark of Icom Inc. 20866
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SHARE YOUR RCA STORY
SHOP AMAZON & HELP RCA
We had a record number of new members last year - help us continue this momentum by spreading the word about why you belong to the oldest, most prestigious group of wireless professionals in the world! Direct potential members to the Why RCA? page of the website to learn what sets us apart.
Amazon has a program called Amazon Smile, through which Amazon will donate .5% of a qualified purchase to a charitable organization of your choice. To designate proceeds towards RCA, go to smile.amazon.com and use your Amazon login. You will be asked to select a charitable organization (Radio Club of America) and start shopping. It is an easy way to help the Radio Club and at the same time get a great deal on amazon.com. If you are an Amazon Prime member, you will continue to receive the benefits of your Prime membership.
Signing up for RCA Membership has never been easier! Use the new online membership application to submit your information in a matter of minutes.
HAS YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION CHANGED?
HEADQUARTERS OFFICE
If you have recently changed your address, email, or phone number, please send us an update.
ADDRESS: 13570 Grove Drive #302 Maple Grove, MN 55311
Email amy@radioclubofamerica.org or call (612) 405-2102.
PHONE: (612) 405-2102 EMAIL: amy@radioclubofamerica.org WEBSITE: www.radioclubofamerica.org
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