RF & Microwave Industry News

NEW BRAZILIAN SUBSIDIARY AND OFFICES FOR 4RF

On 14 November 4RF Communications announced the establishment of a wholly owned subsidiary, 4RF do Brazil, and the opening of new offices in Sao Paulo. The establishment of a subsidiary in the Southern Hemisphere's largest telecommunications market is an important step in the company's global market development, and strengthens...
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A 24 GHz Network Analyzer

The network analyzer has established itself as an important tool in the development and production of RF and microwave equipment. It allows RF components to be almost completely characterized, which is otherwise only possible through considerable effort and by using several test instruments. Today, however, the demand for higher...
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Commercial Software Marches to Battle

The US military seeks to benefit from commercial off-the-shelf communications software.
A few decades ago, military laboratories were the source of much of the technology that emerged in the consumer world, the most famous example being the Internet, which began as a communications network designed to function in the event of a nuclear strike. Today, some in the military believe...
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The Medium-gain Antenna of the MESSENGER Spacecraft

This article describes the design and performance of the medium-gain antenna developed for the MESSENGER spacecraft. The electrical design and performance will be presented, as well as the mechanical design that was necessary to endure the harsh missio...
On August 3, 2004, the MESSENGER probe 1 was launched on its six-year journey to the planet Mercury. The acronym MESSENGER derives from MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging. Commissioned by NASA, and built and operated by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), the probe carries...
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A Compact LTCC Bandpass Filter Using Resonators Loaded with Spiral-shaped Open-circuited Stubs

In this article, a new compact multi-layer low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) bandpass filter is proposed. It is composed of two quarter-wavelength resonators and a K-inverter. The resonators are loaded with two open-circuited stubs, giving an adv...
Recently, as wireless communications systems get smaller and lighter and are able to perform multi-functions, microwave components that have a small size and better performance are required. One of the methods used to meet these requirements is the low temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC) process technology. The multi-layer technology using...
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An Improved Microwave Weed Killer

Microwave heating can replace toxic chemicals in agriculture to control vegetation and in particular to kill weeds. A suitable horn-antenna array, presented in this article, allows the parallel operation of a large number of magnetrons and an efficient...
Applications of microwave heating are well known and are described in many publications (an exhaustive list of references is given by J. Thuery 1 ). A very promising application of microwave heating in agriculture is to replace toxic, dangerous and environment-unfriendly chemicals used to control vegetation, as described in...
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