Pat Hindle, MWJ Editor | Microwave Journal

Pat Hindle is responsible for editorial content, article review and special industry reporting for Microwave Journal magazine and its web site in addition to social media and special digital projects. Prior to joining the Journal, Mr. Hindle held various technical and marketing positions throughout New England, including Marketing Communications Manager at M/A-COM (Tyco Electronics), Product/QA Manager at Alpha Industries (Skyworks), Program Manager at Raytheon and Project Manager/Quality Engineer at MIT. Mr. Hindle graduated from Northeastern University - Graduate School of Business Administration and holds a BS degree from Cornell University in Materials Science Engineering.

Unbelievable UAVs!

September 20, 2013

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I have been closely following the UAV market and related news for the last 6 months. Most of the focus was on collecting market information and determining future directions that would be related to the RF/microwave market for the August cover feature article “UAVs Unleashed.”I was then able to attend the AUVSI Unmanned Systems show in August and was able to see some of the new platforms in person (see blog posting summarizing the AUVSI). And now it seems like UAVs are almost in the news every week with some new use case. From monitoring the health of crops to aiding in search and rescue to observing wildlife behaviors. Being TGIF, I came across a couple of fun UAV applications with videos that caught my attention so have fun with these:

Fall Trade Show Schedule Kicks into Gear

September 13, 2013

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After a little bit of a quiet spell at the end of the summer, the RF trade show circuit is going to heat up. October is always one of the busiest months for trade shows and this year is no exception. Here are the dates and locations of each one – I encourage you to attend some of these events and meet with some of the great people in our industry.

Back to School – for all of us!

September 5, 2013

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As the kids return to the classroom, we in industry should continue to learn about our trade and what better way to do that than virtually via educational webinars. Webinars are very convenient as you can view them on a computer anywhere and anytime. All of our webinars are presented live and then archived for up to 6 months for on-demand viewing. The lineup of webinars over the next month is excellent covering the following topics:

AUVSI 2013 - Civilian Applications Expand

August 18, 2013

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AUVSI was very timely this year as unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs) have been covered in the news quite a bit over the last several months. The movement of UAVs from innocuous surveillance tools to potential killing machines has brought UAVs to the national stage. Read this summary of the UAV market and RF/microwave companies attending the exhibition.

JLENS Completes Field Testing

July 26, 2013

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The US Army reported yesterday that they completed Early User Testing (EUT) of the Raytheon’s JLENS (Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System), an integrated surveillance and fire-control radar on two tethered, 74-meter aerostats (or blimps). During the six-week-long EUT, soldiers tested JLENS' ability to operate in a number of complex scenarios that replicated an operational environment in addition to JLENS' endurance by operating the system continually for 20 days.

X-47B UAV Makes Historic Carrier Landing

July 11, 2013

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Yesterday, the X-47B UAV made the first arrested landing on a carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush. It previously had made the first take off from the carrier and practiced the landing on shore. This is the first time a tailless, unmanned autonomous aircraft landed on a modern aircraft carrier. This was the completion of testing of the X-47B over the last eight months, culminating a decade of Navy unmanned integration efforts to demonstrate the Navy's readiness to move forward with unmanned carrier aviation.

Clash of the Titans - GaAs vs CMOS PAs

Will CMOS finally conquer GaAs in handsets?

April 13, 2013

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Having traveled to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress (MWC) in late Feb, heading back out to Beijing for EDI CON 2013 in early March and then returning quickly to get the May IMS 2013 issue in ready, I am only now catching up with some of the items of note from these shows. The one item that sticks out in my travels is the Qualcomm announcement. Although there has been some commentary about Qualcomm announcing the RF360 Family just prior to MWC, it is surprising that it has not gotten more attention as it could turn the industry upside down.

The Phone Charging Dilemma

March 22, 2013

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One subject that received a lot of attention at Mobile World Congress was mobile device charging as our batteries seem to drain faster and faster each day. Besides the wireless charging mats that have been available for a while, there were many new wireless charging designs where you can set you phone on a table or on your car middle console and it will charge inductively through the surface. For now, they are not widely available as a built-in function so what can you do to charge your battery. I found some interesting ways to plug in your phone to keep it charged.

Beating the Odds in Beijing

March 15, 2013

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We just finished our first RF, microwave and high-speed digital conference and exhibition in China, EDI CON 2013. The inaugural event took place at the Beijing International Convention Center (BICC) which is just blocks from the Olympic area with the iconic Bird’s Nest in sight. EDI CON 2013 was a huge success by all accounts with double the predicted audience including an impressive delegate attendance. The exhibition sold out prior to the event, so the show floor was filled with leading RF and microwave companies for the attendees to visit.

Crowd Aggregation – Mobile World Congress 2013

March 1, 2013

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This was the first year at the new venue for Mobile World Congress taking place at the Fira Gran Via. The new venue has eight large halls laid out in a linear fashion (hard to know if you count Hall 8 and 8.1 as two of not). The top floor ran over all of the halls making it easy to get from one place to the next despite the large crowds of people. There were also nice outdoor garden areas along the concourse for networking. The show formally announced that 72,000 people attended the show making it by far the largest wireless show in the world.