Proceedings - Radio Club of America – Radio Club of America€¦ · JOIN US FOR THE 2016 BANQUET AND AWARDS AT THE HISTORIC NY ATHLETIC CLUB Proceedings FALL 2016. 2 FALL 2016 PROCEEDINGS

1

INSIDESpotlight on 2016 Banquet & Technical Symposium

The Work of Dr. Joe Taylor & An Interview with Dr. Joel Weisberg

Ted Rappaport on Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications

The First Pocket Radio Pager

JOIN US FOR THE2016 BANQUET AND AWARDS AT THE HISTORIC NY ATHLETIC CLUB

ProceedingsFALL 2016

2 FALL 2016 PROCEEDINGS | www.radioclubofamerica.org

©2017 Icom America Inc. The Icom logo is a registered trademark of Icom Inc. The IDAS name and logo are trademarks of Icom Inc. 31116

Advancing radio technologyfor over 60 years.

As digital technology and RF continue to merge, Icom thrives at the forefront. IDAS™, Icom’s digital land mobile radio system, off ers advanced narrowbanding for today’s - and tomorrow’s - business and public service users. Icom is also committed to P25, the digital standard designed for improved fi rst responder radio interoperability. In amateur radio, Icom is the leader in producing equipment for the independently-developed D-STAR protocol, adding modern data tools for

new generations of recreational and emergency service ham operators. For HF fans, Icom’s advancements in Digital Signal Processing (DSP) have virtually eliminated the need for additional, expensive fi lters, all the while vastly improving weak-signal isolation & enhancement features: In a world of “you can’t work’em if you can’t hear’em”, it’s now hard for a signal to hide. Be that for work or play, connect with Icom in Air, on Land and Sea. 73

Amateur Avionics Land Mobile Marine Receivers

3

THE PROCEEDINGS FALL 2016 | Volume 88, Number 2

HEADQUARTERS OFFICE: 4248 Park Glen Road, Minneapolis, MN 55416 | (952) [email protected] | www.radioclubofamerica.org

CONTENTSFrom Your President ........................................................................................................4

From the Publications Chairman .....................................................................................4

2016 Banquet to Feature Nobel Laureate ........................................................................5

107th Banquet & Awards Presentation ...........................................................................7

From the Banquet Chairman ...........................................................................................8

2016 RCA Award Recipients ............................................................................................9

2016 RCA Fellows..........................................................................................................12

2016 Technical Symposium ...........................................................................................14

The Work of Dr. Joe Taylor ...............................................................................................20

Interview with Dr. Joel Weisberg ....................................................................................22

The Relativistic Binary Pulsar B1913+16 .....................................................................24

Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications ...................................................................31

The First Pocket Radio Pager .........................................................................................36

RCA Partnership Program..............................................................................................38

Early History of RCA Portable Radios .............................................................................40

Amateur Radio & Public Safety Communications ..........................................................45

Signal Magazine’s 70th Anniversary ..............................................................................47

State of China Technology .............................................................................................48

China Launches First Quantum Satellite .......................................................................48

Radio Signal Monitoring for Drones ...............................................................................49

Claude Shannon IEEE Milestone ....................................................................................49

New Duplex Radio Chip .................................................................................................50

Voices of Tomorrow ........................................................................................................51

Welcome New Members! ................................................................................................54

29th HamVention Youth Forum ......................................................................................58

Book Review | Thunderstruck.........................................................................................62

The Book Shop ...............................................................................................................63

Business & Professional Directory .................................................................................64

Event Calendar..............................................................................................................66

The Radio Club of ameRiCa, inC.Honoring the Past, Committed to the Future

PRESIDENTTimothy J. Duffy

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENTCarroll L. Hollingsworth

VICE PRESIDENTNathan “Chip” Cohen

VICE PRESIDENT/COUNSELChester "Barney" Scholl, Jr.

TREASURERRonald J. Jakubowski

SECRETARYMargaret J. Lyons, PE, PMP

DIRECTORSMark S. AllenDavid P. BartJames “Ernie” BlairKaren J. ClarkMichael J. ClarsonJohn E. Dettra, Jr.John A. Facella, PE, C.Eng.Paul Z. GilbertCraig M. JorgensenCharles B. KirmussRobert A. LopezLouis M. MannoHarlin R. McEwenCarole J. Perry

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Elaine D. Walsh

PRESIDENTS EMERITISteven L. AldingerGaetano “Tom” AmoscatoJohn “Jack” BrennanVivian A. CarrPhillip M. CascianoMercy S. ContrerasMal GurianBruce R. McIntyreStanley ReubensteinAnthony “Tony” Sabino, Jr.Raymond C. Trott, P.E.

STAFFColleen Ayers, CAE, Executive SecretaryEmily Zniewski, Assistant Secretary

COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSONSAwards: Elaine D. WalshBanquet: Karen J. ClarkConstitution & By-Laws: Chester “Barney” Scholl, Jr.Fellows: Elaine D. WalshFinance: Ronald J. JakubowskiGood & Welfare: Craig M. JorgensenHistorical/Museums & Archives: Paul Z. GilbertKeeping RCA Vibrant: Margaret J. Lyons, PE, PMPMarketing & Publicity: Mark S. AllenMembership: James “Ernie” BlairNominations & Elections: Nathan “Chip” CohenPublications: David P. BartRegional Conferences: Stanley ReubensteinScholarship Fund: John E. Dettra, Jr.Technical Symposium: John A. Facella, PE, C.Eng.Website: John A. Facella, PE, C.Eng.Youth Activities: Carole J. Perry

TECHNICAL EDITORJohn S. “Jack” Belrose, Ph.D., VE2CV811-1081 Ambleside Dr. Ottawa, ON K2B 8C8, Canada(613) 721-7587; [email protected]

AEROGRAM EDITORElaine Walsh

EDITORIAL DIRECTORDavid P. Bart8512 Kedvale Ave. Skokie, IL 60076(847) 542-9873; [email protected]

PROCEEDINGS EDITORGlenn Bischoff

ADVERTISING CONTACTColleen Ayers, CAE(952) 928-4651; [email protected]

PRODUCTIONThe Harrington Company

PROCEEDINGS SCIENTIFIC ADVISORNathan “Chip” Cohen

2016 BOARD LISTING

FALL 2016 PROCEEDINGS | www.radioclubofamerica.org04

FROM THE PUBLICATIONS CHAIRMAN

This issue of the Proceedings brings you

the most up to date information about the 2016 Banquet and Awards Ceremony and

the Technical Symposium. We are returning to the New York City Athletic Club to recognize our 2016 RCA Award recipients and to share the evening with our first-ever Nobel Laureate! Dr. Joe Taylor received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1993 for discovering the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar system, and he is this year’s keynote speaker. We encourage all of you to join your fellow RCA members at an outstanding event and to welcome Joe.

The Fall 2016 issue of the Proceedings focuses on our award

recipients and our new RCA Fellows. Biographical information for both groups of individuals is included. Complete information about programs and biographies for the speakers at the Technical Symposium is also presented.

We have a wide range of contributors and articles. Thanks to Chip Cohen, we have conducted an interview with a colleague of Dr. Joe Taylor, Dr. Joel Weisberg, who discusses Joe’s discovery, what it was like to work with him, and the impact of the discovery. We also visit some earlier history, touching on the origins of pagers with Mike Clarson and reexamining the Radio Corporation of America’s first portable radios. The Voices of Tomorrow returns with contributions from two young authors, Divyam Mishra and Austin Shaller, who

describe home sensor networks and digital transceivers, respectively. Both of these authors were "discovered" by Carole Perry, who has included the latest report of her Youth Forum activities.

Congratulations to all of RCA’s members for their continuing successes. We invite each of you to contribute articles, news stories and ideas for future content. We also 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

I am very excited about this issue of the Proceedings.

Dave Bart and his team have done another incredible job. If you have a topic you would like

to write about, please contact Dave. I am certain he would love to hear from you.

The Radio Club of America continues to blossom with many activities and opportunities, and there are many people to thank for their hard work and contributions to RCA.

• Thanks to the leadership of John Facella, the RCA website continues to evolve and provide valuable resources for you. John also has put together a great lineup for the RCA Technical Symposium in November.

• Our membership chairman, Ernie Blair, is working hard to attract new RCA members. We have welcomed almost 100 new members to the Club in 2016.

• Karen Clark and her team have assembled an amazing awards banquet, which will return this year to the New York Athletic Club. I sincerely hope you will join us for a memorable event. Please get your reservations set as soon as possible.

• Youth Activities continues to be a strong focus for RCA. Carol Perry continues to create vision for the engineers of the future.

• Our scholarship program continues to provide help to college students working on degrees associated with wireless technologies, and we salute John Dettra for his many years of service running that committee.

• Many thanks to Chip Cohen and his team for running a smooth election of our incoming officers, our first with an electronic ballot!

• I also appreciate the work of our new Vice President Legal Counsel, Barney Scholl, who stepped in to help us during 2016.

The Club will host several events at shows throughout the remainder of 2016 and into 2017. I hope you can attend these tremendous networking opportunities so you can meet your fellow club members and share in their rich experience.

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 [email protected].

TIM DUFFY, K3LR, President The Radio Club of America, Inc.

FROM YOUR PRESIDENT

05

RCA 2016 BANQUET TO FEATURE NOBEL LAUREATE JOE TAYLOR, K1JT

RCA is thrilled to announce that Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr. will be featured at the 2016 Banquet and awards ceremony. This is

the first time that RCA will be welcoming a Nobel Laureate, and our members will not want to miss this incredible opportunity.

“Joe,” a Princeton University Professor, is a lifetime amateur radio operator. He and Russell Hulse received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1993 for their discovery in 1975 of the first binary pulsar system. Professor Taylor will speak about topics of interest to RCA, including comments about the recent historic discovery of gravitational waves announced February 11, 2016. This announcement, made by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the VIRGO Collaboration, confirmed Albert Einstein’s theories about the existence of gravitational waves 100 years after they were first published.

A pulsar, or pulsating radio star, is a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation. This radiation can be observed only when the beam of emission is pointing toward Earth similar to the way a lighthouse can be seen only when the light is pointed in the direction of an observer. This behavior is responsible for the pulsed appearance of the emission. Neutron stars are very dense, and have short, regular rotational periods. This produces a very precise interval between pulses that range roughly from milliseconds to seconds for an individual pulsar. Pulsars are believed to be one of the candidates of high and ultra-high energy astroparticles.

In 1974, Taylor and Hulse discovered for the first time a pulsar in a binary system. This pulsar orbited another neutron star with an orbital period of just eight hours. Einstein’s theory of general

relativity predicts that this system should emit strong gravitational radiation, causing the orbit to continually contract as it loses orbital energy. Observations of the pulsar soon confirmed this prediction, providing the first-ever evidence of the existence of gravitational waves. In 1993, Taylor and Hulse received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery.

Joe was born in 1941 in Philadelphia, but grew up in Cinnaminson Township, New Jersey. He became an amateur radio operator as a teenager in the 1950s. Today, he continues to be an active ham and is likely to be on the air participating in several contests each year. In 2001, he authored the weak signal processing suite WSJT that is widely used for Earth-Moon-Earth and meteor scatter communication modes.

Joe received a B.A. in physics at Haverford College in 1963, and a Ph.D. in astronomy at Harvard University in 1968. He went to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, eventually becoming Professor of Astronomy and Associate Director of the Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory. His thesis work was on lunar occultation measurements. In November 1967, the first pulsar observation was made by Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish, about the time Joe completed his Ph.D. Joe then began studying pulsars after finishing his graduate studies at Harvard. He immediately went to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s telescopes in Green Bank, West Virginia. Since then, he has worked on all aspects of pulsar astrophysics. In 1975, Joe and Hulse made their own discovery during a survey of pulsars made at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. In 1980, he moved to Princeton University, where he was the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in

Professor Joe Taylor, K1JT (Courtesy Office of Communications, Princeton University)

www.radioclubofamerica.org | FALL 2016 PROCEEDINGS


Physics, having also served for six years as Dean of Faculty. He retired from Princeton in 2006.

Joe has continued to be an expert on the measurement of binary pulsar properties because these phenomena provide a stringent test of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and of the existence of gravitational waves. Binary star systems lose energy and slow down because they radiate their energy. The rate of energy loss can be computed using various theories of general relativity.

Joe Taylor first obtained his amateur radio license as a teenager, which led him to the field of radio astronomy. He is well known in the field of amateur radio weak signal communication and currently has the call sign K1JT (previously K2ITP, WA1LXQ, W1HFV, and VK2BJX). He mounted an expedition in April 2010 to use the Arecibo Radio Telescope to conduct moon bounce with amateur radio operators around the world using voice, Morse code, and digital communications. He wrote several computer programs and communications protocols, including WSJT (“Weak Signal/Joe Taylor”), a software package and protocol suite that utilizes computer-generated messages in conjunction with radio transceivers to communicate over long distances with other amateur radio operators. WSJT is useful for passing short messages via non-traditional radio communications methods, such as moon bounce and meteor scatter, and other low signal-to-noise ratio paths. It is also useful for extremely long-distance contacts using very-low power transmissions.

Joe was among the first group of MacArthur Fellows. He has served on many boards, committees, and panels, co-chairing the Decadal Panel that produced the report Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium that established the United States’ national priorities in astronomy and astrophysics for the period 2000-2010. He was a guest of honor in the 2009 International Physics Olympiad. His many awards include:

• Heineman Prize of the American Astronomical Society (1980) (inaugural)

• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1982)

• Henry Draper Medal of the National Academy of Sciences (1985)

• Tomalla Foundation Prize (1987)

• Magellanic Premium (1990)

• Albert Einstein Medal (1991)

• John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science of the National Academy of Sciences (1991)

• Wolf Prize in Physics (1992)

• Nobel Prize in Physics (1993)

• Karl Schwarzschild Medal (1997)

• World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-12) Address (2012)

• International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Gold Medal (2012)

• ARRL Centennial Presentation (2014)

The Radio Club of America would like to particularly thank RCA President Tim Duffy for his role in inviting Professor Taylor to join us at the 2016 banquet. We look forward to seeing everyone in November for this rare and very exciting opportunity.

REFERENCESJoseph Taylor. Dept. of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.

Joseph Hooton Taylor. Nobel Foundation.

Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr., Wikepedia.

Digging Deeper with Dr. Joe Taylor, K1JT, Rich Moseson, CQ Magazine, CQ Web Bonus.

Nobel Laureate Joe Taylor, K1JT, addresses an audience at the ARRL National Centennial Convention (Rick Lindquist, WW1ME, photo, courtesy ARRL)

Observations of the pulsar discovered by Taylor and Hulse soon confirmed Einstein's prediction, providing the first-ever evidence of the existence of gravitational waves. In 1993, they received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery.

07 06 www.radioclubofamerica.org | FALL 2016 PROCEEDINGS

We are excited to announce our return to the New York Athletic Club for this year’s Banquet and Technical Symposium! Spend Friday learning and celebrating with RCA, and stay for the weekend to enjoy all that New York City has to offer. We look forward to seeing you there!Dress is black tie optional. Men can choose to wear a tuxedo or a dark suit and women wear either formal floor length or cocktail dresses.

Register today at www.radioclubofamerica.org/events!

NOVEMBER 18, 2016 | 6:00 – 10:00 PMNew York Athletic Club, New York City

Featuring Keynote Speaker Dr. Joe Taylor, K1JT

7 REASONS TO ATTEND THE RCA BANQUET AND TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUMBanquet Keynote Speaker, Nobel Laureate Dr. Joe Taylor, K1JT

Dr. Taylor, a Princeton University Professor, is a lifetime amateur radio operator. He and Dr. Russell Hulse received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1993 for their discovery in 1975 of the first binary pulsar system. Their discovery confirmed Albert Einstein’s theories about the existence of gravitational waves 100 years after they were first published. Dr. Taylor will share stories from his path to earning the Nobel Prize and his lifelong love of amateur radio.

Cutting edge technical learning

We have an exciting agenda lined up for the 2016 Technical Symposium including: panels with extended time on 5G and in-building wireless, and presentations on: LTE RAN base stations for rural deployments, SDR radios for the

military, how the Enigma cipher machine impacted WWII communications, and a look back at Major Howard Armstrong and his impact on wireless even today. As in prior years we have a youth pre-senter who continues the RCA tradition of introducing smart young people to a major wireless forum.

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.

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. See page 4 for a list of this year’s award recipients.

Support the next generation

Help develop the future workforce by supporting RCA’s youth efforts, and learn from RCA Young Achievers how radio influences their lives.

Can you feel the buzz?

From recruiting a record number of new members this year, to developing strategic partnerships with other organizations, RCA is on a roll. Be a part of the excitement and help us shape the organization as we continue our vibrancy long into the future.

New York City in the fall

Broadway shows. Central Park. Holiday lights. World-class shopping and dining. Need we say more? Bring your family and make a vacation of it!

107TH BANQUET & AWARDS PRESENTATIONREGISTER TODAY!

http://www.radioclubofamerica.org/events


A NOTE FROM THE BANQUET CHAIRMAN

The time is now, and I invite all of you to join me at the premier RCA event of the year, the

107th Radio Club of America Awards Banquet on Friday, November 18 at the majestic New York Athletic Club. The tickets are only $160 per person. It is not too late to register. Look for your registration in your mailbox soon, or you can sign up online at www.radioclubofamerica.org.

Please join us to celebrate with your fellow RCA members as they receive a well deserved and distinguished award for their service. Biographies for our award recipients are presented in this issue of the Proceedings. The award recipients are:

Lifetime Achievement Award Dr. Joseph H. Taylor, K1JT

Armstrong Medal Morgan E. O’Brien

Sarnoff Citation William T. Murphy, W0RSJ

Henri Busignies Memorial Award Dr. Mischa Schwartz

Fred M. Link Award Dan Clark, W9VV

Barry Goldwater Amateur Radio Award Stanley Reubenstein, WA6RNU

Edgar F. Johnson Pioneer Award John S. Oblak

Ralph Batcher Memorial Award Marc F. Ellis, N9EWJ

Frank A. Gunther Award Robert A. Rude, K0RAR

Vivian A. Carr Award Mercy S. Contreras

National Public Safety Telecommunications Council Richard DeMello Award Paul Patrick

President’s Award John E. Dettra, Jr., WB4NBF

Special Recognition Award Robert B. Famiglio, K3RF

RCA Young Achiever Award Divyam Mishra, KD0OOE

We will also celebrate the 2016 class of 10 RCA members who will be elevated to Fellow. Biographies are presented in this issue of the Proceedings. The Fellows are:

Robert J. Hobday, N2EVGJames H. Kreuzer, N2GHD

Robert E. LaRose, W6ACUW. Brent LeeAndrew C. MaxymillianStephanie McCallThomas L. MorrowEdward F. O'ConnorWalton L. Stinson, W0CPSandra J. Wendelken

There are a number of sponsorship opportunities still available. RCA needs your participation to help finance our annual event. Sponsorships are a terrific way to participate and to help. You can see the entire list of options on the website at: http://radioclubofamerica.org/annual-banquet/2016-annual-banquet/sponsorship-opportunities/.

The Banquet and Technical Symposium will be held on Friday so you can conveniently spend a weekend in New York City. I look forward to seeing you there!

Regards,

KAREN CLARK Banquet Committee Chair

INTRODUCING THE NEW RCA MEMBERSHIP PIN!RCA has designed a new membership pin. Display your RCA membership proudly with our NEW customizable pin that can be worn on its own, or with extensions for Life Member, Senior Member, or Fellow to reflect your unique membership distinctions.

$9.95 for the standard pin

$3 per bar for Life Member, Senior Member, and Fellow bars

Prices include shipping & handling

Visit the RCA Store page on the RCA website to order online or download a printable order form. Pin with all three

extensions

www.radioclubofamerica.org | FALL 2016 PROCEEDINGS 09

Lifetime Achievement Award: Dr. Joseph H. Taylor, K1JT — For significant achievements and a major body of work accomplished over a lifetime that has advanced the art and science of radio and wireless technol-ogy. Dr. Taylor, a Princeton University Professor, is a lifetime amateur radio

operator. He and Russell Hulse received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1993 for their discovery in 1975 of the first binary pulsar system. Their discovery confirmed Albert Einstein's theories about the existence of gravita-tional waves 100 years after they first were published. Over more than 30 years, Dr. Taylor led, established, defined, and honed a team of radio astronomers that designed state-of-the-art radio technology for detection and timing of pulsed radio radiation from neutron stars. Dr. Taylor showed that radio could be used to detail and prove a fundamental aspect of nature (general relativity), thereby placing radio technology in the top tier of impor-tance in contemporary science. A related biography and reprint of Dr. Taylor’s 2004 paper revisiting his discover-ies and progress in his field can be found in this issue of the Proceedings.

Armstrong Medal: Morgan E. O’Brien — For outstanding achievements and lasting contribu-tions to the radio arts and sciences and wireless communications. As the co-founder and chairman of Nextel Communications, Inc., O’Brien led the creation of the first all-digital na-

tionwide wireless network (the Nextel National Network) using IDEN technology and brought push-to-talk (PTT) communication to the mass business and consumer market. Since that time he co-founded Cyren Call Com-munications (where he served until January 2009), has been a consultant to wireless start-ups, and has served on the board of several private companies and charita-ble organizations. Mr. O’Brien was recognized in 1987 as New Jersey Entrepreneur of the Year and was voted the RCR Person of the Year in 1993 and again in 2006. In 2005, he was inducted into the Washington, D.C. Business Hall of Fame. He is a Fellow of the Radio Club

of America and was named by Fierce Wireless as “one of the top U.S. wireless innovators of all time.” He current-ly serves as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors for pdvWIRELESS. O’Brien developed the initial plan for a nationwide broadband communications network for first responders, which eventually morphed into the Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (NPSBN) that is being developed under the auspices of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet).”

Sarnoff Citation: William T. Murphy, W0RSJ — For exceptional contributions of a tech-nical or non-technical nature to the advancement of electronic commu-nications. Mr. Murphy, an active amateur radio operator for more than 50 years, currently specializes in

business continuity, disaster recovery, and emergency communications, and is a licensed Certified Business Continuity Professional. Most of his career was spent with AT&T, from which he retired in 1999 after serving in many capacities. He is responsible for developing methods and apparatus to verify the integrity of commu-nications facilities leased from other networks. He was inducted into the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame for his work in performance monitoring for leased transmis-sion facilities and disaster recovery.

Henri Busignies Memorial Award: Dr. Mischa Schwartz — For achieve-ments in the field of communications equipment and contributions to the advancement of electronics for the benefit of humanity. Dr. Schwartz is the Charles Batchelor Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at

Columbia University, where he was the founding Director of the National Science Foundation-sponsored Center for Telecommunications Research (CTR). He received a BEE from the Cooper Union, New York, an MEE from the Polytechnic Institute, and a Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics from Harvard University. Prior to joining Colum-bia in 1973, he was Professor of Electrical Engineering and the Department Head at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and a Project Engineer at Sperry Gyroscope

The 107th Radio Club of America Awards Banquet will take place at the New York Athletic Club on November 18. Numerous individuals will receive recognition for their contributions to the industry and to the RCA. One of the hallmarks of the RCA Proceedings has been to provide background about our award recipients to celebrate their achievements. Congratulations to all of our award recipients. We encourage everyone to plan on attending the 2016 banquet to meet these and other outstanding members of our illustrious club.

SPOTLIGHT ON 2016 RCA BANQUET AWARDS


Company, where he worked in the field of radar system studies. His publications include 10 books and more than 180 papers in communication theory and systems, signal processing, wireless systems, computer commu-nication networks, and the history of communications. He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is also a Past President of the IEEE Com-munications Society, and a former Director of the IEEE. He received the IEEE Education Medal and the Colum-bia Great Teacher Award, the Cooper Union Gano Dunn Medal for contributions to technology, the IEEE Edwin Armstrong Award for contributions to communication technology, New York City Mayor’s Award for excellence in technology, the Eta Kappa Nu Eminent Member award, the Okawa Prize of Japan for contributions to telecommunications and engineering education, and the IEEE EAB Vice-President’s award in 2009 for outstand-ing contributions to EE education, theory, and practice in the fields of communications, signal processing, and computer networking.

Fred M. Link Award: Dan Clark, W9VV — For notable achievements in land mobile radio (LMR) communications. Mr. Clark was employed at Motorola from 1956 to 1995, where he became a Communi-cations Systems Engineer responsible for the design of land mobile radio

systems. He was among the first to design radiating ca-ble systems to provide radio communications in subway and mine tunnels. For more than 20 years, he taught LMR systems design in a school that he developed at Motorola, which provided the foundational education for hundreds of Motorola systems engineers worldwide. Thousands of public safety and industrial LMR sys-tems were designed over the years to a higher technical standard as a result of his training programs, which set a benchmark for systems design competence in Motoro-la’s systems engineering staff. Mr. Clark obtained his first amateur radio license in 1950, and continues this passion today as an avid collector and restorer of antique wireless equipment. He has a BS in Electrical Engineer-ing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Barry Goldwater Amateur Radio Award: Stanley Reubenstein, WA6RNU — For unique contributions to the field of amateur radio. Mr. Reubenstein is the retired Founder and President of Aurora Marketing Company, a man-ufacturer’s representative firm. He

is a President Emeritus and past Director of RCA, and became a Fellow in 1989. He is a strong supporter of the organization’s outreach efforts. Mr. Reubenstein is a Past President and board member of the Communica-

tions Marketing Association (CMA) and is a life member of Quarter Century Wireless Association (QCWA) and the ARRL (WA6RNU). He is an APCO member and past member of the APCO Commercial Advisory Board. Ad-ditional experience includes Spacecraft Power Systems Engineering at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Sales Manager at Standard Communications, and Mar-keting Manager at TPL Communications. He has received many accolades, including the CMA Pioneer Award, RCA Special Service Award, and the Boy Scouts of America Silver Beaver Award.

Edgar F. Johnson Pioneer Award: John S. Oblak — For noteworthy contributions to the success of RCA or to the radio industry. Mr. Oblak has just completed a book on the history of the EF Johnson Company, where he worked for 32 years. He retired from

EF Johnson after serving as Vice President of Standards & Regulatory Affairs at EF Johnson Company, Inc. and EF Johnson Technologies Inc. He participated in many standards bodies including the Telecommunications In-dustry Association (TIA) committee concerned with Proj-ect 25, and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) committees, helping to drive standards to allow broad participation and improved user functionality. Mr. Oblak joined EF Johnson in 1984 and has held progressively responsible engineering and management positions, eventually serving as Vice President of New Technology of EF Johnson Company Inc. He began his career in 1973 as a design engineer with Radio Corporation of America’s Radio Communications Systems Division, and held various responsibilities in the development of radio communications equipment. He received a BS degree in Electrical Engineering in 1973, and an MS degree in Electrical Engineering in 1978, both from the University of Pittsburgh.

Ralph Batcher Memorial Award: Marc F. Ellis, N9EWJ — For significant work in preserving the history of radio and electronic communications. Mr. Ellis has spent a lifetime educating others on circuits, operations, and the history

surrounding radio and its inventors, developers and us-ers. He was the antique radio editor for Popular Electron-ics, and then wrote or edited for other Gernsback Publi-cations including Hands-On Electronics and Electronics Now. Since 2000, his column has been published in Monitoring Times. Marc is the Editor of two publications for the Antique Wireless Association: The AWA Journal and The AWA Gateway. He was the former publisher of The Radio Collector Monthly.


Frank A. Gunther Award: Robert A. Rude, K0RAR — For dedication to the field of military communications. He has provided sustained support of Radio Emergen-cy Communications for more than 20 years, providing operations, mainte-nance and training of new amateur

radio operators that are called upon to provide communi-cations during emergencies. Mr. Rude is a retired U.S. Navy Cryptologic Warrant Officer and teaches amateur radio licensing classes, and provides U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)-sponsored training in emer-gency communications support.

Vivian A. Carr Award: Mercy S. Contreras — For outstand-ing achievements by a woman in the wireless industry. Ms. Contreras, RCA Fellow, was the first woman to serve as President of the Radio Club of America. She has dedicated count-less hours as a supporter of industry

activities. She has been involved in publishing and the communications industry for more than 30 years, including serving as publisher of Mobile Radio Technol-ogy. She was the publisher for the Wireless Technology group of magazines for 20 years, including MRT, Sat-ellite Broadband, Site Management & Technology, RF Design, and Cellular Business. Ms. Contreras currently works with AGL Media Group. Ms. Contreras has served on the corporate advisory committees for the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, International (APCO) and the International Municipal Signal Associa-tion (IMSA), and is the former executive director for the Communications Marketing Association. She is a past recipient of the President’s Award from RCA and the CMA Pioneer Award.

National Public Safety Telecommunications Council Richard Demello Award: Paul Patrick — For his many contri-butions to national public safety and homeland security. Mr. Patrick has been involved in communications improvement in Utah for the last 15

years and serves on the National Public Safety Telecom-munications Council (NPSTC) Executive Committee. He is currently the Deputy Division Director for the Utah Department of Health, Division of Family Health and Preparedness, and the Emergency Medical Services and Preparedness Director for the State of Utah. In addition, he is the President of the National Association of State EMS Officials (NASEMSO). Mr. Patrick is a vice chair of the Public Safety Advisory Committee-Executive Com-mittee (PSAC-EC) to FirstNet. He also is a member of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) Preparedness Policy Committee and the Utah

Public Health Preparedness Directors. Mr. Patrick also serves on the National Registry of EMTs (NREMT) Board of Directors, SAFECOM Executive Committee and the Utah Communications Authority (UCA).

RCA's President’s Award: John E. Dettra, Jr., WB4NBF, For unselfish dedication to the work of the Radio Club of America. Chosen by the current president, this award recog-nizes outstanding service to RCA. Mr. Dettra has been a member since 1976 and became a Fellow in 1980.

He has been a consulting engineer since 1956 designing antennas (directional) for AM, FM, TV, short wave, and microwave stations in the United States and internation-ally. He was qualified as an expert engineering witness in numerous FCC proceedings as well state hearings. He built radio station WQRA and operated the station for 18 years. Serving on the RCA’s Board of Directors for more than 35 years, and chair of the Scholarship Committee for most of those years, he has made significant con-tributions to the organization, with a special focus on scholarships for college students. Mr. Dettra received RCA’s Jack Poppele Award in 2011, which recognizes in-dividuals who have made important and long-term contri-butions to the field of radio broadcasting. Mr. Dettra has been a trustee of Capitol Technology University College for 35 years and Chairman of its Governance Commit-tee. He is also a member of the Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers (AFCCE) and has been the Chairman of its Scholarship Committee. Mr. Dettra is a Life Member of the IEEE and has served as Chairman of the Vehicular Technology Society. Mr. Dettra is also a member of the America Guild of Organists and has served as board member for the Northern Virginia Chapter.

RCA Special Recognition Award: Robert B. Famiglio, K3RF — In recognition of dedicated service to the Radio Club of America. Mr. Famiglio has been an RCA member since 1994, a Fellow since 2005, and served as Vice President/General Counsel from 2009-2015. Bob also

serves as Vice-Director for the ARRL, Atlantic Divi-sion. His love of radio has been a journey, starting as a licensed amateur operator in 1967. Today, he holds both Extra Class Amateur and General FCC radiotelephone licenses. Bob earned a B.S. in electrical engineering and a J.D. Since 1979, Bob has been practicing law in several state and federal courts, including the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Currently, he is principal at Famiglio & Associates, and is outside general counsel and patent attorney to communications, broadcast and technology companies worldwide. Bob is a member of the IEEE and National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE). He edited the IEEE book, Successful Patents


and Patenting for Engineers and Scientist. Over the years, Bob has been a major shareholder and director of broadcast facilities in the Philadelphia area, and later general counsel to a major broadcaster across several states. In addition to his day job, Bob is active with the local volunteer fire and rescue company, responding to about 200 calls per year. He is certified by the state of Pennsylvania Fire Academy and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) NFPS, is a Company Captain, and is a member of the County Fire/EMS radio committee.

RCA Young Achiever Award: Divyam Mishra, KD0OOE — For demonstrated excellence and creativ-ity in wireless communications by a student of high school age or younger. Mr. Mishra is a senior at Peak to Peak Charter School and has a passion for technology and entrepreneurship. He

has an Extra Class Amateur radio license and has been doing research at the University of Colorado –Boulder with a computer science professor on the Internet of Things (IoT). He has been interning at several companies so that he can make use of skills to develop his own IoT business in the future. In addition, he is starting an amateur radio club at his high school next year, where he will be encouraging kids to get their licenses and realize the potential it has in future technologies. In addition, he is passionate about serving others and is trying to harness the power and potential of technology to improve the quality of life.

2016 FELLOWSThe 2016 class of new RCA Fellows will receive recogni-tion at the 107th Awards Banquet for their contributions to the industry and to the Radio Club of America. One of the hallmarks of the RCA Proceedings has been to pro-vide background on our new Fellows so that our member-ship can get to know them. Elevation to Fellow is made by nomination only to members in good standing for at least the previous five years and whose contributions to the art and science of radio communications, broadcast or the Radio Club of America are deemed outstand-ing. Congratulations to this year’s class. We encourage everyone to plan on attending the 2016 banquet to meet these and other members of RCA.

Robert J. Hobday, N2EVG, joined the Antique Wireless Association (AWA) in 1984 and became the organization’s Deputy Director. Under his leader-ship, the AWA’s operations have ex-panded to include a full research and museum campus, which are available

to the general public, to preserve and share the history of electrical and electronic communications. He also was instrumental in establishing the historical archive of the Radio Club of America, which is housed at AWA, and oversees the annual AWA Convention.

James H. Kreuzer, N2GHD, has worked for many years to preserve the history of the radio industry, and is currently the Librarian of the AWA Museum Library and Assistant Cura-tor of early wireless history. He has written many articles on the history of wireless and radio and has developed

a special focus on Marconi equipment and the Titanic’s wireless communications. Mr. Kreuzer has appraised nu-merous Marconi and wireless history museum collections and designed and built Titanic exhibits for the National Maritime Museum in Newport News, Va., and the Titanic Museum in Branson, Mo., as well as the AWA’s Titanic exhibit.

Robert E. LaRose, W6ACU, had a distinguished 40-year domestic and international career involved with military, commercial and land mobile radio (LMR) products at radio man-ufacturers including Harris Corp., Storno A/S, Southcom International, Singer Products Company, TransWorld

Communications, and Raytheon JPS Communications. He currently manages his own wireless consulting busi-ness, Odumase Business Development

W. Brent Lee is the Immediate Past President of the Association of Pub-lic-Safety Communications Officials, International (APCO) and is a retired police lieutenant. Prior to retiring after 30 years of service, he was an Acting Deputy Chief in Sparks, Nev., and attended the FBI National Acade-

my. Mr. Lee supervised the Sparks police dispatch center where he developed its mobile computer program and 9-1-1 operations, as well as telephone systems that were models for the state’s emergency communications. He held many positions at APCO and served as the Co-Chair of APCO’s National Joint Telecommunicator Emergency Response Taskforce (TERT) Initiative.

Andrew C. Maxymillian is a Principal and part owner, of Blue Wing Ser-vices, which provides engineering and project management radio commu-nications consulting to public safety, business, and industrial clients. His professional experience includes nearly 30 years in the radio commu-


nications industry, beginning with the U.S. Air Force as a ground radio technician and manager. Most recently, Mr. Maxymillian has been involved in 800 MHz reband-ing efforts for various large-scale and multijurisdictional public safety radio networks.

Stephanie McCall is an accomplished technology sales professional. Ms. McCall has developed long-standing relationships with clients including NEC, Motorola, AT&T, Verizon and Nokia. She currently is responsible for overall event strategy and sales management of Penton’s International

Wireless Communications Expo (IWCE), which attracts more than 7,000 communications technology profession-als and 380 exhibitors. Since being promoted to director of this signature tradeshow in 2013, she significantly has grown the impact of the tradeshow across all met-rics—exhibitors, attendance, sponsorships, partnerships and revenue.

Thomas L. Morrow is a Partner at Power Sales Company, a manufac-turers’ representative for the wireless industry serving the southeastern United States. Since serving as an air-traffic controller and site chief in the U.S. Army during the Viet-nam War, he has held many sales

and senior marketing positions with companies such as Motorola, EF Johnson Company, and G.E. Mobile Com-munications.

Edward F. O'Connor is the founder of Simulcast Solutions, which provides technical guidance and one-stop-shopping to end users, dealer/integra-tors, and original equipment man-ufacturers that want to implement public safety simulcast radio systems. He has spent the last two decades

in the land mobile radio (MR) simulcast field and has equipment installed in more than 6,000 simulcast sites in 700-plus systems worldwide. Mr. O’Connor has been published in all of the major LMR industry publications, and gives presentations on simulcast at IWCE and APCO conferences throughout North America.

Walton L. Stinson, W0CP, is President at ListenUp, a dealer, designer, and installer of high-end audio/visual and control systems. He has been active in amateur radio since 1963, and has experience as a broadcast engineer. Mr. Stinson has shared his expertise in articles written for industry publi-cations including DX Magazine, CQ, and QST.

Sandra J. Wendelken is the editor of MissionCritical Communications and RadioResource International. She has covered wireless communications for more than 20 years, and has a reputa-tion for writing articles that are accu-rate, credible, timely, and balanced.

THANK YOU TO OUR 2016 BANQUET AND TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM SPONSORS

(Received as of October 17, 2016)

SILVER

BRASS

GOLD

BRONZERadioResource

PLATINUMTITANIUM COCKTAIL SPONSOR


This year we have another very interesting Technical Symposium, with another “Wireless Wow,” found only with RCA!

Our Wireless Wow for this year’s Technical Symposium is a presentation by Professor Tom Perera. Professor Perera has spent much of his professional career search-ing for German World War II Engima cipher-coding machines—even though Winston Churchill at the end of the war said they all had been destroyed! Most of the German Enigma-encoded messages were carried on wire-less to the U-boat submarine fleet, or to German army units. Breaking the code was vital to the Allies winning the war, and the machine has been featured in two films, Enigma and The Imitation Game. Professor Perera has a unique collection of rebuilt and working Enigma machines, and he will bring one to display at our event!

Our agenda for this year is an exciting one, with unique topics that you will only find in RCA’s Technical

Symposium, such as software-defined radios (SDR) for the military, radio access network (RAN) hardware that allows for rural deployments of Long-Term Evolution (LTE) broadband services, and a historical presentation about the legendary Edwin H. Armstrong.

This year, we also have two panels of experts discussing timely wireless topics including 5G, and in-building wire-less for both cellular and public safety.

For those who are registered professional engineers (PEs), or others who require CEUs (Continuing Education Units), attendees can obtain a certificate from a recognized university attesting to the CEUs they have received, for a modest fee (note that RCA makes no money on this endeavor—this is for the convenience of our members who are PEs).

The agenda is below, followed by abstracts on the presentations, and then detailed bios on the speakers and panelists.

RCA'S 2016 TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUMIN NEW YORK CITY

2016 TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM AGENDA*

8:00am – 8:15am Welcome & Introductions JOHN FACELLA, P.E.

8:15am – 9:00am “Developing Secure Tactical Multi-Role, Multi-Mission, Multi-Channel Radios with Increasing Demands for Data Everywhere,” Harris Corp.

CHARLES DATZ

9:00am – 9:45am “Removing Economical Constraints of Rural Deployments with RAN hardware Innovation,” Parallel Wireless

RAJESH MISHRA

9:45am – 10:00am Break ***

10:00am – 10:45am “Maj. Edwin H. Armstrong: Student Inventor to Great Radio Engineer,” Columbia Univ.

PROF. MISCHA SCHWARTZ, PH.D.

10:45am – 11:30am “Reactive to Pro-Active, Using the Raspberry Pi Computer to Build a Home Sensor Network,” Youth Presentation

DIVYAM MISHRA

11:30am – 12:15pm Progress Report on RCA’s Youth Initiative CAROLE PERRY

12:15pm – 1:15pm Lunch **

1:15pm – 2:00pm Panel #1: “5G-What, Why, and When?” ANDY SEYBOLD, MODERATOR; PANELISTS PROF. TED RAPPORT, PH.D., OTHERS TBD

2:00pm – 3:00pm Break ***

3:00pm – 3:45pm Panel #2: In-Building Communications ROB LOPEZ, P.E., MODERATOR; PANELISTS DOUG FISHMAN, OTHERS TBD

3:45pm – 4:30pm “INSIDE ENIGMA: Breaking the Top Secret Enigma codes of WW-II”

PROF. TOM PERERA, PH.D, W1TP

4:30pm – 4:45pm Wrap up JOHN FACELLA, P.E.

* Schedule subject to change ** Breakfast and lunch are not provided because of cost considerations. There are numerous places in the vicinity of the New York Athletic Club that can provide food, and a list will be provided.

*** Coffee break refreshments available to all attendees at no cost.


8:15 – 9:00 a.m. — “Developing Secure Tactical Multi-Role, Multi-Mission, Multi-Channel Radios with Increasing Demands for Data Everywhere,” (Harris Corp.)

This presentation will explore some of the complex tradeoffs encountered in the design and development of military tactical radios using a software-defined radio (SDR) architecture. As the need for more and more situational awareness is pushed all the way to the indi-vidual on the battlefield, radios increasingly are required to implement a much richer feature set of capabilities, while still being constrained by size, weight and power. The radio frequency (RF) section(s) must enable wide bandwidth and high-data-rate capabilities, but in their multi-role application also must support narrowband as well as advanced counter-measure capabilities. In all cases, these radios must provide the highest level of information security and meet very high environ-mental specifications. Maximizing capabilities across these varied requirements involves leveraging the latest technologies, as well as incorporating decades of com-munications experience gained from iteratively improved designs that have been successfully utilized over the last 40 years.

9:00 – 9:45 a.m. — "Removing Economical Constraints of Rural Deployments with RAN hardware Innovation"

This session will explain how cellular network operators can use new software-defined network (SDN) architec-tures to help simplify network build out and reduce maintenance costs, while connecting hard-to-reach areas. The speaker from Parallel Wireless will discuss how the company has developed and deployed (in the United Kingdom, U.S. and Asia) a unique low-cost rural solution, nominated by Global Mobile Awards by GSMA as a finalist for Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough of 2014. It brings 3G/4G to areas that previously had no coverage – all at a fraction of the cost.

Session attendees will benefit from exploring how the solution solves the challenges of delivering cost-effec-tive backhaul connections with wireless and satellite backhaul. They also will learn how this technology helps manage the complexity between the access side and the evolved packet core (EPC) sides of the network, while making the radio access network (RAN) self-con-figurable, self-optimizing and self-healing, all of which reduces installation and maintenance costs.

10:00 – 10:45 a.m. — “Major Edwin H. Armstrong: Student Inventor to Great Radio Engineer”

This session describes Armstrong’s many great contri-butions to radio: first, while an electrical engineering student at Columbia University, and shortly thereafter while with the U.S. Army Signal Corps during WWI, and then much later on, while an unpaid electrical engineer-ing professor at Columbia. His first set of contributions led, in a major way, to AM radio. His latter contributions led to the invention of low-noise FM in 1933, resulting in the widespread adoption of FM radio.

10:45 – 11:30 a.m. — “Youth Presentation on Wireless: Reactive to Proactive, Using the Raspberry Pi Computer to Build a Home Sensor Network”

Presenter Divyam Mishra’s idea of building a home sensor network first emerged during his research at the University of Colorado at Boulder. This network includes a Raspberry Pi that acts as a centralized computer that both collects data and evaluates the data, a plethora of Arduino microcontrollers that have temperature sensors attached to them, and a wireless 422 MHz transceiver. Currently, this is just a basic prototype. The product is intended to transform our lives from reactive to proactive by predicting problems with our devices ahead of time. For example, if there is a problem with a heater, then the customer will be notified of a possible furnace failure in the future. Initially, Divyam implemented a basic system where data is gathered and sent to a cloud-storage cli-ent. Now he is focusing on making a phone application that can show the customer the potential problems with the temperature distribution in the house via augmented reality. If for some reason the temperature exceeds a certain temperature (indicating a possible fire), radi-os will be used to communicate to first responders in a matter of seconds. This will require the integration of Raspberry Pi computers and radios in a way that is revolutionary. This project ended up becoming a product named ProBoT.

11:30 am – 12:15 p.m. — “Progress Report on RCA's Youth Initiative”

All of us in wireless realize that our industry is going through a “graying phase,” and the industry is in desper-ate need of a new generation of technicians, engineers, scientists, and other wireless-savvy professionals to lead the next wave of wireless progress. Carole Perry, an RCA Director, and Chair of our youth program, will update us on the progress of her vital endeavors.

2016 TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS


1:15 – 2:00 p.m. — “Panel 1: 5G – What, Why, and When”

The wireless industry hype on Fifth Generation (5G) cellular systems has continued, even though 4G LTE sys-tems are not completely built out yet among the major public carriers. But what is 5G? When the standards are still in flux, why does the industry need this technology, and when will it begin to be implemented? The pan-el will address all of these issues with experts that are helping to make 5G a reality. This panel is moderated by Andy Seybold, the well-known wireless industry pundit.

3:00 – 3:45 p.m. — “Panel 2: In-Building Communications”

As smart devices proliferate, the demand for “data everywhere” is driving the cellular carriers to expand their networks both in terms of overall data capacity and “coverage everywhere.” Further, carriers are evolving to meet the increasing data demands by offloading from the macro outdoor sites to in-building systems.

In addition, the public expects first responders (police, EMS, fire) to go into any building and provide immediate aid regardless of how difficult that location may be from an RF propagation standpoint. In recent years, in-build-

ing wireless systems have been built out in major venues such as sports stadiums, either by the cellular carriers or the venue owners. But now a “middle tier” of office buildings, apartment complexes, and smaller entertain-ment venues need to be built out. It is not clear who will pay for this, and how and when it will be accomplished. Our panel of experts, including consultants and vendors, will examine these difficult issues occurring in the next stage of build out, and provide some insights. This pan-el is moderated by Rob Lopez, P.E.

3:45 – 4:30 p.m. — "Inside Enigma: Breaking the Top-Secret Enigma Codes of WWII"

During World War II, the German military used Enigma cipher machines to encode all of their important wireless and wired communications. The breaking of these Enig-ma codes by Allied forces is credited with shortening the war by two years, saving thousands of lives, and perhaps keeping Adolph Hitler from developing the atomic bomb. This session will explain how the Enigma works and trace the fascinating history of the cracking of the Enigma codes. The real story behind the Imitation Game movie will be explained. A working Enigma machine will be on display outside the Technical Symposium presentation room.

Charlie Datz, Harris Communications

Mr. Datz received his B.S. in Computer Science from St. John Fisher College, and has worked mainly in an engineering capacity at Harris Corporation for more than 26 years, developing military communications solutions.

John Facella, P.E., C.Eng., Panther Pines Consulting

John Facella, P.E., C.Eng., is a Prin-cipal at Panther Pines Consulting, specializing in public safety com-munications consulting, and general management consulting. He has more than 30 years in the wireless

industry, including 28 years working for both Motorola and Harris, and more than two years as a senior vice president with a national consulting company. He has held positions including product management, sys-tems engineering management, and Director of Public Safety Markets. He also has held general management

positions in several high-tech startup companies. Mr. Facella has been a frequent presenter at wireless indus-try trade shows, and has written numerous articles. He was a 10-year member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Communications Commit-tee and of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) Communications Committee, and is a member of the National Public Safety Telecommunications Coun-cil (NPSTC) Broadband EMS Working Group, and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1221 and 1802 committees. He has a BSEE from Georgia Tech, an MBA in marketing from Georgia State University, is a registered professional engineer in the U.S., and is a Chartered Engineer in the United Kingdom. Mr. Facella served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a platoon leader. He is a Life Member of the IEEE, and he is a Fellow, Life Member, and on the Board of Directors of the Radio Club of America. He received the RCA President’s Award in 2014. He also has 30 years of experience as a part-time firefighter and EMT, and has numerous certifications. He is also a life member of the ARRL, the Quarter Century Wireless Association (QCWA) and the Antique Wireless Association.

2016 TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM SPEAKERS / MODERATORS BIOGRAPHIES


Doug Fishman, PMP, Director of DAS Design and Implementation, Squan

Doug Fishman is a seasoned wire-less industry professional with a successful track record in technical and leadership roles in consulting, service provider and vendor environ-

ments. He is currently responsible for engineering and implementation of I-DAS and O-DAS networks, business development and operational oversight. Mr. Fishman has significant experience working with wireless service providers utilizing 2G, 3G and 4G technologies. His areas of expertise include DAS Design/Performance, RF Engineering Management, and Project Management. Mr. Fishman has a BSEE from Lehigh University and an MSEE from Stevens Institute of Technology.

Divyam Mishra, student

Divyam Mishra is a senior at Peak to Peak Charter School and has a passion for technology and entre-preneurship. He has an Extra Class amateur radio license and has been doing research at the University of

Colorado at Boulder with a computer science professor on the Internet of Things (IoT). He also has been intern-ing at high-tech companies so that he can make use of skills to develop his own IoT business in the future. In addition, he is starting an amateur radio club at his high school next year, where he will be encouraging kids to get their ham licenses and realize the potential in future technologies. He is passionate about serving others and is trying to harness the power and potential of technology to make the lives of people better.

Rajesh Mishra, Founder, President, CTO, Parallel Wireless Inc.

Rajesh Mishra is a visionary who, together with the other founders of Parallel Wireless, accurately identified the need for easy-to-deploy, resilient and cost-effective network architec-tures that would overcome many of

the legacy technical challenges associated with wireless communications — the foundation upon which Parallel Wireless was born. As one of the industry’s pioneers in convergence technologies, he led the development of next-generation Voice over Long-Term Evolution (VoLTE) and 3G/4G Femtocell convergence servers at Tatara, led transformation of the first commercial softswitch into a Wireless MSC product at Bell Labs/Lucent, reimagined cable industry-leading information management system (IMS) servers at Cedarpoint, and led a commercial mo-bile ad hoc networks (MANETS) development at Power-wave Cognition.

Rajesh’s background includes designing an enterprise Unified Communications System (Whaleback) and devel-oping a next-generation softswitch (Excel Switching). At the beginning of his career, Rajesh was involved in early development of analog and digital wireless base stations at Steinbrecher/Tellabs and Hughes Network Systems.

Rajesh has received many industry awards including the Lucent Technologies/Bell Lab Distinguished Member award and IEEE paper presentation awards. He also has experience as a spokesperson with industry and business press, analysts and as a presenter at industry confer-ences. He has a portfolio of more than 25 U.S. and international patents pending and issued.

Rajesh holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the Illi-nois Institute of Technology (IIT).

Robert Lopez, P.E, Owner and Principal of RLA Communications Engineering, LLC

Rob Lopez is the owner and principal of RLA Communications Engineer-ing, LLC (RLA), a private consulting engineering company established

in 2016. Rob has been in the wireless telecommuni-cations industry for 31 years. He began his career in public safety/mission-critical land mobile radio (LMR) at Motorola in 1985. He started as an engineering intern while completing his BSEE degree at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), followed with his Master’s degree in Engineering Management, also from NJIT. In 1989, he joined RCC Consultants. He rose to become a Senior Vice President at RCC, before joining Black & Veatch as Director of Public Safety Consulting and Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS). Rob is a member of RCA, IEEE, APCO and the National Society of Profes-sional Engineers (NSPE), and holds an active Level 3 certification for iBwave© DAS design software.

Carole Perry

Carole Perry, WB2MGP, worked as an executive secretary in an electronics manufacturing company, Rapidcir-cuit, Inc. for 16 years. In 1980, she returned to Intermediate School 72 in Staten Island, N.Y., where she worked

until her retirement in 2004, teaching “Introduction to Amateur Radio” to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders for 30 years. Carole wrote the curriculum for “Introduction to Amateur Radio” a very successful program which had 950 students a year coming through it.

Carole received the prestigious 1987 Dayton Ham of the Year Award, 1987 ARRL Instructor of the Year Award, 1991 Marconi Wireless Memorial Award, 1993 Quarter Century Wireless Association (QCWA) President’s Award, 1996 RCA Barry Goldwater Amateur Radio Award, the 2009 RCA President’s Award, 2012 RCA President’s


Award, and the 2015 RCA Vivian Carr Award for women who have contributed to the wireless industry.

Carole is an RCA Fellow, and in 2007 she was elected to the RCA Board of Directors. She created the RCA Youth Activities Committee, which she now chairs. She also created the RCA Young Achiever’s Award, given to students in grade 12 and below who have demonstrated excellence and creativity in wireless communications. Seventy-six youngsters have received this award along with a stipend to date.

Under Carole’s leadership, the Youth Activities Commit-tee goes into schools across the country to set up radio/technology programs. Equipment, cash grants, books, and supplies are donated to the chosen schools, muse-ums, or youth groups. Carole also initiated the practice of bringing a talented Young Achiever to give a presenta-tion at the annual RCA Technical Symposium.

Carole has moderated the Dayton Hamvention Youth Fo-rum and Instructors’ Forum for 29 years, and is looking forward to the 30th Youth Forum in May 2017. She is a QCWA Director and chairs its Youth Activities commit-tee. She is a member of ARRL (American Radio Relay League); DARA (Dayton Amateur Radio Association); AWA (Antique Wireless Association); and Brandeis Wom-en. She is also a columnist for CQ magazine.

Professor Tom Perera, Ph.D., W1TP

Dr. Tom Perera is a retired professor of neuroscience who specialized in research on the coding of informa-tion in the human brain and nervous system. He has been hunting for, collecting, researching, restoring, and

writing about Enigma cipher-coding machines and their history for more than 25 years. He located and restored the Enigma that is prominently featured in the Imita-tion Game. He provides extensive Enigma information through his INSIDE ENIGMA: The Secrets of the Enigma and Other Historic Cipher Machines book, his lectures and his website: www.EnigmaMuseum.com

Professor Ted Rappaport, Ph.D., David Lee/Ernst Weber Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Prof. of Computer Science, New York University

Professor Rappaport is the Founder and Director, NYU WIRELESS. He

is the chaired professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Professor of Computer Science, and Professor of Radiology at NYU. He is also Chairman of TSR Consulting, which performs technical consulting, expert witness services in patent and product litigation, engineering and design services in the field of wired and wireless communications systems, equipment, and devices.

Prior to his arrival at NYU, he was the William and Bettye Nowlin Professor of Engineering at the Univer-sity of Texas in Austin for nine years, and he was the James Tucker Professor of Engineering at Virginia Tech for 14 years. Professor Rappaport was also Chairman, President, and CEO of Wireless Valley Communica-tions Inc., which designed and manufactured hardware and software products for the design, management, maintenance, and adaptive control of Cellular/PCS and enterprise Wi-Fi networks in and around buildings and campuses. The company also pioneered the concept of site-specific propagation prediction and network design and management. Wireless Valley was acquired by Mo-torola Solutions, Inc. in late 2005. He was also Presi-dent and CEO of TSR Technologies, which designed and manufactured cellular and paging drive test equipment and software (CELLSCOPE 2000, PAGETRACKER 2000, PACKETBLASTER 2000, NAVTRACKER, PROMAP) for over-the-air intercept, drive testing, fraud detection, and law enforcement using a software-defined radio archi-tecture. The company was acquired by Allen Telecom in 1993.

Professor Rappaport’s expertise encompasses multiple areas, including wireless communications systems, antennas and propagation, circuits, signal processing, networks, with active work in 5G millimeter wave wire-less communications. He has BSEE, MSEE, and a Ph.D in electrical engineering, all from Purdue University. He has written numerous textbooks in the wireless field including Millimeter WAVE Wireless Communications, Principles of Communications Systems Simulation in Wireless Applications, Wireless Communications Practic-es and Principles, and many others.

Professor Mischa Schwartz, Ph.D., Columbia University

Professor Mischa Schwartz is the Charles Batchelor Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, where he was the founding Director, in 1985, of the National Sci-

ence Foundation (NSF)-sponsored Center for Telecom-munications Research (CTR). Prior to joining Columbia, he was a Project Engineer at Sperry Gyroscope Company, working in the field of radar, then professor of Electrical Engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, where he served as Department Head for four years.

He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE; a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the AAAS, and a Fellow of the International Engineering Consor-tium. He is a member of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). He is a Past President of the IEEE Communications Society as well as a former Director of the IEEE. His publications include 10 books and more than 180 papers in communication theory and systems, signal processing, wireless systems, computer commu-


nication networks, and the history of communications. The awards he has received include the 1984 IEEE Education Medal, the Cooper Union Gano Dunn Medal for contributions to technology, IEEE Edwin Armstrong Award for contributions to communication technology, NYC Mayor’s Award for excellence in technology, Eta Kappa Nu Eminent Member award, the 2003 Japanese Okawa Prize for contributions to telecommunications and engineering education, and the IEEE EAB Vice-Presi-dent’s award in 2009 for outstanding contributions to EE education, theory, and practice in the fields of commu-nications, signal processing, and computer networking.

Professor Schwartz was the founding Chair of the IEEE Communications Society History Committee and found-ing Editor of the IEEE Communications Magazine History Column, serving in those capacities from 2008-2010. He is a former member of the IEEE History committee, serving on the committee from 2007-2009, then again from 2012-2015.

Andrew Seybold, CEO and Principal Analyst, Andrew Seybold Inc.

Andrew M. “Andy” Seybold, CEO and Principal Analyst of Andrew Seybold, Inc., is one of the most respected and influential analysts in the wire-less industry today. For more than 25

years, he has served the industry and shaped initiatives for world leaders of the wireless industry, including Verizon, Nokia, AT&T, Motorola, and Qualcomm. His firm has provided wireless consulting and education services for startups to Fortune 1000 companies such as Dow Chemical, Ford Motor Company, and Microsoft.

Andy has consulted to some of the industry’s most tal-ented and successful entrepreneurs. He was a key con-sultant to numerous companies that introduced products

and services that have had a significant impact on wire-less, including Research In Motion’s popular BlackBerry, Hewlett-Packard’s first handheld device and first two-way pager, Good Technologies’ first products, and AT&T’s push-to-talk offering. He also introduced RadioMail to Dell for the first-ever notebook wireless email offering. He has served on the Motorola Research Visionary Board, IBM’s Mobile Computing Advisory Board, and several other prestigious advisory boards. Andy is a Fellow in the Radio Club of America in recognition of his contributions to the wireless industry; he also co-founded and served as a board member of the Personal Computing and Com-munications Association (PCCA), and he currently serves on the board of CommNexus San Diego.

Andrew Seybold’s Outlook for Mobile Computing news-letter and his Andrew Seybold/Forbes Wireless Outlook newsletter were must-reads and today his Commentary and Public Safety Advocate are arguably the most widely read e-newsletters among executives of leading wire-less network operators. He co-founded Andrew Seybold Wireless University in 1995, which has been attended by thousands of industry professionals and continues to be the only in-depth educational program of its kind in the wireless industry. As a trusted authority on wireless technology and business issues, Mr. Seybold has been featured in the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Using Wireless Communications in Business and several other books, and contributes regularly to Mobile Enter-prise Magazine, FierceWireless and FierceContent, and Wireless Week.

Andy is among the wireless industry’s foremost speakers and is recognized worldwide for his keen perspective and track record for accurately predicting trends in mobile technology and convergence, and is a featured speaker at major industry and customer events and conferences.

The Radio Club of ameRiCa, inC.


THE WORK OF DR. JOE TAYLOR AND AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. JOEL WEISBERG By Dr. Nathan “Chip” Cohen and David Bart

EDITOR'S NOTE: Dr. Joseph Taylor will receive the Radio Club of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award at its November 18, 2016 banquet and awards ceremony. The following article describes Dr. Taylor’s key discovery and includes an interview with one of his collaborators, Dr. Joel Weisberg. This article is followed by a reprint of an article written by Drs. Weisberg and Taylor summarizing their work.

Dr. Joseph (“Joe”) Taylor (K1JT) is a Princeton based radio astronomer and astrophysicist with considerable expertise. He is widely recognized

for his successes in radio science. He is best known for discovery, long-term measurements, analysis, and conclusive support for the theory of general relativity through radio measurements of a binary pulsar system.

THE DISCOVERYOver more than 30 years, Dr. Taylor led, established, defined, and honed a team of radio astronomers that designed state-of-the-art radio technology for detection and timing of pulsed radio radiation from neutron stars. The binary pulsar P1913+16(see below) was especially rich in this regard, as the radio measurements proved and detailed the decay of orbits in the binary system, these decays were caused by loss to gravitational waves radiation. This was the first conclusive evidence for gravitational radiation and this evidence supported a key and unique aspect of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. These measurements and analysis would not have been accomplished without Dr. Taylor’s efforts, perseverance, and expert knowledge of radio and physics.

Dr. Taylor showed that radio could be used to detail and prove a fundamental aspect of nature (general relativity), thereby placing radio technology (again) in the top tier of importance in contemporary science.

The discovery of this binary pulsar was made at the Arecibo Observatory’s 305m antenna, the giant radio dish in Puerto Rico. Dr. Russell Alan Hulse and Dr. Taylor, then at University of Massachusetts, sought and detected pulsed radio emissions as part of a new survey of the skies. They identified an unusual pulsar, a rapidly rotating, highly magnetized neutron star. This neutron star rotates on its axis 17 times per second; hence the pulse period is 59 milliseconds. By timing the radio pulses over a lengthy period they observed a systematic variation in the arrival time of the pulses; some received sooner than expected and others later than expected. These variations changed in a smooth and repetitive manner, with a period of 7.75 hours. They realized that such behavior is predicted if the pulsar were in a binary orbit with another star, later confirmed to be another neutron star. The pulses from the pulsar arrived 3 seconds earlier at some times relative to others, showing that the pulsar’s orbit is 3 light-seconds across, approximately two-thirds of the diameter of the Sun. Since this is a binary system, the masses of the two neutron stars can be determined from Kepler’s laws: each neutron star is around 1–3 times the mass of the Sun.

Dr. Russell Alan Hulse and Dr. Joseph Hooton Taylor. (Courtesy Astr109 group project)

Conceptual sketch of a pulsar with a rotating neutron star. (Courtesy Hulse Nobel Lecture, 1993)

21 21

NOBEL PRIZEToday, PSR B1913+16 (also known as PSR J1915+1606 and PSR 1913+16) is referred to as the ‘Hulse–Taylor binary’, named after its discoverers. It was the first binary pulsar to be discovered. The discovery of the system and analysis earned Drs. Taylor and Hulse the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation.” (Nobel Foundation)

This binary pulsar acts as a scientific laboratory for understanding neutron stars and the evolution of stars. But in addition, observations have since shown that the pulsar’s orbit is gradually contracting as it orbits its companion. This posed great excitement to physicists, as Albert Einstein’s general relativity had made very specific predictions that orbiting stars will lose energy over time to gravity waves—gravitation radiation—and that as they lose this energy, their orbits will get tighter and the orbital periods would decrease. Because the binary pulsar executes on orbital round in less than eight hours, monitoring the pulsar orbits over a period of

many years should clinch the evidence—or denial—of gravitational radiation. To wit: was Einstein right?

Dr. Taylor, through the collaboration of many researchers, but especially through his colleague Dr. Joel Weisberg, sought to undertake these observations needed to check Einstein. Not an easy task, as special tools had to be built to time and decipher minute changes in the radio pulses, and to compare changes over the course of decades.

Drs. Hulse and Taylor were awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the binary pulsar, but the conclusive and overwhelming evidence of gravitational radiation took over thirty years, and continued long after their award. The accuracy needed to overwhelmingly prove Einstein was reported in 2004 and 2005 by Dr. Joel Weisberg and Dr. Taylor to be within 0.2% of that predicted by general relativity. Drs. Weisberg and Taylor summarized their work in their paper “Relativistic Binary Pulsar Bl913+16: Thirty Years of Observations and Analysis” published by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 2004 and 2005. The paper summarized the state of work in the field up to that time, and key publications are referenced therein. (A copy of the paper is reprinted in this issue of the Proceedings of the Radio Club of America.)

Block diagram of equipment used to time pulsars at Arecibo. (Courtesy Taylor Nobel Lecture, 1993)

Nobel Prize in Physics. (Courtesy Nobel Foundation) Figure from Weisberg and Taylor (2004, 2005). Each data point fits precisely to the predicted change of pulsar timing expected from general relativity (solid line). Einstein was right!

Arecibo Radio Telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. (Courtesy Arecibo Observatory)


INTERVIEW WITH DR. WEISBERGDr. Taylor has been generous to collaborators in sharing recognition with them (such as Hulse and Weisberg), and is often listed as the last author on publications that predominantly stem from his efforts. Both Hulse and Weisberg were graduate students when they initially worked with Taylor, then a professor at University of Massachusetts.

In connection with RCA’s recognition of Dr. Taylor’s contributions, Chip Cohen and David Bart interviewed Dr. Weisberg about his experiences working with Joe Taylor. The following interview is reproduced herein for our readers.

How did you first meet Joe Taylor and begin working with him; what problems were you both interested in investigating and why?

[Dr. Weisberg] As I was finishing my Ph.D. in pulsar astrophysics, I wrote him to ask if he might have a postdoctoral position for me. Later, I flew out to meet him, and was immediately struck by his warmth and kindness and expertise in pulsars. We were both deeply fascinated by these incredible objects, and also shared many larger values.

Can you tell us about the binary pulsar—what caused it, how big is it, how far away is it? Can you see it with an optical telescope, or is this enabled by radio?

[Dr. Weisberg] A pulsar is the collapsed remnant of a cataclysmic supernova explosion, composed of neutrons, weighing more than the Sun, the size of a city, and spinning on its axis up to hundreds of times per second, with a beam of radio waves on one side. We detect a radio pulse once per rotation when the beam points as us, much like a lighthouse. A binary pulsar is a pulsar orbiting another object, in this case another neutron star, born in a separate supernova explosion. The system is about 30,000 light years away; still in our Milky Way Galaxy, but not particularly close. Most pulsars, including this one, emit mainly in the radio.

Treating a pulsar as a clock, a pulsar in a binary star will change its timing, speeding up and slowing down slightly as it orbits its companion; how did you use that

to show that the orbit was changing from the energy loss of gravitational radiation?

[Dr. Weisberg] I couldn’t say it better myself! We time the arrival of its pulses with a precision of about ten millionths of a second for each five minutes of data accumulated. We can then map out the orbit very precisely - when the pulsar is on the near side of its orbit, the pulses come in several seconds early, and so on. With patient observations over many years, we were able to see the orbit shrinking at just the rate expected if energy were carried away by gravitational radiation.

Can you describe the pulsar timing machine you built with Joe and how it works?

[Dr. Weisberg] Joe is a master of building pulsar timing machines. His origin as a ham was no doubt crucial to this, along with his brilliance. A succession of these devices, when coupled to the Arecibo telescope, formed the heart of numerous pulsar experiments for many years. My own role in constructing these machines was minimal.

It took considerable patience to wait out such small changes. When did you, Joe and others feel you had clinched the evidence showing Einstein was right on gravitational radiation?

[Dr. Weisberg] Literally—when the evidence was incontrovertible that the orbit was shrinking at the predicted rate.

A decade ago you and colleagues reported another remarkable event—a natural maser magnifying a background pulsar. What did we learn from that?

[Dr. Weisberg] While there was previously much indirect evidence of interstellar masers, this was the first time anyone caught a maser switching on and off as the pulsar beam excited it and then turned away.

Young people often see science as overly serious. Tell us about the fun you had, both in discovery, and understanding the binary pulsar.

[Dr. Weisberg] We have plenty of fun! We use incredible, inspiring instruments such as the Arecibo radio telescope. We work with very bright, clever, and creative people. We get to expand ours’ and all humans’ understanding of the universe. What’s not to like?

Radio astronomy is now seeing some tough times, even though it is only roughly 80 years old. How do we teach young people to understand the inevitable discoveries that are bound to happen in the next 80 years with radio science, and give society the patience to look long term?

[Dr. Weisberg] We can try to reach out to these young people through all kinds of educational activities. Most people have natural curiosity about the heavens, which helps them to be open to the message.

Do you have any additional thoughts about working with Joe Taylor?

[Dr. Weisberg] He is a brilliant person, who is a pleasure to work with.

Dr. Joel Weisberg at Carleton College.


SELECTED KEY RESEARCH PAPERS BY DR. TAYLORNobel Lectures, December 8, 1993:

Dr. Russell A. Hulse, see http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1993/hulse-lecture.pdf.

Dr. Joseph H. Taylor, see http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1993/taylor-lecture.pdf.

Taylor, J. H.; Weisberg, J. M. (1982). “A new test of general relativity - Gravitational radiation and the binary pulsar PSR 1913+16”. Astrophysical Journal. 253: 908–920.

Taylor, J. H.; Weisberg, J. M. (1989). “Further experimental tests of relativistic gravity using the binary pulsar PSR 1913 + 16”. Astrophysical Journal. 345: 434–450.

Weisberg, J.M.; Taylor, J.H. (July 2005). “The Relativistic Binary Pulsar B1913+16: Thirty Years of Observations and Analysis”. Written at Aspen, Colorado, United States. In F.A. Rasio; I.H. Stairs. Binary Radio Pulsars. ASP Conference Series. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific. p. 25.

Weisberg, J. M.; Nice, D. J.; Taylor, J. H. (2010). “Timing Measurements of the Relativistic Binary Pulsar PSR B1913+16”. Astrophysical Journal. 722: 1030–1034.

ADDITIONAL INTRODUCTORY READINGGalaxy Evolution and Gravitational Waves, Part I. (Oct. 30, 2013), Part II (Nov. 5, 2013). Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey, CANDELS. See http://candels-collaboration.blogspot.com/2013/10/galaxy-evolution-and-gravitational-waves.html.

Gravitational Wave Search Provides Insights into Galaxy Evolution and Mergers. (April 5, 2016). National Radio Astronomy Observatory. See https://public.nrao.edu/news/pressreleases/2016-nanograv-sbr.

ABOUT THE AUTHORSDr. Nathan “Chip” Cohen (W1YW) is CEO of Fractal Antenna Systems of Bedford, MA. A physicist with expertise in electromagnetics and imaging, he holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Cornell University. He was a radio astronomer at Harvard; MIT; Arecibo Observatory;

Cornell; NASA; and Boston University, where he retired after 15 years as a professor. After 9/11 he spent a decade working with defense and government clients on counter IED antennae and other defense systems, and was security officer for the firm. An inventor since age 6, he holds 44 US and international patents along with many patents pending, on fractal antennas, real-time deconvolution; image compression; fractal electronics;

invisibility cloaks; 3D printing/ manufacturing, and the (recently patented) electromagnetic deflector shield. He is editor of the scholarly journal FRACTALS and Vice President of the Radio Club of America.

Dr. Joel Weisberg is the Herman and Gertrude Mosier Stark Professor of Physics and Astronomy and the Natural Sciences at Carleton College. He began his pulsar research at MIT and Arecibo Observatory in 1971, and an SB in Earth and Planetary Sciences from MIT in 1972. He was

awarded an MS in Astronomy in 1975 and a Ph.D. in Physics in 1978, both from University of Iowa. He was in residence at Arecibo Observatory for 1-1/2 years to gather data for his dissertation, and then spent three years as a postdoctoral research associate in radio astronomy at the University of Massachusetts and three years as Assistant Professor of Physics at Princeton before going to Carleton. He has co-authored over sixty scientific papers in refereed journals, including Nature, Science, Physical Review Letters, Astrophysical Journal, Astrophysical Journal Letters, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, and Astronomical Journal. He co-authored an October, 1981 Scientific American article on the Binary Pulsar and Gravitational Radiation, a principal focus of his research career. He has received eight major research grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and one from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

David Bart (KB9YPD) is the Senior Director of the Litigation Practice for the Great Lakes Region of RSM US, LLP. He has an MBA and BA from the University of Chicago. He has co-authored professional standards, text books and numerous articles dealing with finance and valuation matters

in commercial litigation and corporate bankruptcy cases. His interests and education include the history of science, with an emphasis on the history of electrical and electronic communications, particularly the telegraph and radio. He is Vice President of the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago and Treasurer of the IEEE Historical Committee. He is a Board member and the Editorial Director of the Proceedings of the Radio Club of America, and he is a Board member and Co-Editor of the AWA Review published by the Antique Wireless Association. David and his wife, Julia, have co-published numerous articles together, and their work is included on the IEEE history websites. David has presented at RCA, AWA, AAPT/AAAS and the NYC Historical Society. He is a recipient of RCA’s Ralph Batcher Award and AWA’s Dr. Max Bodmer Award for his work in preserving the history of electrical and electronic communications.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1993/hulse-lecture.pdf

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1993/hulse-lecture.pdf

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1993/taylor-lecture.pdf

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1993/taylor-lecture.pdf

http://candels-collaboration.blogspot.com/2013/10/galaxy-evolution-and-gravitational-waves.html



https://public.nrao.edu/news/pressreleases/2016-nanograv-sbr

https://public.nrao.edu/news/pressreleases/2016-nanograv-sbr


Binary Radio PulsarsASP Conference Series, Vol. 328, 2005F. A. Rasio and I. H. Stairs

The Relativistic Binary Pulsar B1913+16: Thirty Years ofObservations and Analysis

Joel M. Weisberg

Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, Carleton College, Northfield, MN

Joseph H. Taylor

Dept. of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

Abstract. We describe results derived from thirty years of observations ofPSR B1913+16. Together with the Keplerian orbital parameters, measurementsof the relativistic periastron advance and a combination of gravitational redshiftand time dilation yield the stellar masses with high accuracy. The measuredrate of change of orbital period agrees with that expected from the emissionof gravitational radiation, according to general relativity, to within about 0.2percent. Systematic effects depending on the pulsar distance and on poorlyknown Galactic constants now dominate the error budget, so tighter boundswill be difficult to obtain. Geodetic precession of the pulsar spin axis leads tosecular changes in pulse shape as the pulsar-observer geometry changes. Thiseffect makes it possible to model the two-dimensional structure of the beam.We find that the beam is elongated in the latitude direction and appears to bepinched in longitude near its center.

1. Introduction

Pulsar B1913+16 was the first binary pulsar to be discovered (Hulse & Tay-lor 1975). Thirty years of subsequent observations have enabled us to measurenumerous relativistic phenomena. We have used these measurements for funda-mental tests of gravitational physics and to place tight constraints on physicalparameters of the system. In this paper, we provide the latest results of ourobservations and analysis.

2. Observations

The observable pulsar is a weak radio source with a flux density of about 1mJy at1400 MHz. Its observations are nearly always sensitivity limited. Over the yearswe and our colleagues have built a number of sensitive receiver “back ends” foruse at Arecibo, including a swept local-oscillator system programmed to followthe dispersed pulse, as well as filter banks and signal averagers (see Weisberg& Taylor 2003 for a summary). Our most recent data have been gathered withthe Wideband Arecibo Pulsar Processors (“WAPPs”), which for PSR B1913+16

25

The following article is reprinted by permission of the authors and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP).


The following article is reprinted by permission of the authors and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP).

26 Weisberg and Taylor

Table 1. Measured Orbital Parameters for PSR B1913+16

Fitted Parameter Valueap sin i (s) . . . . . . 2.3417725 (8)e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.6171338 (4)T0 (MJD) . . . . . . 52144.90097844 (5)Pb (d) . . . . . . . . . . 0.322997448930 (4)ω0 (deg) . . . . . . . . 292.54487 (8)〈ω〉 (deg/yr) . . . . 4.226595 (5)γ (s) . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.0042919 (8)

Pb (10−12 s/s). . . −2.4184 (9)

achieve 13µs time-of-arrival measurements in each of four 100MHz bands, using5-minute integrations. In addition to the timing observations, we have usedthe Princeton Mark IV coherent de-dispersing system (Stairs et al. 2000) tomeasure average pulse shapes and polarization over the last five years. A majorimprovement in data acquisition for this experiment was made in 1981, and datataken since then have much higher quality than the earlier observations. Theresults reported here are based largely on data gathered from 1981 through 2003.

3. Relativistic Timing Analysis

Non-relativistic analysis of arrival time data from this system can yield fiveorbital parameters: the projected semimajor axis of the pulsar orbit ap sin i,orbital eccentricity e, epoch of periastron T0, orbital period Pb, and argumentof periastron ω0. Relativistic effects lead to three additional measurables: themean rate of advance of periastron 〈ω〉, gravitational-redshift and time-dilation

parameter γ, and orbital period derivative Pb. Measured pulse times of arrivalcalculated for each five minutes of observation serve as the input data for theprogram TEMPO (http://pulsar.princeton.edu/tempo). This program fitsa model with eighteen parameters (eight orbital quantities plus ten astrometricand spin parameters) to the data, using the timing model of Damour & Deruelle(1985; 1986). Fitted values for the orbital parameters are listed in Table 1, withuncertainties in the last shown in parentheses.

The pulsar orbit is fully specified (up to an unknown rotation about the line ofsight) by the first seven parameters listed in Table 1. Other orbital quantitiessuch as inclination, masses of the stellar components, and the semimajor axes,may be derived from these seven; Taylor & Weisberg (1982) provide the relevantformulas. For example, the masses of the pulsar and companion are mp =1.4414± 0.0002 and mc = 1.3867± 0.0002 solar masses, respectively. (Note thatin order to express the masses in grams, a value would need to be introduced forthe Newtonian gravitational constant G. The uncertainty in G is comparableto our quoted uncertainties in mp and mc.) As described below, the eighth

measured orbital parameter, Pb, overdetermines the system dynamically andthus provides a test of gravitation theory.


The Relativistic Binary Pulsar B1913+16 27

3.1. Emission of Gravitational Radiation

According to general relativity, a binary star system should emit energy in theform of gravitational waves. The loss of orbital energy results in shrinkage ofthe orbit, which is most easily observed as a decrease in orbital period. Peters& Matthews (1963) showed that in general relativity the rate of period decreaseis given by

Pb,GR = −192 π G5/3

5 c5

(Pb

2π

)−5/3

(1 − e2)−7/2 × (1)(

1 +73

24e2 +

37

96e4

)mp mc (mp + mc)

−1/3.

Note that except for Newton’s constant G and the speed of light c, all quantitieson the right hand side of Eq. (1) have measured values listed in Table 1, or,in the case of the component masses, are derivable from those quantities. Thepredicted orbital period derivative due to gravitational radiation computed fromEq. (1) is Pb,GR = −(2.40242 ± 0.00002) × 10−12 s/s.

Comparison of the measured Pb with the theoretical value requires a small cor-rection, Pb,Gal, for relative acceleration between the solar system and binarypulsar system, projected onto the line of sight (Damour & Taylor 1991). This

correction is applied to the measured Pb to form a “corrected” value Pb,corrected =

Pb − Pb,Gal. The correction term depends on several rather poorly known quan-tities, including the distance and proper motion of the pulsar and the radiusof the Sun’s galactic orbit. The best currently available values yield Pb,Gal =

−(0.0128 ± 0.0050) × 10−12 s/s, so that Pb,corrected = (2.4056 ± 0.0051) × 10−12

s/s. Hence

Pb,corrected

Pb,GR

= 1.0013 ± 0.0021, (2)

and we conclude that the measured orbital decay is consistent at the (0.13 ±0.21)% level with the general relativistic prediction for the emission of gravi-tational radiation. The observed and theoretical orbital decays are comparedgraphically in Figure 1.

Accuracy of the test for gravitational radiation damping is now dominated by theuncertainty in the galactic acceleration term. Work now underway should leadto improved accuracy of the pulsar proper motion, and the Sun’s galactocentricdistance may be better known in the future. However, we see little prospect fora significant improvement in knowledge of the pulsar distance. Consequently, itseems unlikely that this test of relativistic gravity will be improved significantlyin the foreseeable future.

4. Geodetic Precession: Mapping the Emission Beam

Relativistic spin-orbit coupling causes the pulsar’s spin axis to precess (Damour& Ruffini 1974; Barker & O’Connell 1975a,b). In the PSR B1913+16 system



Figure 1. Orbital decay of PSR B1913+16. The data points indicate theobserved change in the epoch of periastron with date while the parabola il-lustrates the theoretically expected change in epoch for a system emittinggravitational radiation, according to general relativity.



this so-called “geodetic” precession has a period of about 300 y. The resultingchange of aspect with respect to the line of sight should cause a secular changein pulse shape. Weisberg, Romani, & Taylor (1989) reported shape changes at1400 MHz and attributed them to the line of sight moving across the middle ofa hollow-cone beam. Kramer (1998) found that the separation between the twoprincipal pulse components began to shrink in the mid-1990s, suggesting thatthe line of sight had continued to drift across the conal beam, moving fartherfrom its center. Kramer fitted a model to these data, which indicated that thepulsar spin and orbital angular momenta are misaligned by ∼ 20◦ and that thebeam will no longer intersect our line of sight after the year 2025. Weisberg &Taylor (2002) confirmed these results and found that the conal beam appears tobe elongated in the direction parallel to the spin axis; they also noted that thebeam appears to be “hourglass-shaped,” or pinched in longitude near its center(see Fig. 2). Kramer (2002) argued that these observations could also resultfrom the line of sight precessing away from the center of a circular emission coneand onto a core pencil beam that is offset below the center and toward the thetrailing part of the cone.

We divided all of our 1400 MHz profiles into components that are respectivelyeven and odd about the profile center. We then fitted the even components to amodel that allows for a noncircular conal beam (Weisberg & Taylor 2002). Withmore data now available, we find that the model parameters have changed littlefrom earlier solutions. The current model is illustrated in Figure 2 in the formof equal-intensity contours of the beam.

Rankin (1983) showed that in most pulsars core emission becomes more promi-nent at low frequencies. We have observed PSR B1913+16 at the lower frequencyof 430 MHz at several epochs, and three of the resulting pulse profiles are shownin Figure 3. A core component is quite prominent in the data taken in 1980-81,but it faded very significantly between 1980 and 1998 and was nearly gone by2003. This behavior further supports our model in which the line of sight is pre-cessing away from the axis of a centered pencil beam plus a longitude-pinchedcone elongated in the latitude direction.

Even with 30 years of observations, only a small portion of the North-Southextent of the emission beam has been observed. As a consequence, our model isneither unique nor particularly robust. The North-South symmetry of the modelis assumed, not observed, since the line of sight has fallen on the same side ofthe beam axis throughout these observations. Nevertheless, accumulating datacontinue to support the principal features noted above.

References

Barker, B. M., & O’Connell, R. F. 1975a, PRD, 12, 329

Barker, B. M., & O’Connell, R. F. 1975b, ApJ, 199, L25

Damour, T., & Ruffini, R. 1974, Acad. Sci. Paris Comptes Rendus Ser. Sci. Math., 279,971

Damour, T., & Deruelle, N. 1985, Ann. Inst. H. Poincare (Phys. Theorique), 43, 107

Damour, T., & Deruelle, N. 1986, Ann. Inst. H. Poincare (Phys. Theorique), 44, 263

Damour, T., & Taylor, J. H. 1991, ApJ, 366, 501



Figure 2. Hourglass-shaped conal beam model. The model was fitted tothe even components of 1400 MHz profiles from 1981 to 2003.



Figure 3. Profiles of PSR B1913+16 at 430 MHz at three epochs. The corecomponent declines from 1980 to 1998 through 2003, indicating that the lineof sight is precessing away from the axis of a centered core pencil beam.

Hulse, R. A., & Taylor, J. H. 1975, ApJ, 195, L51

Kramer, M. 1998, ApJ, 509, 856

Kramer, M. 2002, Proc. Ninth Marcel Grossmann Meeting, ed. V.G. Gurzadyan, R.T.Jantzen, & R. Ruffini (Singapore, World Scientific), 219 [astro-ph/0105089]

Peters, P. C., & Mathews, J. 1963, Phys. Rev., 131, 435

Rankin, J. M. 1983, ApJ, 274, 333

Stairs, I. H., Splaver, E. M., Thorsett, S. E., Nice, D. J., & Taylor, J. H. 2000, MNRAS,314, 459

Taylor, J. H., & Weisberg, J. M. 1982, ApJ, 253, 908

Weisberg, J. M., Romani, R. W., & Taylor, J. H. 1989, ApJ, 347, 1030

Weisberg, J. M., & Taylor, J. H. 2002, ApJ, 576, 942

Weisberg, J. M., & Taylor, J. H. 2003, in ASP Conf. Ser. Vol. 302, Radio Pulsars, ed.M. Bailes, D. J. Nice, & S. E. Thorsett (San Francisco, ASP), 93


On October 7, 2016, Dr. Theodore (Ted) Rappaport of NYU WIRELESS (RCA Fellow and RCA Armstrong Medalist) gave a major speech in New

York City demonstrating that millimeter wave (mmWave) wireless communications work in rural settings.

Dr. Rappaport detailed the research, conducted in the summer of 2016, in which NYU WIRELESS analyzed the viability of line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) transmission of mmWave radio for rural settings. NYU WIRELESS used these statistics to generate the first-ever rural path loss model for mmWave frequencies at 73 GHz, demonstrating the remarkable distances that can be achieved using mmWave. Dr. Rappaport, NYU Tandon professor of electrical engineering and founding director of NYU WIRELESS, presented the research, including measurements and models at the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) MobiCom “All Things Cellular” workshop in New York City.

On July 14 of this year, the FCC voted unanimously on the historic Spectrum Frontiers plan to free up unprecedented amounts of radio bandwidth for unlicensed Wi-Fi access and a new, fifth generation (5G) of wireless communication. The move effectively quadruples the amount of radio bandwidth ever before available to the mobile industry. It also will reduce the cost and complexity of bringing Internet service to

underserved rural areas. Wireless carriers are looking at mmWave as an avenue for rural delivery of 5G wireless Internet service. Dr. Rappaport demonstrated that the approved Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) channel model standard—3GPP TR 38.900 (version 14)—has an error in its rural macrocellular model, making it unusable above 9.1 GHz. That 3GPP model never was verified with measurements. He detailed how an errant model made its way into the current 3GPP standard, and then offered a proven model that can be used for rural deployments at all frequencies.

The paper, “Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications: New Results for Rural Connectivity,” appears in All Things Cellular '16, published in conjunction with the ACM MobiCom conference on October 7, 2016. Authors include: George R. MacCartney Jr., Shu Sun, Theodore S. Rappaport, Yunchou Xing, Hangsong Yan, Jeton Koka, Ruichen Wang, and Dian Yu. A link to the complete paper is available from the Cornell University Library at: https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.05384.

The paper is highly technical. Dr. Rappaport also provided a link to the complete presentation discussing his team’s findings, which is available at: http://wireless.engineering.nyu.edu/presentations/Rural-Macrocell-path-loss-NYU-Al-things-cellular-Oct-7-2016.pdf. Some of the key slides from the presentation are as follows:

MILLIMETER WAVE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS: NEW RESULTS FOR RURAL CONNECTIVITYBy Dr. Theodore Rappaport

https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.05384





Dr. Rappaport welcomes discussion and input on mmWave and his team’s ongoing research.

Rappaport and NYU WIRELESS

Ted Rappaport holds the David Lee/Ernst Weber Chair in the Electrical and Computer Engineering

Department of the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering, as well as faculty appointments at Courant and the Department of Radiology at NYU Langone School of Medicine. NYU WIRELESS is a multi-disciplinary academic research center the Brooklyn engineering location providing a world-class research environment that is creating the fundamental theories and techniques for next-generation mass-deployable wireless devices

across a wide range of applications and markets. The center uniquely combines expertise from NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, School of Medicine, and Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences supporting the creation of new wireless circuits and systems as well as new health care solutions for the wireless industry. For more information, visit http://nyuwireless.com.

The key conclusions reached to date are as follows:

• mmWave communication links will be useful to rural distances greater than 10 kilometers (km) rural macrocell (RMa).

• Existing 3GPP LOS RMa path-loss models are not proven, and revert to a single slope model above 9.1 GHz due to

the breakpoint. The close-in (CI) path-loss model is simple, accurate and verified. Further work will include a factor in the path loss exponent PLE for transmit (TX) height.

Dr. Rappaport proposes to replace the existing 3GPP and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) RMa models, or make the CI RMa path-loss models optional. They

are based on measurements, applicable from 1 meter to 12 km, and frequencies of 500 MHz to 100 GHz, that should be increased, bringing to 4 or 8 decibels (db) (LOS/NLOS) to match current TR 38.900 3GPP RMa . The 3GPP and ITU RMa models with the proposed replacements in parameters are shown below:


THE FIRST POCKET RADIO PAGER: FROM INCEPTION TO OBSOLESCENCE(THEY DIDN’T ALWAYS GO BEEP BEEP)By Michael Clarson

It was the mid 1970s, and my first exposure to radio paging was as a technician with Motorola at their Springfield, N.J., shop. There were Pageboy I and IIs,

and the occasional Handie Talkie Pager form the early 1960s. All of these units were selectively alerted so a message only would get to the desired user. Several years later, I was on the corporate engineering team for Airsignal International, Inc., one of the first, if not the first, paging companies with operations across this country and beyond.

As a curious person, I was interested in the company’s history. Airsignal was formed when investors bought up several marginal paging operations, along with their associated telephone answering services, across the country. Many of these paging operations used Amplitude Modulation (AM) for paging, and they used a Florac device to get messages to subscribers. The company’s goal was to convert these systems from the 1950s into state-of-the-art Frequency Modulation (FM) systems with selective call pagers made by NEC to under-price their competitors who were using Motorola products. Although this was a good strategic plan, many state Public Utility Commissions would not let Airsignal discontinue Florac service.

FLORACThe obvious question is “What is a Florac?” A pager, of course. In the 1940s, FM broadcast radio was in its infancy. Radio Club of America (RCA) member Edwin H. Armstrong had his stations on 41 MHz, and the FCC opened a new band between 88 and 108 MHz to fit in television frequency allocations. Still, there was one major advantage that those using AM Broadcast had that FM broadcasters did not possess, and that was the use of portable radios. A small company, “Richard R. Florac Ultra Miniature Electronics,” made a pocketsized radio with two subminiature tubes (Figure 1). The radio operated on a Super-Regenerative design, a method of detection invented by Armstrong in the 1920s that was extremely sensitive, simple, worked well on FM and AM alike, but was not very selective. Amateur radio operators from the 1960s might remember the Heathkit Twoer which used this detector on the 144 MHz Amateur band.

Figure 1. Raytheon subminiature tube.

Figure 2. First page of patent for the Florac tube paging receiver.


THE FLORAC PAGERIn the late 1940s, an established telephone answering service in New York, Telanserphone, sought a way to reach its subscribers when they were not near their phone. A device like the Florac FM portable seemed to be the right solution. Florac developed a two-tube pocket-sized radio pager that could hear an AM transmitter on 43.58 MHz (Figure 2). In 1950, the first radio page to a pocket receiver was completed (Figures 3 and 4). Here is how it worked. Each subscriber was assigned a three-digit number. When a message came in, the operator received the message and recorded the three-digit number on a tape loop, and this loop would play continuously on the transmitter for a specified period of time, typically 15 minutes. Periodically, the subscriber would check for messages by taking the receiver out of his pocket, pressing the ON switch, letting the tubes warm up, holding the unit to his ear, tuning in the transmitter and listening for his number. If his number was announced, he would find a telephone, call the service and get the message. What could be more convenient?

By the mid 1950s, the FLORAC evolved into a slightly smaller solid-state design made with three transistors, eliminating the warmup time and improving battery life. It still had an aluminum case and the noodle wire antenna.

AIRSIGNALFast forward to 1970, and the Bogen 250-watt AM transmitters were becoming unreliable, but the Floracs were still being used. When Airsignal, Inc. purchased some of these systems and was required to maintain service, they sought a manufacturer of AM transmitters. Philadelphia used a transmitter made by Amcor (Figure 5), a paging terminal manufacturer. It ran 350 watts, to a pair of 4-125 tubes modulated by another pair of 4-125s. It was reliable, but was not upgradable to the more modern FM systems. I believe it was the only one in existence.

Airsignal attempted to obtain an AM transmitter that was upgradable to FM and contacted Motorola, General Electric, and Gates Broadcasting, with no success. Shortly after contacting Gates, a Gates engineer offered to build a transmitter for Airsignal if the company would order 10 of them. They did, he did, and the Quintron QT-350 was born. It operated on either AM or FM, on remote command, and could run 350 watts 24 hours a day. And so, FLORACs held onto their market for a few more years.

Should anyone have any additional information to share, I may be reached at [email protected]

ABOUT THE AUTHORMichael J. Clarson has, since building his first crystal set at the age of 8, and obtaining his Amateur License (WV2ZOW) at age 10, developed a lifelong passion for radio. The hobby spawned a career as a technician then

an engineer, primarily in the land mobile industry. Mike currently is employed by Parsons Corporation, and one of his most recent projects is the design of the public safety radio system for the World Trade Center complex in New York City.

REFERENCESInformation sources used to prepare this article are summarized below:

• The FLORAC FM radio: http://www.ohio.edu/people/postr/bapix/FloracRd.htm.

• More on Richard Florac and Telanserphone: http://www.smecc.org/richard_florac_-_first_pager,_early_portable_fm_radios.htm.

• The Motorola Handie Talkie Pager: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHqLixYhbXs.

• The Amcor power monitor and FLORAC were photographed from the author’s collection. The Radio

Figure 3. Florac Pager.

Figure 5. AMCOR power and modulation monitor for the AM-500 transmitter.

Figure 4. Open Florac Pager.

http://www.ohio.edu/people/postr/bapix/FloracRd.htm

http://www.smecc.org/richard_florac_-_first_pager,_early_portable_fm_radios.htm

http://www.smecc.org/richard_florac_-_first_pager,_early_portable_fm_radios.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHqLixYhbXs


The Radio Club of America (RCA) has embarked on an initiative to partner with numerous critical and prestigious organizations in the wireless industry,

thanks to the efforts of Director John Facella. These partnerships are very much in synchrony with RCA's broader goals and efforts: getting youth interested in wireless through amateur radio; our college scholarship program; providing continuing professional engineering and technical training through our Technical Symposium and a new program which will be announced soon; offering opportunities for professional networking; and historical preservation.

RCA’s partnership program involves signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with each partner whereby RCA and the partner agree to provide improved benefits to the other organization’s members. Benefits to members vary depending on the partnership agreement, and details can be found on each organization’s website.

Our first partnership agreement was executed with the Electronic Technicians Association (ETA). ETA is well known in the wireless industry for providing vital training and credentialing to technical personnel who develop, install, maintain, and troubleshoot wireless systems. RCA also has entered into partnership agreements with APCO International, the Antique Wireless Association, IWCE, and the U.S. Navy Cryptologic Veterans Association. Several other partnerships are expected to be announced in the future.

Brief descriptions of our new organizational partners are as follows. We welcome all of them to RCA!

The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International (APCO) is a member

driven association of communications professionals that provides leadership; influences public safety communications decisions of government and industry; promotes professional development; and, fosters the development and use of technology for the benefit of the public. www.apcointl.org.

The Antique Wireless Association was formed in 1952 and is an educational non-profit organization chartered by the State of New York. AWA operates the Antique Wireless Museum in Bloomfield, New York, dedicated to preserving and

sharing the history of technology used to communicate and entertain from the first telegram to today’s wireless text messaging. AWA Deputy Director Robert Hobday said, “The AWA believes the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with RCA will open avenues to new or existing members for both organizations, and we are excited to partner with RCA.” RCA President Tim Duffy said, “RCA Director Dave Bart saw the potential in this partnership, because both of our organizations believe in honoring the past in order to ensure the future of the wireless industry.” Visit AWA on Facebook or at their website: www.antiquewireless.org.

Since 1978, ETA has delivered over 200,000 professional certifications. ETA certifications are widely recognized and frequently used in worker job selection, hiring processes, pay increases, advancements, and often required as companies

bid on contracts. ETA's certifications are personal and travel with the individual, regardless of employment or status change and measure competencies of persons, not products or vendors. All ETA certifications are accredited through the International Certification Accreditation Council (ICAC) and align with the IS0-17024 standard. For more information, visit www.eta-i.org.

IWCE is the authoritative event for education, networking and collaboration in the communications technology marketplace. IWCE features over 370 exhibitors showcasing the

latest products and technology in the industry. From land mobile radio, to wireless mobility… voice, video, data and everything in between. www.iwceexpo.com.

NEW PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM EXPANDS RCA'S REACH AND MEMBERSHIP OFFERINGS


The U.S. Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association comprises active, retired, and honorably discharged U.S. Navy Cryptologists. U.S. NCVA’s primary focus is to preserve and promote a rich cryptologic

history. The U.S. NCVA onducts annual reunions, provides fraternal, social, and recreational activities for members and guests and encourages and supports the preservation of the history of cryptology by members of the association and appropriate federal agencies. usncva.org.

MADE IN USA

San Jose, CA USA • 1-800-331-3396www.telewave.com • [email protected]

For more information about the RCA partnership program, go to www.radioclubofamerica.org/partners. For organizations interested in partnering with RCA please contact RCA Director John Facella by email at [email protected].


The Radio Club of America regularly celebrates its historic ties to the legendary Maj. Edwin Howard Armstrong. Typically, we remember his four

major inventions: regeneration, super-regeneration, the superheterodyne, and frequency modulation. In addition, Armstrong directly influenced the development of early portable radios.

As the commercial radio boom exploded in 1922, numerous companies began to promote the portability of their radio sets. The Radio Corporation of America ("RCA" in this article) was not alone in bringing out a small, portable set that provided a headset for the listener and which required a separate antenna and separate battery power source. But what about speakers so that the sound could be reproduced for a room full of listeners, and could the antenna be incorporated into the radio? RCA would seize on publicity surrounding Armstrong’s new marriage to develop and help popularize a newly designed, fully functional, self-contained portable set.

1922-1924 SUPERHETERODYNESBy October 1922, Western Electric (WE) engineers had developed a seven-tube superheterodyne Model 4A receiver for AT&T that filled a table to operate. RCA’s Director of Research, Dr. Alfred N. Goldsmith, was shown the radio. Progress in the circuits aside, the radio’s size and configuration were typical for its time; it required separate batteries, antenna, circuit box and headphones to operate, as well as some knowledge and skill by the radio enthusiast. Meanwhile, RCA worked with General Electric (GE) to develop its own version of the tabletop radio, the AR812, which it brought to

market in March 1924. Armstrong and his coworker, Harry Houck, were the principle contributors to the AR812, the first RCA superheterodyne, which utilized the second harmonic principle in its circuit.

RCA RADIOLA II PORTABLE RADIO, 1923RCA, along with other manufacturers, sought to simplify and reduce the sheer bulk of the radios offered, so as to develop a broader market appeal and to merchandise the sets for broader public consumption. RCA announced its Radiola II in December, 1922. Yet, the Radiola II was not sold until late January 1923, or nationally advertised until June 1923, due to a shortage of the required UV199 radio tubes and other issues, including RCA’s desire not to encroach on the sales of remaining inventory from its prior models.

Manufactured by GE for RCA, the Radiola II (AR800) was RCA’s first truly portable radio. However, although it was produced in an attractive mahogany cabinet, it still had no amplifier, speaker or antenna. The total production run was 9,594, and the retail price was advertised at $97.50 (equivalent to $2,014 today). The purchase included a pair of Brandes headsets, two UV199 tubes and a set of batteries. The customer only needed an antenna to tune the stations. The radio used a tuned radio frequency (TRF) receiver with a reaction (regenerative) circuit, with one audio frequency stage requiring a set of dry batteries: 2 x 22.5 volts and 2 x 4.5 volts. One of the promotions stated: “With even with an improvised antenna it will pick good, big distances-clearly. And over short distances, it will operate a loudspeaker.”

SOME EARLY HISTORY OF RCA PORTABLE RADIOSBy David and Julia Bart

Western Electric Model 4A tabletop superheterodyne set, 1923. RCA publicity photo for the Model AR812, 1924.


DEVELOPMENTS 1923-1924In February 1923, just one month after Goldsmith had seen WE’s seven-tube superheterodyne, the tabletop

Model 4A radio, Armstrong walked into David Sarnoff’s office at RCA with his own simplified model. By using WD11 tubes and combining functions, he had whittled his model down to a (just barely) portable suitcase. Sarnoff, RCA’s legendary president, immediately saw the possibilities.

Armstrong was a flamboyant personality. In 1923, he climbed the WJZ (now WABC) antenna located atop a 20-story building in New York City, where he reportedly

RCA Radiola II, 1923.

Interior of RCA Radiola II, 1923.

Advertisement for the RCA Radiola II, September 1923, Popular Science.

Wireless Age, March 1924.

Armstrong and his new wife Esther Marion MacInnis in Palm Beach in 1923.


did a handstand. He answered a witness who asked him why he did “these damn fool things” by stating, “I do it because the spirit moves me.” Armstrong had prearranged for photographs to be taken, which he had delivered to Sarnoff’s secretary, Marion MacInnis. Armstrong and MacInnis married later that year. Armstrong bought a Hispano-Suiza motor car before the wedding, which he kept until his death. RCA seized on the moment to produce publicity photos of Armstrong presenting Marion with the world’s first portable superheterodyne radio as a wedding gift.

RCA’s engineers recognized that commercial production could be feasible. Sarnoff saw a chance to scoop the market and cancelled millions of dollars in existing production orders with Westinghouse and GE to prioritize the new project. RCA’s top engineers (many familiar to the Radio Club of America) including Armstrong, Alfred Goldsmith, Harry Houck, Albert Hull and Irving Langmuir worked to solve problems with tubes,

oscillator circuit feedback, compact circuit designs and packaging everything into a smaller case. Since the superheterodyne was the first decent commercial radio on the market, RCA understood that the next imperative was to develop and market a truly self-contained version.

RCA’s entrants into the burgeoning portable radio market were made by two of its suppliers under cross-licensing agreements: one made by Westinghouse and another by GE, both shareholders of RCA since its inception

Advertising for the RCA Radiola 24 and 25, Saturday Evening Post, May 16, 1925.

Advertising photo for the RCA Radiola 24.

Exterior and interior of the RCA Radiola 24 portable radio.


in 1919. Generally, RCA’s radios manufactured by the two different companies sometimes left those two manufacturers occasionally competing with each other for the same consumer niche. GE’s portable radio, the Radiola 24, was contained in a converted leather-covered suitcase that loosely resembled Armstrong’s initial concept. Westinghouse’s portable radio, the Radiola 26, was a completely new set that looked and truly represented a brand new concept for portability. It provided everything—the antenna, circuit, and sound reproduction—in a small custom-designed wooden case.

RCA introduced the first mass-produced superheterodyne radio in 1925, only after both its tabletop AR812 models and its console Super VIII models completed their production; both would remain available through stores into 1926.

RCA RADIOLA 24The Radiola 24 was manufactured by GE and introduced in May 1925 at a suggested retail price of $195 (less batteries). The Radiola 24 was mostly a repackaging of earlier components into a salesman sample-sized suitcase that opened. The antenna was removed from

the lid and then inserted into the top of the radio. Superheterodynes generally still were expensive, but the portability offered a new consumer product, even if it was not glamorous. The Radiola 24 was basically a six-tube Radiola AR812 in a smaller package, enclosed in a cowhide leather case, which included a large folded horn speaker in the main case and an antenna that could be plugged into the top of the set after removing it from the lid. The comparable cost of a new Ford car was $299. The Radiola 24 was dropped from RCA’s lineup by Christmas 1925.

RCA RADIOLA 26, 1925

The Radiola 26 had its roots in research conducted by Arthur Van Dyck. Formerly an engineer for Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, Van Dyck joined GE in 1919 and moved to RCA in 1922. One of his projects sought to design a portable superheterodyne. Some of his early work eventually evolved into the Radiola 26 after Armstrong’s and Houck’s new circuit concepts were incorporated.

The Radiola 26 was manufactured by Westinghouse for RCA and introduced in June 1925 at a suggested retail

The Radiola Super VIII, RCA Research Dept. Model #1 (left) and Model #2 (right), April and June 1923, respectively.

The RCA Radiola 26.

Interior views of the folded sound reproduction horn, RCA Radiola 26.


price of $225. The simple but finished walnut box with disappearing brass latches and copper controls formed a bridge between current tabletop radio designs and a new portable concept. The new integrated design resembled the AR812 circuit and contained six tubes, batteries, rotating loop antenna, and a folded horn speaker. Instead of metal, it had a decorative wood grill over the horn. It was fitted with a more restrained antenna built into the front door that could rotate, and whose wiring was hidden in channels drilled into the case and soldered to the door hinges. Additional wiring was channeled into the frame of the door, which had a rotating contact point at the base of the antenna door.

The radio even came with a “docking station” that held larger batteries if used in stationary mode (the battery box/docking station can be seen in the picture). The docking station also could be connected to an outside antenna for better reception. (The docking station had a coil that couples to the door/loop antenna when it is fastened to the back of this radio, and also had a trimmer capacitor that matched the outside antenna to the radio.) Westinghouse integrated a brass horn speaker that folded in on itself to replicate the effectiveness of a 31-inch horn, but a separate speaker could be used instead to improve audio quality. Aluminum, used under the walnut, reduced the weight. The antenna even could be dismounted from the door hinge and remounted on the back of the radio. Electrical connections on the rear provide connectivity for the antenna. Thus, although it was portable, this radio still could be used as a tabletop model for the living room.

SUCCESSBy 1925 the portable radio had come of age. Hugo Gernsback’s Radio News published its “First Annual Portable Radio Set Directory” listing 22 models from 16 manufacturers. RCA’s Radiola 26 used the same six-tube superheterodyne/reflex design that Edwin Armstrong perfected for RCA in 1924 (in doing so he became the largest single owner of RCA stock). The walnut Radiola 26 blew away the leather-suitcase Radiola 24 and its competitors. Approximately 20,000 Radiola 26 radios were made compared with only 8,000 Radiola 24s; many Radiola 26s have survived to today, so that radio seems to have been preserved by the general public.

Armstrong, Houck, Goldsmith, Hull, Langmuir, Van Dyck and Sarnoff—these are all legendary names that should be familiar to Radio Club of America members. They created the legacies we now share today. As we carry our cellular phones in our pockets for use as minicomputers and digital radios in an Internet age, we should reflect back and remember that the simplest reception of radio signals once required leading-edge commercial equipment that occupied a tabletop, then a suitcase, and then the first portable radios.

SOURCESArmstrong, Edwin Howard (1924, Oct.), The Superheterodyne – Its Origin, Development, and Some Recent Improvements, Proceedings of the IRE, Vol. 12, p. 539. Later reprinted in Radio Broadcast (1924, July) with different figures, and also in the Proceedings of the Radio Club of America (1990, Nov.) Vol. 64 No. 3, Legacies of Edwin Howard Armstrong.

Douglas, Alan (1991), Radio Manufacturers of the 1920s, Sonoran Publishing, LLC.

Douglas, Alan (1990, Nov.), Who Invented the Superheterodyne?, Proceedings of the Radio Club of America, Vol.64 no.3, The Legacies of Edwin Howard Armstrong.

O’Bannon, Steve (2016), Who Left the Luggage in the Living Room? RCA’s Curious Hybrid, http://www.rexophone.com/?p=742.

O’Bannon, Steve (2016), Two Popular Boxes- How Fast Technology Can Run When It’s New!, http://www.rexophone.com/?p=1296.

Schiffer, Michael Brian (1992), The Portable Radio in American Life, University of Arizona Press.

Wenaas, Eric (2007), Radiola: The Golden Age of RCA, 1919-1929, Sonoran Publishing, LLC.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

David Bart is Chairman of the RCA Publications Committee and a member of the AWA Board of Directors. He is also the treasurer of the IEEE History Committee. Julia Bart is an advisor to AWA and coauthor of numerous articles for AWA and RCA.

http://www.rexophone.com/?p=742





So you just passed your ham radio exam and you are officially “on the air” – now what?

If you are like many newbies to the art of amateur radio, just being able to make contacts (QSOs) using that brand new call sign, and exchanging information with others in faraway lands using your own equipment from your garage or backroom “radio shack” is exciting. I remember my first QSO was with another enthusiast who was using a portable radio, on a 220 MHz linked repeater network, who was watching the sunset from the summit of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. He took the time to not only confirm my first contact and welcome me to the world of amateur radio, but also proceeded to describe the breathtaking views of the valley below and the multitude of colors as the sun fell below the horizon. This, all while sitting in my garage some 400 miles away! Upon reflection, this was probably just another one of your typical “ragchews” (casual conversations); to me (keeping in mind that I was a youth at the time) it was one of those lifetime milestones that just had to be shared with others over and over and over … yeah, you’re right, I was probably the only one truly excited about it.

Of course, there were more interesting events to come, like working Nets and the occasional DXing Contests, participating in Ham Radio Field Day, or attending what many consider the ultimate experience for hams; the Amateur Radio Hamfest.

As the members of the prestigious Radio Club of America (RCA) well know, the club is highly dedicated to encouraging the youth of America to become interested and involved in this world of amateur radio, and to embrace the technology, learn the theory, and practice the discipline that goes hand in hand with it. And while this is often seen by the outside observer as merely a “hobby,” in reality the expertise gained also can be used to assist public safety in providing lifesaving services to the communities in which they live. When we talk to the youth about Amateur Radio, and the fun of events and contacts, we also should emphasize that they also could become a part of the greater public safety community. Many of the radio technicians and communications personnel working in public safety today started out as a licensed amateur radio operator as a youth and later became involved in supporting their local public safety agencies through such organizations as the Radio

Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES), or the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES).

But did you know that as a licensed radio amateur, your expertise is also an integral part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Emergency Communications (OEC) National Emergency Communications Plan? Known as AUXCOMMs (Auxiliary Communications personnel), amateur radio operators have been assisting public safety for more than the last 100 years with critical communications during natural and manmade disasters. Amateur operators are a huge asset because they utilize systems that are totally separate from those used by public safety, and the general public; they often can send and receive messages over great distances when normal communication systems over large areas are down. AUXCOMMs provide various types of communications support to emergency management, public safety, and governmental agencies, not only during emergency incidents, also for planned events, community functions, and training exercises. Trained AUXCOMMs are a valuable communications resource that can be used by local, county, regional, tribal or state agencies and organizations. The OEC’s Auxiliary Communications Field Operations Guide (AUXFOG) is a great source of information and can be found on the DHS website at www.publicsafetytools.info. This page contains additional links to “TA/SCIP Requests” that provide a catalog of courses, descriptions, and details on how to take an AUXCOMM class under the Communications Unit Training and Support section.

Requirements to take the AUXCOMM training class include completion of the Incident Command System (ICS) modules IS-100, IS-200, IS-700, and IS-800, all of which are available to take online at www.fema.gov and at no cost. You must hold a General Class FCC License or above (yep – If you are a Technician Class you will need to study and get that General ticket), and have some previous experience in providing auxiliary communications (e.g., RACES, ARES).

No matter if you are just learning about amateur radio through the RCA Youth Program or have been an amateur radio operator for decades, you should consider volunteering with one of your local public safety services. Who knows, it could lead to a whole new career.

AMATEUR RADIO AND PUBLIC SAFETY COMMUNICATIONSBy John Wright, N6RPD, RCA Fellow & APCO Past President


“There is nothing stronger than the heart of a volunteer” – Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle

ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Wright, N6RPD, is the Immediate Past President of the Association of Public-Safety Officials (APCO) International. He is a Governing Board Member of the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) and Past President of the California

Public-Safety Radio Association. He retired from the City of Riverside (California) Police Department with over 37 years of service managing the city's Public Safety Communications Center (combined Police/Fire/EMS 9-1-1 Center). He is a recipient of the APCO International RF Technician of the Year award. He served as Radioman 2nd Class - US Navy in the Vietnam War.

FRESH CONTENT – ON THE –

RCA WEBSITE

We have been hard at work refreshing and adding content to the RCA website to make it the go-to place for RCA news and events.

VISIT THE SITE FOR: • 2015 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 [email protected] if you need a new password or have difficulty logging in.

uRADIOCLUBOFAMERICA.ORG

The Radio Club of ameRiCa, inC.

http://www.radioclubofamerica.org


SIGNAL magazine marked its 70th anniversary in 2016. This is the primary

publication of The Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA), which was established in 1946. AFCEA is a non-profit membership-driven association serving the military, government, industry, and academia as an ethical forum for advancing professional knowledge and relationships in the fields of communications, information technology, intelligence, and security. AFCEA traces its roots back to the Civil War but realized its modern organizational form in 1946. It has more than 35,000 members in 151 chapters, and 1,590 corporate members. AFCEA helps members advance information technology, communications and electronics capabilities.

As part of its anniversary, SIGNAL published a series of essays based on interviews with members and leaders in the field. These essays offer an interesting perspective on the shifting priorities and demand for communications and information technologies, and the adoption and application of those technologies over the last seven decades. Changing circumstances and advances in technology produced evolving command structures, shifting requirements for

information flow, differing security concerns, and adaptations in the management of independent units in the field, all developed with rapidly changing solutions and approaches.

The essays also note the interplay of battlefield needs, available advances in current technology, and the military’s demand for new solutions which, in turn, stimulated the development of even more new products and concepts. Leadership and evolution came from contributions made by the commercial civilian world, the military-industrial complex, and purely military arenas.

The series is available at http://www.afcea.org/content/?q=table-contents-september-2016 and the archival links to the previous issues at http://www.afcea.org/content/?q=archives. A summary of the 2016 series follows:

Signal Magazine's 70th Anniversary Essays on CommunicationNEWS ITEM

MARCH 1 Signal Evolves From Enabler to Domain 2005-2016 Digitization of the force has moved information systems from a supporting role to a co-star in the battle space

APRIL 2 Signal Shifts Focus After Industry Takes Lead 1996-2005 Silicon Valley, 9/11 and cyberspace are central to the move away from information assurance and analog communication

MAY 3 Satellites Become Vital to Signal Success 1986-1995 Data, video and imagery drive communication requirements during Desert Storm and beyond

JUNE 4 Signal Embraces Generational Changes 1976-1985 People, training and technology move from analog to digital in the post-Viet Nam world

JULY 5 Signal During the Final Decade of Analog Communications

1966-1975 The fall of Saigon ends the analog world of tube radios and line-of-sight communications

AUGUST 6 Signal Improves Field Communications 1956-1965 The message becomes more important than the messenger

SEPTEMBER 7 Different Wars Change Signals 1946-1955 A veteran of WWII and the Korean War shares how these dissimilar conflicts shaped military communications


The rise of China and Chinese technology research and industry has been an ongoing

source of headlines and debate (or lack thereof) among American policymakers. However, the Institute of Physics issued a special report about the state of Chinese Physics in the September 2016 edition of Physics World.

Plans to build a 240 GeV Circular Electron–Positron Collider (CEPC) that would outperform CERN’s Large Hadron Collider are just the latest example of a massive buildup of investment by the Chinese. The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is now operational, while the China Spallation Neutron Source in Dongguan is due to open next year. In addition, the China Jinping Underground Laboratory has plans to study neutrinos, dark matter and stellar reactions, and the country’s space program will launch its first lunar sample-return

mission next year and land the world’s first craft on the far side of the moon in 2018. Meanwhile, the China Institute of Atomic Energy is working on an ambitious “fast” reactor program, which seeks to build a new generation of nuclear plants that reuse waste as fuel. An experimental fast reactor opened in 2011, with a demonstration plant set to be built by 2023 and a commercial facility by 2030. And, in August, China launched the world's first satellite dedicated to testing the fundamentals of quantum communication in space.

China has realized that research should not just meet short-term goals, such as developing high-speed trains, solar panels or new drugs. “Blue-skies” research that can yield long-term dividends has been, and is becoming, a major national initiative. Spending on R&D as a fraction of gross domestic product (GDP) has more than doubled since 2000 to 2.1% in

2014 according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The budget of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) has risen 300 percent over the past 30 years, with most of that rise occurring in the last decade. Elsevier’s Scopus database reports that Chinese researchers accounted for almost 19% of all scientific and research papers published in 2015. And in June, China’s president, Xi Jinping, told a meeting of Chinese scientific leaders that the country should be a leading scientific innovator by 2030 and a dominant scientific country by 2049.

This dramatic growth in basic research will have major implications for American science, technology and industrial development. The special issue of Physics World is available at http://tinyurl.com/z6crswg.

China launched the world's first quantum science satellite on August 16, 2016. The

satellite is dedicated to testing the fundamentals of quantum communication in space. The collaborative endeavor between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Austrian Academy of Sciences began in 2011 and the assembly was completed earlier this year. The 600 kilogram (kg) satellite is now in Earth orbit at 500 kilometers (km) above ground.

The craft's main instrument is a "Sagnac" interferometer that is used to generate two entangled infrared photons by shining an ultraviolet laser on a non-linear

optical crystal. The $100 million Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) mission will demonstrate the feasibility of quantum communication between Earth and space, and test quantum entanglement over unprecedented distances. The main goal of QUESS will be to demonstrate quantum key distribution (QKD) between the satellite and two stations on the ground – the Nanshan 25 meter (m) telescope at the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory in western China and the Xinglong Observatory in Yanshan, 200 km south of Beijing.

Once these targets have been met, the Chinese team then

will collaborate with Anton Zeilinger and colleagues at the University of Vienna to create an "intercontinental" QKD channel between Beijing and Vienna, with the option of including stations in Italy and Germany.

"QUESS will be the first test of quantum communication with a satellite," says Zeilinger. "It can also be seen as a very significant step towards a future worldwide quantum Internet."

Indeed, China is planning to launch several similar satellites to create a quantum communications network by 2030. Additional information is available at http://tinyurl.com/jcp7otn.

State of China Technology

China Launches First Quantum Satellite

NEWS ITEM

NEWS ITEM


The IEEE Communications Society (COMSOC) has issued a white paper “Protecting

the Sky: Signal Monitoring of Radio Controlled Civilian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Possible Countermeasures.” This whitepaper provides insights into the use, specifications, and impact of radio-controlled (RC) unmanned aerial vehicles (commonly referred

to as "drones"). UAVs intended for recreational use increasingly are being used for other (sometimes hostile) purposes. These include: observing/disturbing public events; spying in protected areas; smuggling contraband into prisons; endangering/threatening commercial air traffic; and entering restricted airspace. A technical approach for countering the threats

posed by such drones is described, and includes: monitoring the spectrum for relevant signals; identification of frequency-agile RC signals; direction finding; and possible defensive countermeasures. The whitepaper can be downloaded at http://tinyurl.com/h4pv5ur.

Bell Labs, the IEEE, and the IEEE Information Theory Society unveiled an IEEE

Milestone in Electrical Engineering and Computing recognizing Claude Shannon on April 30, 2016. The milestone was placed as part of the Claude Shannon Centennial Conference held in Murray Hill, N.J. The plaque reads:

“The mathematical principles of Information Theory, laid down by Claude Elwood Shannon during the period 1939-1967, set in motion a revolution in communication systems

engineering. They quantified the concept of information, established fundamental limits for the representation and reliable transmission of information, and revealed the architecture of systems for approaching them. Today, Information Theory, continues to provide the foundation for advances in information collection, storage, distribution, and processing.”

Shannon was an electrical engineer, and cryptographer widely known as "the father of information theory." He is noted for his landmark paper published in 1948. He is

perhaps equally well known for founding digital circuit design theory in 1937 while he was a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He wrote his thesis demonstrating that electrical applications of Boolean algebra could construct any logical, numerical relationship. Shannon contributed to the field of cryptanalysis for national defense during World War II, which included his basic work on code breaking and secure telecommunications.

Radio Signal Monitoring For Drones

Claude Shannon IEEE Milestone

NEWS ITEM

NEWS ITEM

IEEE Milestone for Claude Shannon.Claude Shannon in 1992.


In 2015, Harish Krishnaswamy, an electrical engineer at Columbia University, demonstrated the

ability to transmit and receive signals on the same frequency using two antennas in a full duplex radio that he built. In April 2016, Negar Reiskarimian, a Ph.D. student under Krishnaswamy, embedded this technology on a chip that eventually could be used in smartphones and tablets. In Negar’s chip, the transmitter and receiver share a single antenna.

Typically, smartphones and tablets exchange signals over at least two antennas, where the signals are coordinated either by time or frequency. In time-division duplex, the transmitter and receiver take turns broadcasting on the same frequency. In frequency-division duplex, the transmitter and receiver broadcast on separate frequencies at the same time.

Harish’s research and his new chip circumvent “Lorentz Reciprocity,” where electromagnetic waves are thought to move along the same paths when traveling both backward and forward. Historically, Lorentz Reciprocity has enabled engineers to bypass reciprocity by designing circulators built of magnetic materials that disrupt the reciprocity by permitting waves to flow only forward and not backward, which allows for the simultaneous transmission of two signals. This type of circulator is expensive and bulky for smartphones, and the magnetic fields disrupt other

functions. Consequently, this type of circulator most often is used for military purposes.

Negar overcame the reciprocity issue by implanting silicon transistors onto the face of a CMOS chip in an arrangement that reroutes signals as they are captured by both the transmitter and the receiver, in order to avoid interference. The signals then circulate in a clockwise fashion. Performance is further enhanced by using an echo-cancelling receiver that the lab also pioneered, which prevents the transmitted signals from echoing back into a receiver when a full duplex radio is in operation.

Additional research is needed to increase the power levels that are necessary to connect to a mobile network.

Further information is available at http://tinyurl.com/gt4devw.

Bell Labs, now part of Nokia, organized the Claude Shannon Centennial Conference. Shannon worked at Bell Labs from 1941 until 1956, when he joined the MIT faculty. He died in 2001 at age 84. The Conference marked the 100th anniversary of his birth on April 30. The two-day conference focused on the future digital information economy and the impact of information theory on society through the years. This special event celebrated Shannon’s life and commemorated his profound impact with the creation of new Nokia Bell Labs

Shannon Visionary Awards that were presented at the event. The Visionary Awards winners included:

• Amber Case, Cyborg Anthropologist and User Experience Designer

• Irwin Mark Jacobs, Founding Chairman and CEO Emeritus of Qualcomm

• Henry Markram, Professor of Neuroscience at the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology (EPFL)

• Robert Metcalfe, Internet Pioneer credited for inventing Ethernet

• Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Alphabet Inc. and its holding companies, including Google Inc.

Complete news coverage is available from IEEE at http://tinyurl.com/j8o7epa. Also, the IEEE Spectrum republished its April 1992 profile about Shannon, which is available at http://tinyurl.com/zw9c6yf. Finally, information about the centennial conference can be found at http://tinyurl.com/h7mapj7.

New DuplexRadio ChipNEWS ITEM

Full Duplex Radio Chip. (Image: Negar Reiskarimian/ Columbia Engineering.)


EDITOR’S NOTE: This issue of the Proceedings of the Radio Club of America brings another installment from the next generation of inventors and developers in wireless and radio. The Voices of Tomorrow column provides a place for younger people to share their work in a professional setting. RCA is interested in finding students (primarily college or high-school level) who are interested in writing about their explorations, ideas and contributions to the fields of wireless and radio. We congratulate Divyam Mishra on his first professional publication, and we encourage submissions by others for future columns. Please contact the Editor, David Bart at [email protected], for further information or to submit draft articles for publication.

In the era of technological advancement, we often are reactive in dealing with maintenance problems. Frequently, on short notice, we are drawn forcefully

toward fixing the problems that suddenly become priorities. Can technology turn us from reactive to proactive by predicting when certain gadgets may malfunction, and allow us to do preventive maintenance?

The solution lies in predictive analysis of data-in-motion, i.e., recently generated data that is not stored yet. These analytics produce results to alert us about impending problems. The solution must have a set of known rules or patterns it can apply on data-in-motion to generate rapid alerts.

A network of sensors can intelligently collect data-in-motion from things around us, and run predictive analytics to give us meaningful information about possible failures. This provides us a way to learn about failures before they happen, and gives us an opportunity to proactively fix them rather than reactively responding to them after they occur.

OVERVIEWI have undertaken an engineering project that combines the concepts of data-in-motion, predictive analytics, and Internet of Things (IoT) technology. The product I am developing contains Arduinos with temperature sensors attached to them that communicate via wireless protocol to a centralized Raspberry Pi in the home.

Once the Pi is placed in the home, the main device will interact with all of the sensors, and then the sensors will pair to the Pi. Each sensor in the Pi’s main program will have its own identity attributes, so that specific data can be sent to the cloud in an organized manner. The centralized Raspberry Pi will evaluate the data and store it in the cloud, from where the owner can retrieve data on his/her device.

This system also will be able to analyze temperature patterns by using a temperature and humidity sensor to collect data that will be processed by the Raspberry Pi. The system will document this data in the cloud by storing the data and then displaying this data with graphs and analytics. The data can be displayed via Augmented Reality.

In the future, this type of system, which collects volumes of data, not only will be present in your home, but also will be present in our cars, offices, appliances, and healthcare. Figure 1 shows all of the potential uses of this system. This system will be able to detect problems that might occur in the future beforehand, so that we can be more reactive.

IMPLEMENTATIONThe Home Sensor Network is built by placing Arduinos around a house. The Arduinos collect temperature data and transmit to the centralized Raspberry Pi. A user can

VOICES OF TOMORROWFROM REACTIVE TO PROACTIVEBy Divyam Mishra

Figure 1: The possible applications of ProBoT.


receive temperature data via email. The Raspberry Pi then uses a Passive Infrared (PIR) sensor and camera to detect movement in the house.

When the PIR sensor detects movement, it triggers the camera to take multiple pictures that are compared. If a difference is spotted, the pictures are uploaded to Dropbox. Figure 2 shows the design of the system.

CHALLENGESOne of the challenges of this project was to detect movement. The PIR sensor is not reliable due to its sensitivity to small variations. For example, if local heat is present, the PIR sensor will sense the heat instead of movement. The solution is to have the camera module double check the PIR sensor’s alarms. We do this by capturing multiple images when the PIR sensor detects something. Figure 3 shows my work environment and the prototype. These images are then compared side by side for pixel differences of more than 10 percent. Thus, the PIR sensor and camera module work together to create better reliability and security.

Another major design issue that needed to be resolved related to the structure of the program that runs on the Raspberry Pi. A centralized program on the Raspberry Pi processes data from the sensors. In this process, the camera module becomes a bottleneck and introduces delay in the system. Figure 4 shows pseudocode that provided the solution. The time needs to be shorter

because it takes too much time to boot up the camera, take a picture, and send it to the cloud.

To solve this problem, an asynchronous processing model is used to perform these steps in a distributed manner. The main program submits a job in the Pykka Actor queue to process camera operations asynchronously alongside the main program. Figure 5 shows a section of the code written in Python.

Figure 2: The functionality of the current system.

Figure 4: Pseudo-code of the solution to the multiprocessing problem.

Figure 5: Snippet of Python code for multoprocessing.

Figure 3: A working environment with the system and a serial monitor displaying data.


RESULTSAs the speed of the movement increased, the reliability of alerts decreased. Using a higher-resolution camera slows down the system performance, while a lower-resolution camera gives optimum system performance at the cost of reliability. Figure 6 visually shows the reliability of the system in particular situations.

Cloud storage is not yet reliable, and some uploads are guaranteed to fail. This creates a problem as data and alerts could be lost. Cloud storage service is also inconsistent – meaning that data updates are delayed, and some users may see stale data from different parts of the world. Figure 7 illustrates the reliability aspects of cloud storage.

APPLICATIONBy looking at the results, it is apparent that reliability must be improved. The project in its current form only tests a single Arduino with a Raspberry Pi. It is vital to determine how well this system can scale after adding multiple Arduinos to the design.

My results suggest that the reliability of this system can be improved greatly, especially in the movement-detection system. Further research is needed to develop a fully operational prototype. This project has not yet addressed the need for securing the data all the way from data generation at sensors to data-in-motion between the Arduino, the Raspberry Pi, and the cloud storage. Figure 8 shows where the data will need to be secured.

FUTURE STUDIESApart from increasing reliability, scalability, and security, the next logical step is to create a Web-based analytics engine that can analyze data from the cloud storage and provide alerts to users via augmented reality.

In this setup, a RESTful Web Service (REST is an acronym for Representational State Transfer) will allow a mobile application to retrieve data from the analytics engine and to display alerts and data via augmented reality. Figure 9 presents my concept for the fully implemented system.

Figure 6: Resulting reliabilities for certain type of movement.

Figure 7: The reliability and Consistency of Cloud storage.

Figure 8: The path that data takes from the Arduino to the Raspberry Pi.


I plan to continue working on the project, and I hope to present news about my progress in a future issue of RCA’s Proceedings after it reaches full development.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI am grateful for the assistance received from Carole Perry and David Bart in the preparation of this article. I also thank Professor Sankaranarayanan for his ongoing guidance and encouragement of my research at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

REFERENCES“CPYarger IT Services: Arduino Wireless Communication Methods.” CPYarger IT Services: Arduino Wireless Communication Methods. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2015.

“The Beginner’s Guide to Motion Sensors.” How Do Motion Sensors Work? A Beginners Guide by SafeWise. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2015.

“Pykka API¶.” Pykka API — Pykka 1.2.1 Documentation. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2015.

“SIK Experiment Guide for Arduino - V3.2.” SIK Experiment Guide for Arduino. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2015.

“Raspberry Pi • View Topic - How to Use Dropbox on Your Raspberry / Utiliser Dropbox.” Raspberry Pi • View Topic - How to Use Dropbox on Your Raspberry / Utiliser Dropbox. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2015

ABOUT THE AUTHORDivyam Mishra is a 16-year-old high school senior at Peak to Peak Charter School. He is the first person in his family to be a licensed ham and has an extra class license (KD0OOE). Ever since he was a young child, he has loved technology and continues to pursue his passion for technology.

He was selected as a Radio Club of America Young Achiever in 2015 and has presented at the Dayton Youth Forum in 2014. In the summer of 2016, Divyam interned at an IoT startup in Denver, Colorado, and has been developing his own business with his father called HelpingO since 2013.

Figure 9: The future of this system.

• Guadalupe Macias, KD5JJB, Corpus Christi, TX

• George Ebelt, Spring, TX

• Dick Abbott, Boyds, MD

• Robert Strickland, Littleton, CO

• Ben Holycross, Lake Wales, FL

• Holly Wayt, Mount Gilead, OH

• John E. Pearson, Venice, FL

• James Breakall, WA3FET, Port Matilda, PA

• Brennan Price, N4QX, Vienna, VA

• Henry Wojtunik, KC2ZMI, Holmdel, NJ

• Thomas Perera, W1TP, Hancock, VT

• Cheryl Greathouse, Thomaston, GA

WELCOME New Members!


EDITOR’S NOTE: This issue of the Proceedings of the Radio Club of America brings another contribution from the next generation of inventors and developers in wireless and radio. The Voices of Tomorrow column provides a place for younger people to share their work in a professional setting. RCA is interested in finding students (primarily college or high school level) who are interested in writing about their explorations, ideas and contributions to the fields of wireless and radio. We congratulate Austin Schaller on his first professional publication, and we encourage submissions by others for future columns. Please contact the Editor, David Bart at [email protected], for further information or to submit draft articles for publication.

Wireless transmission has developed significantly since its introduction in the late 19th century. With the advent of semiconductors, radio

frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) continue to consume less power, offer more functionality at the same cost, and now consist of entire radio systems on a wafer only a few square millimeters in area. The modern software-defined radio (SDR), a device that controls physical layers of the radio via software, has become a practical learning platform for radio enthusiasts around the world. Their unique ability to be configured without physical adjustment allows SDRs to be used extensively in the military, radio astronomy, and more recently, the Internet of Things (IoT). Today, numerous open-source and commercial SDRs are available; however, designing a software-defined radio from scratch offers a wealth of other development and learning opportunities that often involve multiple engineering disciplines. This article describes the process of designing an SDR from start to finish.

BASIC TRANSCEIVER ARCHITECTURE A functional – indeed, even cognitive – SDR is made possible by a combination of RF, analog, and digital theory. Before applying the theory, a first step is to choose the desired radio architecture. Rather than design a heterodyne, homodyne, or low intermediate frequency (low-IF) system from the ground up, for example, an RFIC-based solution is recommended, which will allow designers to focus on customizing the external RF front-end. Frequency synthesizers, mixers, and other RF components that are common in complex radio architectures are instead embedded on a packaged substrate – greatly simplifying the design process and often improving RF performance. A sample design for an RFIC-based SDR is shown in Figure 1, comprised of the RF front-end, analog, and digital subsystems. All three subsystems may be modified and extended. Several examples may include the addition of a variable attenuator to limit received or transmitted signal power, or perhaps a coupler and RF detector to measure forward and reflected power.

Digital peripherals communicate with the microcontroller unit (MCU) through an interface such as I²C or SPI. The component datasheet will specify which interface it requires. Note that, in this particular instance, an external microcontroller unit communicates with the transceiver IC in order to control, send, or extract information. This is not always the case, as many wireless ICs exist that combine both the microcontroller and transceiver into one package.

COMPONENTS AND SIMULATIONPart identification, though sometimes arduous, is a critical aspect of the design process and often

VOICES OF TOMORROWSOFTWARE-DEFINED RADIOS: DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATIONBy Austin Schaller

Figure 1 - Example RFIC-based SDR.


can depend on the underlying project goals. If the intended application is narrowband and does not require a fast data rate, most mid-range RFICs will suffice. Alternatively, if a wideband SDR is of interest, the characterization of components across the entire frequency range will be important to identify. In any case, a good rule of thumb is to balance performance and cost – two aspects that RF engineers must contend with in real life. This implies a basic understanding of the theory, or at least the basic concepts, is grasped to determine the appropriate issues and questions that will need to be addressed. What loss do signals experience from the antenna to the low-noise amplifier? How should the circuit board layers be organized to optimize RF performance? To help with answering these types of questions, datasheets, textbooks, or individual experiments are helpful. In addition, open-source software, at no cost to the designer, is available to simulate system behavior. Figure 2, for example, depicts the Scattering-parameters (S-parameters) of a pi filter using Quite Universal Circuit Simulator (Qucs) software. Such a circuit may be used to remove unwanted frequency components prior to reception or after transmission. Because voltages and currents are difficult to measure at higher frequencies, S-parameters are used to describe how RF signal power propagates through multi-port networks. Conveniently, touchstone files, which contain S-parameter measurements, can be downloaded from component manufacturers online and directly imported into Qucs. This enables a more realistic representation of component performance to be modeled. Simulation only can go so far. Sometimes a faster and more informative measure could be obtained from a prototype and test components before integrating them into the final design. Creating a prototype board for a power amplifier, for example, would assist with understanding how to filter amplifier harmonics.

SCHEMATIC ENTRY AND PCB LAYOUTAfter component identification and simulation, and even the formulation of a bill of materials, schematic entry and printed circuit board (PCB) layout follows. Designers have numerous options at their disposal, including open-source programs such as KiCad or DesignSpark

PCB. Selecting one or the other depends largely on personal preference, and thus, users are encouraged to explore multiple options before applying extensive effort. Schematic entry is generally a straightforward process: if the symbol for a particular part does not exist, the user must create it and save it to a specific library. Integrated circuits, such as the RFIC or power amplifier generally fall into this category for the reason that such programs cannot possibly contain every conceivable part. After creating a schematic symbol for a given part, a PCB footprint is made by referencing the datasheet and following the ascribed dimensions.

Circuit board layers, in addition to the placement of components, can have a significant influence on RF performance. Unless designers have prior experience creating RF circuit boards, avoiding a two-layer design is recommended. A four-layer board, utilizing the first layer for RF, the second layer for ground, the third layer for power, and the fourth layer for signals will exhibit better performance by reducing spurious emission and increasing transmission line efficiency. The latter improvement is made possible by combining the first and second layer, creating a type of transmission line known as a coplanar waveguide with ground. The dimensions of the transmission line, such as trace width or trace-to-ground spacing, can be determined using calculators online or ones that are included with PCB software (e.g., KiCad). In addition to using four layers and transmission lines for interconnecting RF components, designers also should avoid placing any digital circuitry opposite the receiver. Developing a complete understanding for the function of each component, and their influence on components within close proximity, will help to inform the layout process.

DT9 SOFTWARE-DEFINED RADIOTo demonstrate the feasibility of designing a digital transceiver from scratch, a 902-928 MHz ISM band software-defined radio, known as the DT9, is presented. The design strongly resembles the block diagram shown in Figure 1; however, a few subtle differences do exist. A wireless MCU is used, which combines both the microcontroller and transceiver into one, and a third RF path was added to bypass the low-noise amplifier (LNA) in the event of receiving strong signals (i.e. to avoid

Figure 2 - Simulation of a Double-Balanced Pi-filter in Qucs. Figure 3 - A three-dimensional view of the DT9 PCB.


receiver saturation). Two couplers were placed towards the output and routed to a detector as a way to measure forward and reflected power. This allows the SDR to gauge whether or not all the power from the power amplifier (PA) is successfully radiated by the antenna. If that is not the case, the SDR can cease transmission and inform the user.

The DT9 supports data rates up to 4 Mbps and several modulations, including multilevel Frequency-Shift Keying (FSK), Minimum-Shift Keying (MSK), and On-Off Keying (OOK). Output power, which can be adjusted automatically by the SDR to increase power efficiency, extends from 0 to +30 dBm (1 mW to 1,000 mW). Two interfaces exist that allow users to send and extract information from the DT9, namely RS232 and SPI. At a mere 5.5 mA receive current and 13 mA transmit current at +10 dBm, the DT9 is ideal for applications that require low power. All of this functionality is constrained within a 1 by 1.7-inch square area.

As demonstrated by the flexibility of the DT9 hardware, numerous learning opportunities exist. While former knowledge of electronic circuits and RF is useful, it is not completely necessary. Even with a basic understanding of transceiver architecture, individuals who have an interest in designing their own digital radio can proceed in the right direction and research details along the way. Datasheets, textbooks, or individual experiments can serve as a way to discern upcoming steps. After completing the hardware, designers also can explore additional learning opportunities via firmware and software.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSNumerous friends and RCA members have helped me with this article. I am especially indebted to Ellie Van Winkle, Carole Perry, David Bart, Matthew Pierce, and Paul Harness for their guidance and support.

SOURCESThe websites below provide further information:

http://qucs.sourceforge.net/

http://kicad-pcb.org/

All illustrations were designed and created by the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHORAustin Schaller is a junior at LeTourneau University currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. He has interned at FreeWave Technologies and XetaWave, two companies that specialize in SDRs. A licensed ham for eight years, Austin has

presented at the Dayton Hamvention and RCA Technical Symposium and is a three-time recipient of the RCA Young Achiever’s award.

Support RCA Youth Activities by Donating Your Frequent Flyer MilesDue 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 [email protected] and she will assist you.


EDITOR’S NOTE: The Radio Club of America long has maintained a strong presence at the annual Dayton HamVention. This year brought even more participation by RCA, and we registered a record number of new members. RCA’s Carole Perry continues to provide one of the key programs at Dayton: the annual, and legendary, educational event of the year, the Dayton Youth Forum. With the permission of CQ Magazine, RCA has reprinted a detailed account written by Carole describing her experiences at the 29th Dayton Youth Forum.

By all accounts, this year’s Dayton HamVention® Youth Forum (Photo A) had all the ingredients for a highly informative, successful—and 29th annual—

showcasing of our young hams. Except for the fact that we had standing room only (Photo B), and actually ran out of pre-printed prize tickets, it was a wonderful experience for our young presenters.

DENVER BEFORE DAYTON…Before telling you about Dayton, though, I’d like to go back in time by one weekend, when I had the honor of conducting the Youth Forum at HamCon Colorado outside Denver with two experienced RCA Young Achievers and two new hams; all of whom were fairly local to the convention. I always like to showcase local youngsters at the regional forums I do across the country so that everyone becomes aware of their local young talent.

Divyam Mishra, KD0OOE, age 16, is an RCA Young Achiever who has been at several forums with me, including the Dayton Youth Forum two years ago. He spoke about the research he is doing at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Austin Schaller, KD0FAA, is 21 and is an electrical engineering student at Le Tourneau University. Austin, too, has been a presenter at many forums with me discussing his research on fractal antennas. These are two incredibly talented young hams.

Nickolas Foss, KE0FGI, is 13 years old. He gave a fabulous talk about the opportunities he has had exploring ham radio as a new ham. Cheyenne Sterner, N0CKS, is in the 8th grade and is already a member of at least three local ham radio organizations including Arapahoe County ARES. All four of these youngsters

were excellent presenters and I was honored to moderate the Youth Forum.

Everyone involved with the HamConColorado convention and the ARRL Rocky Mountain Division could not have been more welcoming and accommodating. It was a total pleasure to have been invited to this special event!

29TH YOUTH FORUM AND COUNTINGPLUS A QUICK TRIP TO THE ROCKIESBy Carole Perry, WB2MGP

If you’re concerned about the quantity and quality of today’s young hams, sit back in your rocker and read on…

Photo A: For 29 Years, Carole Perry, WB2MGP, has been putting impressive young hams in the Dayton spotlight at her annual Youth Forum.


DESCENT TO DAYTONDescending from HamCon Colorado’s 12,000 foot elevation and catching a flight two days later to Dayton was “interesting.” Attending Dayton is like coming home for me. The warmth and helpfulness afforded our HamVention Youth Forum is superb! For the past 10 months, I have been interviewing the 11 young hams who ended up being our presenters for the 29th Youth Forum. One more youngster who won the “Young Ham Lends a Hand” contest was recognized as well. His name is Sean Flynn, KD2BFI, and he is 16 years old. Besides promoting ham radio through his 4H STEM presentations, he has logged in over 100 hours in community service events in the past three years. If you know of a young ham who behaves in the spirit of service to his or her community, be sure to send me information about them so they can be considered for next year’s forum.

Before the first youngster took the podium, I thanked Maria Lysandrou, KB9BUS, who spoke at Friday’s Instructors’ Forum on the topic of “Attracting Females

into Ham Radio.” This 17 year old gave excellent suggestions for the high school and higher, recruitment of females into our hobby and service. I’d also like to acknowledge the great work of Lukas Purasson, KD2ISB, and Nick Roschewsk, KD2HBR, two high schoolers who spoke about “Antenna and the Engineering Design Competition” at my Instructors’ Forum, as part of Bob Roschewsk, KA2PBT’s, presentation about amateur radio in high school.

Brandon Giek, WA9REV, age 16 (Photo C), was first to the podium. He spoke about an ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) contact he was involved in and his title was “Cell Phones Down, Radios Up.” He played a video clip of some of the students from Maconquah School asking questions of astronaut

Photo B: As usual, the Dayton Youth Forum played to a full house, with a standing-room-only crowd. (Photo by Charles Kirmuss, W0CBK)

Photo C: Sixteen-year-old Brandon Giek, WA9REV, was the Youth Forum’s first speaker. His presentation, on a contact with the International Space Station, was titled “Cell Phones Down, Radios Up.”

Photo D: William Ferguson, KJ4EYZ, shared tips on setting up your station for successful DXing. How would he know? Well, he was licensed at age 7 and earned his DXCC at age 8!


Kimiuya Yui, KG5BPH, on board the ISS on August 27, 2015. The astronaut spoke of how he was never bored from the views they observed, and also about how someone gets qualified to be an astronaut.

Eli Musgrave, KM4HFZ, age 15, and Zach Haidari, KM4QIV, from the Mill Springs Academy in Alpharetta, Georgia spoke wonderfully about “Discovering the Fun and Magic of Digital Radio Communications.” They showed us some of the activities they participate in at their school club, such as Field Day and the School Club Roundup. Their teacher Martha Muir, W4MSA, was right there, rooting them on.

Skyler Fennell, KD0WHB, age 17, spoke about “Home Brewing on a Budget.” At the HamCon Colorado banquet the previous weekend, Skyler was called up to receive the ARRL Rocky Division 2015 Young Ham of the Year award. He was then called back to the podium to receive the group’s Technical Achievement award. He spoke about his interest in electronics and how it led him into ham radio. He showed slides of all the repeater projects he’s been involved with including the STEM school 440MHz repeater and others using home brew methods and equipment. Paul, N0AH, and Anna Veal, W0ANT, worked with him on the school projects.

William Ferguson, KJ4EYZ, age 14 (Photo D), spoke about “Setting Up a Radio Station to chase DX.” William was the 2015 Youth Plaque winner for the 2015 Virginia QSO Party sponsored by K4AMG. He was first licensed at age 7 and is one of the youngest in the world to receive his DXCC at the age of 8. He spoke about his increased capabilities of acquiring a DX station by using advanced DX chasing techniques.

Hope Lea, KM4IPF, age 9, spoke about “Talking through the Birds.” We saw slides of her satellite station and she spoke about getting ready for a satellite pass, and actually working a satellite. Her presentation culminated with a short video of her actually working a satellite and telling us she’d like to work more DX in the future.

Kelsey Seymour, K3LSY, age 17, spoke about “Preparing Yourself: an in-depth look at Go-Kits for Emergencies.” This young ham has been in scouting for 10 years, and acted as our IT person for setting up all the presentations on the laptop for our young presenters. As part of an Eagle Scout project he put together an “amateur radio to-go kit.” Besides outlining all the ham gear to prepare, he listed all the personal items to bring along to be self-sufficient for 24 hours. Some of the items listed were personal ID, cash, food, water, flash light, batteries and so on. Kelsey also suggested practicing using your go-kit during the year at such events as Field Day.

Jacob Nagel, AD0JA, a 16-year-old (Photo E) with a professional sounding speaking voice, was next. His topic was “CHIRP-It’s not just for the Birds: Using Computer Software to Program Your Radio.” To help minimize the frustration of new hams in programming their radios, Jacob took us through the use of CHIRP with radio programming basics including exporting listings from Repeaterbook.com.

Marty Sullaway, KC1CWF, age 14, spoke about “Homebrewing Fun and Contesting.” He explained why homebrewing is the way to go, for him. He listed cost, customizing your needs, and fun, as the main reasons he enjoys building his own equipment. His project, which he described in detail, was “antenna switching.” I had the opportunity of observing Marty on the radio while attending the August 2015 ARRL Boxboro convention. We can all be proud of the skill set he has achieved.

Photo E: Jacob Nagel, AD0JA, educated the audience on using CHIRP software to program mobile and handheld radios.

Photo F: 11-year-old Dhruv Rebba, KC9ZJX, spoke about his “Inspirations and Accomplishments with Ham Radio.” Photo by Charles Kirmuss, W0CBK


Dhruv Rebba, KC9ZJX, age 11 (Photo F) is in the 6th grade in Bloomington, Illinois. He enjoys dual citizenship with the U.S. and India. Thanks to the efforts of Michael Kalter, W8CI, in arranging for talented young hams from India to be part of our Youth Forum, young Dhruv was an excellent addition with his terrific presentation. He spoke about his “Inspirations and Accomplishments with Ham Radio.” Dhruv first attended HamVention in 2013 and got his initial inspiration there to get involved, learn more, and volunteer more. He has been helping communities in the United States and in India with radio communications. This accomplished young ham had to get cut off by me because of our time constraints, before he completed his entire presentation. Therefore, he is officially invited back next year to be the very first speaker at the 30th HamVention Youth Forum.

It was a delight for me to look out at the audience from the podium, and see the section that was reserved for the youngsters participating in the ARRL Youth Rally this year. Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R, Marketing Manager of the ARRL spearheaded this year’s Youth Rally. Guiding the day long Youth Rally activities were ARRL Education and Technology Instructor Tommy Gober, N5DUX , and his wife Jennifer, KE5LNK. To quote from

the The ARRL Letter, “Tommy said the Youth Rally fed off energy generated during the earlier Youth Forum. The participants engaged in hands-on activities and ended with an HF operating experience.” Be sure to look for announcements of this great event at next year’s HamVention so you can pre-register your child to join the fun.

The incredibly generous sponsors of our Youth Forum are: RCA (Photo G), ICOM, MFJ, Kenwood, Kirmuss & Associates, L'Anse Creuse ARC, QCWA, Delaware Leheigh ARC, Heil Sound, W5YI, and ARRL. I am always grateful to efforts of my prize manager Ralph Irish, W8ROI, who gets all the gifts organized for us. All our young presenters left the forum with their arms laden with gifts. Other big prizes (Photo H) were given out to adults and to young people in the audience. ICOM generously donated an IC-7100 in addition to radios and other gifts it donated to my young speakers. We sincerely appreciate the support of all our sponsors!

Please send any creative ideas or suggestions you may have for our 30th HamVention Youth Forum next year, to [email protected]. Be sure to come and help us celebrate!

Photo G: The Radio Club of America is among the Youth Forum’s many long-running sponsors. RCA also sponsors its own “RCA Young Achievers” program.

Photo H: A table-full of prizes donated by various companies and clubs allowed every presenter and many audience members to head home with an armful of goodies.


Imagine a book that intertwines the early history of wireless with a crime mystery, and all of it true! In Thunderstruck, successful author Erik Larson

illuminates the life of Guglielmo Marconi, considered by many to be the father of long distance wireless. In the late 1800s, Heinrich Hertz, John Ambrose Fleming, Oliver Lodge, and many other scientists, were experimenting with “Hertzian waves” which appeared to travel invisibly across a table or room, yet no one could get beyond laboratory experiments and what appeared to be magicians’ tricks. Enter Marconi, born to an Italian farmer and an Irish woman from the Jameson whisky family, who without formal training or scientific education, is convinced that radio can be coaxed to go thousands of miles instead of a few feet.

Set in Edwardian London, the drama takes place on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia. These were the days of spark gap transmitters, coherer detectors, and just a few years before the beginning of the Radio Club of America itself in 1909. (The title comes from the raucously loud noise that emanated from the spark gap transmitters in the “Marconi cabins” on board ships as the operators keyed in their Morse code [CW] signals.) Like other pioneers in wireless such as Armstrong, Marconi faced considerable opposition and outright hostility from his contemporaries, and patent battles, fighting off large competitors, and jamming of the airwaves were all a part of his story. Marconi was an early entrepreneur, long before the word came into common use, and exhibited an obsessive focus that helped overcome numerous obstacles but also made him rather distant socially.

But as if this were not enough for the reader, a parallel story enters the mix, of an unhappy medical doctor. I will not say more except that both stories are true, and they culminate in what was probably the most followed news event in the twentieth

century. The story leads us from Italy to the United Kingdom, to Massachusetts, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Belgium. Along the way we are introduced to a host of interesting characters including a vengeful magician, a wannabe vaudeville singer, and even Winston Churchill.

Its 459 pages are organized in short chapters with many sections within a chapter, making it easy to put down and pick up multiple times. The author includes very detailed end references for every chapter, and an extensive bibliography which will help researchers and historians on either of the events portrayed. Enjoy this book as I did!

ABOUT THE AUTHORJohn Facella, P.E., C.Eng., is a Principal at Panther Pines Consulting, specializing in public safety communications consulting and general management consulting. He has over 30 years in the wireless industry, including 28 years working for

both Motorola and Harris, and more than 2 years as a senior vice president with a national consulting company. He has a BSEE from Georgia Tech, an MBA in marketing from Georgia State University, is a registered professional engineer in the U.S., and a Chartered Engineer in the UK. He is a life member of the IEEE, and he is an RCA Fellow, Director and Life Member. He received the RCA President’s Award in 2014. He is also a life member of the ARRL, the QCWA and the Antique Wireless Association.

Thunderstruck. Erik Larson. ISBN 1-4000-8066-5. Crown Publishers. Pages: 480; 6.5” x 9.5”.

BOOK REVIEWThunderstruck by Erik Larson

(Crown Publishers, 2006)Reviewed by John Facella, P.E., C.Eng., RCA Fellow, Director, Life Member

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following book has been suggested as interesting reading or as useful resources. The following review does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by RCA. We welcome suggestions and recommendations from RCA’s members regarding 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 [email protected] for publication in a future issue of the Proceedings.


F rom Machine-to-Machine to the Internet of

Things: Introduction to a New Age of Intelligence is written for communications and network engineers, solution architects, system integrators, system managers, academic researchers. It outlines the

background and overall vision for the Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications and services, including major standards. Key technologies are described, and include everything from physical instrumentation of devices to the cloud infrastructures used to collect data. Also included is how to derive information and knowledge, and how to integrate it into enterprise processes, as well as system architectures and regulatory requirements. Real-world service use case studies provide the hands-on knowledge needed to successfully develop and implement M2M and IoT technologies sustainably and profitably. Finally, the future vision for M2M technologies is described, including prospective changes in relevant standards. This book is written by experts in the technology and business aspects of Machine-to-Machine and Internet of Things, and who have experience in implementing solutions. Key features include:

• Standards included: ETSI M2M, IEEE 802.15.4, 3GPP (GPRS, 3G, 4G), Bluetooth Low Energy/Smart, IETF 6LoWPAN, IETF CoAP, IETF RPL, Power Line Communication, Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE), ZigBee, 802.11, Broadband Forum TR-069, Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Device Management (DM), ISA100.11a, WirelessHART, M-BUS, Wireless M-BUS, KNX, RFID, Object Management Group (OMG) Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN)

• Key technologies for M2M and IoT covered: Embedded systems hardware and software, devices and gateways, capillary and M2M area networks, local and wide area networking, M2M Service Enablement, IoT data management and data warehousing, data analytics and big data, complex event processing and stream analytics, knowledge discovery and management, business process and enterprise integration, Software as a Service and cloud computing

• Combines both technical explanations together with design features of M2M/IoT and use cases. Together, these descriptions will assist you to develop solutions that will work in the real world

• Detailed description of the network architectures and technologies that form the basis of M2M and IoT

• Clear guidelines and examples of M2M and IoT use cases from real-world implementations such as Smart Grid, Smart Buildings, Smart Cities, Participatory Sensing, and Industrial Automation

• A description of the vision for M2M and its evolution towards IoT.

From Machine-to-Machine to the Internet of Things: Introduction to a New Age of Intelligence, 1st Edition. Holler, Tsiatsis, Mulligan, Avesand, Karnouskos, Boyle. Academic Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780124076846. eBook ISBN: 9780080994017. Hardcover, 352 pages.

THE BOOK SHOPEDITOR’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 [email protected] for publication in a future issue of the Proceedings.


BLUE WINGAndy Maxymillian, PMP, Principal Consultant235 Summer Hill DriveGilbertsville, PA 19525PHONE: (610) 473-2171CELL: (610) 316-2660FAX: (610) [email protected]

Consultant Services

COMMUNICATION ENTERPRISES, INC.Paul G. Poor, President2315 Q StreetBakersfield, CA 93301PHONE: (661) 327-95711 (800) 617-2355FAX: (661) [email protected]

Wireless communications since 1951

IWCEStephanie McCall, Show Director11 River Bend Drive SouthStamford, CT 06907PHONE: (913) [email protected]

Connecting and Educating the Communications Technology Industry

DH SALES GROUP LLCCarroll Hollingsworth, CPMR, Manufacturer RepresentativePO Box 5680Lago Vista, TX 78645CELL: (512) 751-5472TOLL FREE: (800) 966-3357 x701FAX: (512) [email protected]

Independent Manufacturers Representatives

FEDERAL ENGINEERING, INC.Neil J. Horden, Chief Consultant10600 Arrowhead DriveFairfax, VA 22030PHONE: (703) 359-8200DIRECT: (703) 349-5704CELL: (847) 612-8955FAX: (703) [email protected]

MISSION CRITICAL PARTNERSWilliam R. Waugaman, Senior Consultant502 N. Carroll Avenue, Suite 120Southlake, TX 76092DIRECT: (682) 593-1247OFFICE: (888) 8-MCP-911CELL: (830) [email protected]

Consultant Services

ANTIQUE WIRELESS ASSOCIATIONRobert Hobday, Deputy DirectorDavid Bart, Board of DirectorsPO Box 421Bloomfield, NY 14469PHONE: (312) 634-4733FAX: (312) [email protected]

Preserving the Past for Posterity

BLACK & VEATCH CORPORATIONPaul Scutieri, Sales DirectorPHONE: (518) [email protected]/publicsafety

PANTHER PINES CONSULTINGJohn Facella, P.E., C.Eng., BSEE, MBA, PrincipalPHONE: (978) 799-8900pantherpinesconsulting@gmail.comwww.pantherpinesconsulting.comConsulting in Public Safety Communications, Management, and Cyber Security

BUSINESS & PROFESSIONALDIRECTORY



V-COMM LLCMargaret J Lyons, PE, PMP, Director of RF Engineering2540 US Highway 130 - Suite 101Cranbury, NJ 08512-3500OFFICE: 609-655-1200 x349CELL: [email protected]

RF & Network Engineering support, network design tools, measurement hardware and engineering related services

RJR WIRELESSRichard "Rich" Reichler, President23501 Park Sorrento, Suite 218Calabasas, CA 91302-1381PHONE: (818) 222-SITE (7483)CELL: (818) 903-5189FAX: (818) [email protected]

Consulting and special projects for antenna site managers, owners and users

TELCO COMMUNICATIONSDavid EhehaltPO Box 250Mt. Freedom, NJ 07970-0250PHONE: (973) 895-5500TOLL FREE: (888) RADIO 10-4

A Total Communications Organization

TELCO TECHNOLOGIESDavid EhehaltPO Box 250Mt. Freedom, NJ 07970-0250(973) 895-5500(888) 723-4610(888) RADIO 10-4

Sales, Service & Central Station Residential, Commercial & Industrial Commercial (Hi-Rise) Fire, Our Specialty Video Surveillance, Access Control

UTILITY TELECOMGeorge R. Stoll1554 St. Paul StreetDenver, CO 80206PHONE: (303) 840-2878FAX: (303) [email protected]

Consulting Group

SECURE SITES ANTENNA SITE MGT.David EhehaltPO Box 250Mt. Freedom, NJ 07970-0250PHONE: (973) 895-5500TOLL FREE: (888) RADIO 10-4

Leasing, Management, Tower & Roof Top Transmission Sites

SELEX ES, A FINMECCANICA COMPANYWilliam P. Fredrickson, LMR Systems11300 W. 89th StreetOverland Park, KS 66214OFFICE: (913) 495-2614CELL: (913) 909-4492 www.us.selex-es.com

Land Mobile Radio solutions for mission critical communication applications, offering TETRA, DMR, and P25 systems.

TOWER INNOVATIONS, INC.Bruce R. McIntyre, President107 Dunbar Ave., Suite EOldsmar, FL 34677PHONE: (813) 818-8766CELL: (727) 439-3683FAX: (813) 925-0999bruce@towerinnovationsinc.comwww.towerinnovactionsinc.com

Site Design, Site Development, Site Deployment

RADIO CLUB OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 22, NYCJoe Fairclough, PresidentPO Box 1052New York, NY 10002PHONE: (516) [email protected]

Education Since 1980


WILLIAM F. RUCKBROADCAST ENGINEERPO Box 22456San Francisco, CA 94122-0456PHONE: (415) [email protected]

Precision RF Measurements, Custom Audio & RF Systems, Wireless Microphone Repair

YOUR AD HEREWould you like to be listed in the next issue of the Proceedings?

Contact RCA at (952) 928-4651 or [email protected] to reserve space.

RCA CALENDAR EVENTSCALENDARu

Visit the event calendar on the RCA website for the most up-to-date event information.

RCA EVENTSRCA FALL QSO PARTYNovember 5, 2016

2016 RCA TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUMNovember 18, 2016New York Athletic Club, NYC

2016 RCA AWARDS BANQUETNovember 18, 2016New York Athletic Club, NYC

INDUSTRY EVENTS

AFCEA MILCOM 2016November 1-3, 2016Baltimore, MD

NAB SHOWNovember 9-10, 2016New York, New York

AFCEA WEST CONFERENCEFebruary 23, 2017San Diego, CA



Make Connections.Make a Difference.

Conference: March 27-31, 2017Exhibits: March 29-30, 2017

Las Vegas Convention Center

CELEBRATING 40 YEARS!

REGISTER TODAY!Use promo code SVE3 for 20% off IWCE conference and free exhibit hall admission.

Integrating Technology & EducationIWCE 2017 is a venue where people can make the human connections they

need to be successful, whether it is connecting to a future client, boss,

employee or business partner. It’s also where people can fi nd information

about a technology or policy that is crucial to success. See innovation at its

best and join us for the premier event for communications technology.

In partnership withCo-located with:

IWCEexpo.com

IWCE Ad SVE3 8.5x11.indd 1 9/21/16 12:24 PM


HAS YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION CHANGED?

If you have recently changed your address, email, or phone number, please send us an update.

Email [email protected] or call (952) 928-4651.

HEADQUARTERS OFFICE

ADDRESS:4248 Park Glen RoadMinneapolis, MN 55416

PHONE:(952) 928-4651

EMAIL:[email protected]

WEBSITE:www.radioclubofamerica.org

SHOP AMAZON & HELP RCA

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.

RCA MEMBERSHIP IS GROWING

We've had a record number of new members this 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.

Signing up for RCA Membership has never been easier! Use the new online membership application to submit your information in a matter of minutes.

Documents

Proceedings - Radio Club of America – Radio Club of America€¦ · JOIN US FOR THE 2016 BANQUET AND AWARDS AT THE HISTORIC NY ATHLETIC CLUB Proceedings FALL 2016. 2 FALL 2016 PROCEEDINGS