Rowe's and Columns

Senior Technical Editor Martin Rowe covers topics relating to general-purpose instrumentation, compliance, communications test, and anything else that comes along.

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Tuesday, January 6, 2009

DTV mess is 42 days away

Jan 6 2009 7:48AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

The DTV transition will occur in six weeks (42 days) from today. The mess has begun, with reports of a wait list for converter-box coupons because the coupon fund has run out of money while waiting for many unused coupons to expire. If you need a converter box, I hope you already have it. The report linked above says that converter boxes will be in short supply at any price.

I'm looking forward to the reports of the impending fiasco and I stand by my 2006 prediction, "DTV will cause an uproar."

Thursday, December 11, 2008

The "must have" wireline network reference

Dec 11 2008 2:18PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

Have you ever found yourself lost in acronym soup regarding the wireline communications business. It happens to me all the time. Well, maybe not so much anymore. I just discovered the Must Have Reference for IP and Next generation Networking, a reference for the IEEE 802.3 series of Ethernet Standards and acronyms. This 57-page document, published by network test-equipment maker Anritsu, helps you sort out what's what in wireline networks. It's even up to date, showing IEEE 802.3ba, the upcoming standard for 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps Ethernet.

Will Times Square be on time?

Dec 11 2008 7:35AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |

You may not be aware that 2009 may arrive one second earlier or later that you may think, depending on your location and clock setting.

It is latest newsletter, Symmetricom has an article Another Leap Second is on the Way: Are You Ready?
The article includes the following text:

On December 31 at 23:59:59 Universal Coordinated Time (UTC), another leap second will be added to the world’s official time, thereby keeping the world’s atomic clocks in sync with the earth’s rotation. Since 1972 when the practice was first mandated by the International Earth Rotation and Reference System Service (IERS) 24 leap seconds have been added to the world’s official time... Only regions in the ...Read More

Monday, December 8, 2008

Flexible displays are coming

Dec 8 2008 11:02AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

In August 2006, we published an interview with Ed Bawolek, a test engineer from the Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University. Today, Hewlett-Packard and ASU announced the first prototype flexible display in a press release. I imagine that the first uses for flexible displays will come from the military, with consumer products to follow. With a flexible display, you could wear your iPod screen on your sleeve or wear a protest sign on your shirt or hat.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Product tryout: USB mixed-signal oscilloscope

Dec 2 2008 1:25PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (2) |

Link Instruments MSO-19 USB mixed-signal oscilloscope. Price $249. www.linkinstruments.com.

The MSO-19 is a small single-channel, 200 Msample/s DSO with eight logic inputs that connects to any PC with a USB port. It’s logic outputs also function as a pattern generator. You should really consider it an eight-channel logic analyzer with an analog input. All other MSO’s that I’ve seen have two channels, but those are all benchtop, stand-alone instruments. Having just one channel lets you check any logic input for noise or anomalies that logic input won’t show.

The unit comes with one passive 1x/10x analog scope probe. A logic pod contains a single 16-pin connector provides the unit with eight color-coded leads and eig...Read More

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Technical articles retain value

Nov 5 2008 8:42AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |

I'm always amazed, and pleased, when I hear from readers who still find value in old T&MW articles. Case in point, a reader recently e-mailed me to say that he had found my article "Generate a Swept Sine Test Signal" and was implementing the equations in LabView for a scientific project.

At about the same time, another reader found an article by Werner Haussman (formerly with HP/Agilent) called "Make a Strip-Chart Recorder in Excel" but the links to the spreadsheets and VBA code were broken. Fortunately, I still had the files and we reposted them so the link once again works. Haussman...Read More

Monday, November 3, 2008

DTV: This is what will happen

Nov 3 2008 10:19AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |

In 2006, I made a prediction in "DTV will cause an uproar" that grandparents everywhere will be forced to write to Congress about the February 19 DTV transition. I had something like this video in mind. Watch this video of what will happen on February 19 and tell me scenes like that won't happen all over the country.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Measurement proverbs

Oct 31 2008 10:30AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

The other day, I received some measurement proverbs that I'd like to share. The proverbs come from Karl Anderson, director of engineering at Valid Measurements. Karl is also the inventor of the Anderson Loop, an alternative to the Wheatstone Bridge. See the article we published about it in the January 1995 issue by clicking here.

And now, measurement proverbs.

Measurement Systems Engineering is the art of Measurement Science.

The technical discipline of Measureme...Read More

Related entries in: Calibration | Instruments | Test & Measurement | Topical Taxonomy--Electronics |

Friday, October 24, 2008

Thermocouples raise reader temperatures

Oct 24 2008 8:50AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |

In the October print issue, my article "Thermocouples often described incorrectly" has raised a few eyebrows. In the article, I address the often misunderstood idea that a voltage develops across a thermocouples junction when a voltage actually develops across a wire when subjected to a thermal gradient. Several readers sent e-mails both prasing and criticizing the article. For example:

It was good to see your short piece on thermocouples in TMWorld. I have encountered more than one EE college professor who did not understand how a T/C works. It would be useful to tell your readers just where between the wire ends the emf is actually generated – in regions along the wire that ...Read More

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

A cell phone for Halloween?

Oct 21 2008 2:31PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |

Today, I received a press release calling for every child to have a cell phone (and know how to use it) on Halloween. The release, issued by 411onwireless.org, warns that even with sufficient supervision, children can get separated from their groups and run into danger such as cars, candles, and falls. I would add predators and people who had too much to drink to that list. Remember, Halloween is on a Friday night this year.

According to the release:
David Aylward, director and founder, COMCARE Emergency Response Alliance, said: “No child should go out unaccompanied by a responsible adult on Halloween. But even when that common-sense rule is observed, it is still possible for children to become separated from a group, lost, suffer an...Read More

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Should tech schools shed the nerd image?

Oct 15 2008 2:15PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (10) |

As an engineering student, I regularly saw others on campus wearing calculators on their belts and equations on their shirts. It's just part of the tech culture. Now, some MIT studnets are trying to shed that image. A student-produced webcast tries to convince people that engineering and science students don't just spend their Saturday nights in the lab, but that they do what other college students do--they party and play sports.

I've heard people say that part of the reason young people don't study engineering is because of the nerd factor. They don't want to be stereotyped. Do you agree?

Friday, October 10, 2008

Will your budget shrink?

Oct 10 2008 7:46AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |

With all that's going on in the financial sector, I imagine that you'll soon experience budget cuts. I also wonder if there will be a run on companies buying equipment beofre the end of the year. Engineering equipment budgets after run out on December 31, so there's often a flurry of equipment putchases in December. Do you expect to buy equipment on the belief that budgets with shrink next year?

Aside from equipment-budget cuts, do you see other budget cuts coming? By that I mean engineering jobs.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

You know too much

Oct 7 2008 11:43AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

The following appeared in my former column (Rows & Columns) in the October 1997 print issue of T&MW. It was never posted online because we didn’t have this web site at the time, but it was worth retyping.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

The world needs another SI unit

Oct 4 2008 7:34PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

The International System of Units (SI), defines the meter as the basic unit of length, but perhaps the Smoot would be preferable.

Fifty years ago this week, the world added another basic measurement to a long list of measurements: the Smoot. Named for Oliver Smoot, the unit defines the length of the Massachusetts Ave. Bridge, which runs from MIT on the Cambridge side of the Charles River to Boston. On a cold night in 1958 several of Smoot's fraternity brothers used him to mark the length of the bridge. When the bridge was rebuilt is was remarked in smoots. Read about the Smoot and the ceremony marking its 50th anniversary.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Source-measure test system: build or buy?

Oct 2 2008 7:18AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |

During my last summer of college, I worked for a power-supply company characterizing transistors with a curve tracer. Curve tracers are no longer manufactured, and engineers now either use a source-measure unit (SMU) or they build their own with a computer, a power supply, and a DMM. What have you done when you needed a system to characterize devices for DC characteristics? Have you purchased an SMU or built your own system? If you bought, what tipped the scales that way? If you built your own system, did you save money? How long did you spend programming the system? Whichever decision you made, was it the right one? Or, perhaps you found a curve tracer, either in some back room or on eBay, that you use instead.

Feel free to comment or send e-mail to m.rowe@tmworld.com.

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