At $1,600, this kit is a little on the expensive side for most amateurs, but it’s an interesting indication of where things are going….Dan
Colorado Electronic Product Design, Inc. Introduces New Digital Radio Kit
Boulder, Colorado - August 29, 2008 –
Colorado Electronic Product Design (CEPD) introduces a digital radio kit consisting of three configurable printed circuit [...]

Want to be the coolest ham in your club? Then, you need the new Agilent N9912A FieldFox RF Analyzer. This baby does it all:

Cable and Antenna Analyzer

Frequency range: 2 MHz to 4 GHz and optional 6 GHz
Directivity: > 42 dB
Measurement speed: 1.5 ms / per point

Network Analyzer

2 MHz to 4 GHz and optional 6 GHz
S11 [...]

Got these two links from the latest Electronics Development e-mail newsletter:Tips & Tricks for Digital Logic Circuit Design
Digital logic circuits are widely used today, from simple circuits consisting of just a few logic gates to complicated microprocessor based systems. Get some hints and tips on designing and using digital logic [...]

Monday evening, I did something I’d never done before. I gave a talk to more than 400 people. And, I did it from the comfort of my home office.
This was a very cool thing. Bill Edgar, N3LLR, the director from the Atlantic Division, has a webinar account with lt;a href=”citrixonline.com”gt;citrixonline.comlt;/agt; that allows him to produce [...]

Want to know how a MOSFET works? The online textbook, Principles of Semiconductor Devices, covers that and more:

Review of Modern Physics
Semiconductor Fundamentals
Metal-Semiconductor Junctions
p-n Junctions
Bipolar Transistors
MOS Capacitors
MOS Field-Effect-Transistors

One interesting feature of the book is that it includes several short videos that visually illustrate various principles. That’s kind of cool.

This Excel-based tool calculates the capacitance and inductance per unit length as well as the impedance of a transmission line. It may be applied to wires, PCBs, etc.
This spreadsheet uses macros, so it didn’t work with my Mac’s Numbers program, but it did seem to work with the NeoOffice spreadsheet program.

SnapCircuits are electronics kits designed for kids (although adults have fun with them, too!). Components, such as resistors, capacitors, motors, transistors, and LEDs are mounted on plastic bases that snap together. The manuals that come with the kits describe a number of different circuits that are both fun and educational.
Now, for adults there’s littleBits. The [...]

From the 9/3/08 issue of NIST Tech Beat:
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Seoul National University (SNU) have learned how to tweak a new class of polymer-based semiconductors to better control the location and alignment of the components of the blend. Their recent results—how to move the top to the [...]

From Weaver’s Words, August 27, 2008:
Michigan Affiliated Club Coordinator Dan Romanchik, KB6NU (that’s me!), will present a Webinar titled Kit Building.  This Webinar will be on Monday, September 22 at 8 PM. This online session will provide an excellent introduction to kit building even for hams who are convinced kit-building is beyond their ability.
Great Lakes [...]

Threads on attaching PL-259s to coax are a mainstay of most amateur radio mailing lists. If you subscribe to as many as I do, you see at least five or six every year. This last week, yet another one popped up on the HamRadioHelpGroup. Below, is, imho, the most useful reply:
A good tool for this [...]