In "Rowe's and Columns," Senior Technical Editor Martin Rowe offers issues relating to general-purpose instrumentation, EMC, communications test, and anything else that comes along.
With the February 19, 2009 transition to digital TV getting ever closer, more and more stories are coming out about some of the pitfalls. Here's one called "Digital TV Time Bomb--Hiding the Whole Picture from the American Public." While it's a bit overdramatic, the article has some valid points regarding the fact that with over-the-air DTV, you get all or nothing. That is, you either get a perfect signnal or nothing. Well, you may be an unwatchable signal, but that's as good as nothing. I expect a DTV uproar to occur on February 18. Stay tuned.
Every time I install new or upgraded software on my home computers, I can feel my blood pressure rise. I recently upgraded from my Norton Anivirus (NAV) on my home laptop from 2005 to 2008 when my annual maintenance subscription came due. The upgrade cost me many hours of sleep.
The install went fine at first, but afterword, I was unable to get my PDA to communicate with the PC through Microsoft ActiveSync 4.2. I tried uinstalling NAV 2008 and reinstalling NAV 2005. No good. Then, I learned from a friend who is an IT professional about nonav.exe, a utility by Symantec that he claimed would completely eliminate every remnant of Norton Antivirus. Symantec doesn't make it avaialble to the public, just to IT people, but you can find it online anyway.
I found and downloaded nonav, but it in fact left remnants. After running the program, I was greeted wit...Read More
When I opened my e-mail this morning, I found about 50 bounce messages in my inbox. Apparently, a spammer is using my e-mail address m.rowe@tmworld.com to send spam. The company spam filter has caught over 700 bounces in the last six hours. I set up some rules to automatically delete incoming messages with subject lines such as "Message delivery Failed," that get through the spam filter, but a few others still get through.
If you receive spam that appears to be from me, please be assured that it's not.
While browsing through newsgroup sci.engr.electrical.compliance last night, I came upon a posting for an online engineering calculator. At www.calculatoredge.com, you'll find calculators for numerous engineering fields such as electrical, electronics, physics, mechanical engineering, and chemical engineering. In the electrical, electronics, and physics sections, the site provides calculators and circuit diagrams for filters (Butterworth, Chebyshev, and others), bridges, antennas, attenuators, and many others. The next time you need a quick calculation, give this site a try.
Yesterday, I attended Tech Tour, a traveling road show for EMC engineers. Presenters from Silent, ETS-Lindgren, and Rohde & Schwarz gave talks on topics such as shielding, antennas, and spectrum analyzers, respectively.
Prior to the first presetnation, I spoke with two EMC engineers. One asked the other, "With all the equipment and automation tools available today, do you think the witchcraft is gone?"
"Witchcraft isn't gone," replied the other engineer. "Even with specialized tools, you still have to know how to set them up and use them correctly."
What's your take on solving EMC problems? Is it still mysterious or is it more cookbook now?
