Pasternack Blog

The Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) frequency bands are designated radio frequency bands as defined by the ITU Radio Regulations. These frequency bands were set aside for RF use for purposes other than telecommunications. Hence, using the ISM bands for telecommunications is possible, but telecommunications devices using these frequencies must be able to withstand the ..

Small Cells are essentially a mobile wireless installation that is smaller in scope and size than a traditional macro base station. So, why are Small Cells, which provide less coverage and necessarily are composed of equipment that may not have the full capability of macro-cells, on the rise? An important note is that the term ..

The 5th Generation of Mobile Wireless (5G) has been a hot topic of discussion for the past several years, and is likely about to be a hot economic topic and 5G trials and rollouts begin this year and next year. Most people are familiar with the upgrade from 3G to 4G, and appreciate the ability ..

The skin effect and skin depth is a rarely discussed topic, considering as it is an essential phenomenon to be aware of when working with any conductor, or semiconductor, at RF frequencies, or really anything other than DC. Essentially, the skin effect is the term to describe the way current is distributed in a conductor ..

A Magic-Tee is a 4-port waveguide structure similar to a rat-race coupler fabricated with striplines or microstrip waveguides. The Magic-Tee, or EH plane Tee, is able to perform an apparently “magical” function, which is to allow for energy going into the E and H plane ports to be divided between the two colinear ports while ..

A quick google search of “frequency bands” will often provide links to radio spectrum, cellular frequencies, spectrum bands, etc. If the searcher is so bold as to click on Wikipedia’s “Radio Spectrum” page, they will likely encounter tables with swaths of the electromagnetic spectrum designated by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), IEEE, EU/NATO/US ECM, and ..

RF Diplexers and Duplexers are very common RF components in transmitters, receiver, and transceiver circuits for communications, radar, and other sensing applications. As the terms are similar, they are sometimes mistakenly used interchangeably, which isn’t appropriate. Diplexers and Duplexers perform very different functions, though they are located in similar areas in a circuit block diagram. ..

Coaxial calibration kits (Cal-kits), or vector network analyzer (VNA) coaxial calibration kits, are indispensable tools for ensuring that a VNA is providing the most accurate measurements possible. Without regularly calibrating a VNA with quality termination components, the conditions in which a device under test (DUT) is testing will also be included in the test data. ..

Modern transmitters and receivers leverage oscillators and frequency synthesizers to generate carrier signals, upconversion/downconversion local oscillator frequencies, aid in frequency tuning, and more. There are many different types of materials and technologies used in precision frequency generation. This post will provide a brief explanation of the different types of oscillators and frequency synthesizers common in ..

As virtually all electronic systems—and even some mechanical, biological and chemical systems—are susceptible to electrostatic discharge (ESD), and when operating alongside other electronics there is a need for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) standards. The DoD offers a handbook and several standards which cover ESD and EMC. MIL-HDBK-263 provides much of the background around the application of ..