Pasternack Blog

In the previous sections of the “Coaxial Cable Power Handling” blog series, a brief overview of coax power handling, and how cable size, cable type, signal frequency, and electron velocity through a cable, influenced the power handling capability of a coaxial cable. In this section, attenuation/loss, environmental factors, VSWR, and cable capacitance, will be touched ..

In the previous portion of the “Coaxial Cable Power Handling” blog series, we discussed an overview of coax power handling and how cable power handling impacts cable choice. In this portion of the blog series, we will take a deeper look into how cable size and type, as well as signal frequency and electron velocity ..

The coaxial cable provides a transmission line with low loss characteristics that can shield from outside signals and provide a durable yet flexible line that can be used in a variety of applications with a wide range of frequencies. Power handling capability, also known as the power capacity, is one of the important criteria in ..

Coaxial cable transfers radio frequency power from one point to another and, in the ideal world, the same amount of power would transfer along the cable to the remote end of the coax cable. However, real world conditions include some power loss along the length of the cable. Loss, or attenuation, is one of the ..

Amplifiers are electronic devices that increase the power of a signal. The amount of amplification in an amplifier is measured by its gain, or the ratio of output voltage, current, or power to the input with a power gain greater than one. An RF amplifier is similar to an audio amplifier but with components suitable ..

Basic Baluns The type of balun used in microwave RF designs depends on the bandwidth required, the operating frequency, and the physical architecture of the design. As differential power dividers, baluns can be transformers, capacitively and/or magnetically coupled transmission lines, hybrid couplers, or used in a combination of power divider and inverter. Baluns are used ..

Balun Performance Metrics There are many different types of baluns and the type of balun used in microwave RF designs depends on the bandwidth required, the operating frequency, and the physical architecture of the design. Most baluns usually contain two or more insulated copper wires twisted together and wound around or inside a core, magnetic ..

Part 1: What is a balun, what does a balun do, and when is a balun needed? What is a balun? A balun (mashup of balanced and unbalanced) is a three-port device, or a type of broadband RF transmission line transformer, with a matched input and differential output that is used to connect balanced transmission ..

The Schottky diode, named after German physicist Walter H. Schottky, is a semiconductor diode formed by the junction of a semiconductor with a metal. It has a low forward voltage drop and a very fast switching action.  Compared with the point contact diode used in similar applications, the zero bias Schottky diode has a wider ..

A radio frequency (RF) microwave detector, also known as RF power detector or RF responding detector, is a two-terminal device used to detect, and in some way, measure or convert an RF signal. As the receiving element, an RF detector is used in converting amplitude-modulated microwave signals to baseband (or video) signals in either a ..