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The Costas Loop - Dr. John P. Costas

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The Costas Loop and the Best Engineer. By Bill Jones.   This paper is to note some of the work of Dr. John P. Costas and to tell of my work and thoughts of my time with John. He was the best engineer that I have ever known. His work was in a relatively narrow field not well known by most engineers. His work was done starting at General Electric in the early 1950’S and continued over his life time. He contributed greatly to several areas of communications, Sonar and mathematics, for example, the Costas Array. He wrote many papers with some being classic. He continued as an inventor even after his retirement. The term Engineer goes back some years, probably to the 1300’s AD. While I do not mean to compare Dr. Costas to these early genius engineers it should be clear that these early engineers did provide the great foundations we have in our present day curriculums. I am thinking of John as a man that used the foundations to invent an outstanding system - the Costas Loop. ...
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The RCA Battery Voltohmystyst

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The RCA Battery Voltohmyst .. RCA WV-65A THE RCA VOLTOHMYST WV-65A VACUUM TUBE VOLTMETER WAS PROBABLY MANUFACTURED IN THE MID TO LATE FORTIES. THE RCA WV-65A VOLTOHMST IS MENTIONED IN AN ARTICLE FROM THE RCA “HAM TIPS” IN JULY 1949.  THERE ARE VIDEOS REGARDING THE METER ON THE INTERNET.   THIS IS AN UNUSUAL AND RARE VACUUM TUBE VOLT METER BEING BATTERY OPERATED.  IT IS PERFECT FOR RADIO REPAIR. THE METER MAY HAVE BEEN ORIGINALLY MARKETED TO “HAM” RADIO OPERATORS.   AS WITH ALL THE VACUUM TUBE METERS BUILT BY RCA THE WV-65A HAS THE USUAL ONE MEGOHM RESISTOR IN THE PROBE. THIS ALLOWS DC MEASURMENTS TO BE MADE ON A RADIO WITHOUT INTERFERING WITH THE RADIO OPERATION.  THE PROBE WILL NOT ALTER THE AUTOMATIC GAIN CONTROL VOLTAGE AND WILL NOT KILL THE OSCILLATOR WHEN MEASURING THE OSCILLATOR NEGATIVE GRID VOLTAGE.   THE WV-65A LOOKS LIKE THE RCA 195 VOLTOHMYST AND HAS A BRUSHED CHROME FRONT PANEL LIKE MOST OF THE 195’S. IT HAS A DC CURRENT SCALE WHILE THE...
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Tuned Circuit Tracking.

Tuned Circuit Tracking                                      By Bill Jones When Tuned Radio Frequency (TRF) radios were originally mass marketed, the station selection means was by individual variable capacitors. Tracking of the capacitors was not a problem for the adept operator. Each capacitor could be optimally adjusted for the best reception of a station. I suspect that it was obvious to the designers that a mechanical connection between the variable capacitors would be desirable, but it was not available and it would be expensive to design and build, anyway radios were being sold without this feature. I suspect that there was also a form factor involved, and once there is an accepted form of a product by a producer, other manufacturers tend to follow that form. Usually a product is defined by the available components and this will have a strong influence on the form factor. The origi...
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