This Month on AetherCzar

This post reviews and highlights my ten most favorite posts or threads from the past month.

1. June saw several posts revolving around the topic of ultra-wideband (UWB) RF technology. The foreclosure and reorganization of Time Domain Corporation, a pioneer in the ultra-wideband (UWB) industry, prompted a much-commented-upon guest post by Dr. Kai Siwiak on The Rise and Fall of UWB. I returned the favor with a review of Dr. Siwiak’s text Ultrawideband Radio Technology. In further UWB news, the new president of Time Domain Corporation, Adrian Jennings, was “upbeat” about the newly reorganized company’s status and prospects in an interview with the Huntsville Times. I took issue with the portrayal of early radio as UWB, pointing out that while spark gap emissions may have been broadband, the clear intent of the radio pioneers was to create narrowband radio links on particular frequency channels. Finally, I provided a review of the approach to UWB RTLS taken by another UWB pioneer Aether Wire and Location, Inc.
2. On Memorial Day, I kicked off a series of posts to commemorate my grandfather, Paul Farnum, and his WWII experience. The posts follow him day-by-day waiting in England for deployment, crossing Utah beach a few days after D-Day, and participating in the capture of Cherbourg which surrendered 27 June, 1944. His unit, 1st Battalion, 313th Regiment, 79th Infantry Division will resume action on 2 July, 1944, so expect the series to pick up again in a couple of days.
3. I’ve recently begun a series of posts on the history of real-time location systems (RTLS), beginning with False Starts and Misunderstandings and continuing with The First Direction Finding and the First RF Ranging.
4. I shared my class notes and curriculum tips in a post on Electricity and Magnetism for Kindergarteners.
5. I described my experiences working for ITT Technical Institute in the post, In Defense of “For-Profit” Education, and in The “Robber Barons” of Higher Education I asked (and answered) the question how ITT Tech can make spectacular profits educating the same students with the same loan packages that public schools require government subsidy to teach.
6. I continued my (so far completely ineffectual) crusade against glass recycling in  Save the Environment – Don’t Recycle Glass.
7. I reviewed Tom Standage’s The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-line Pioneers – a social history of telegraphy drawing parallels to the Internet age.
8. In More Power for AM Radio? I discussed a recent proposal for more transmit power for AM radio in the historical context of RF noise and early radio.
9. I presented a two part series on the Philosophic Premises of Quantum Mechanics (and Part II).
10. In Credit Card Fraud, I described the Czarina’s account of an attempted fraud. Now that I’m sensitized to this particular scam, I’ve seen the same fraudulent pitch in my inbox a couple of additional times.
11. And I couldn’t resist passing on some humorous items:  The Turbo Encabulator and Unicorn: Is it Really ‘White Meat’ With All Those Sparkles?

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