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*Ron Hranac
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12/01/2011
What Is RF? It's Like Magic
The cable industry has, since the very first systems in the late 1940s, embraced and been based on radio frequency (RF) technology. These days, we’ve also embraced the digital world — and a subset of digital technology called Internet protocol (IP) — but RF still is needed in most cable networks to transport digital data […]
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11/01/2011
LTE Interference (Part 2)
Shortly after writing October’s column, I had an opportunity to team with several colleagues and head out to the field to look for signal leakage in the 700 MHz spectrum. I obtained a loaner Rohde & Schwarz PR100, a HE300 active directional antenna and a 500 MHz – 7.5 GHz antenna module (www.rohde-schwarz.com/product/pr100.html). This is […]
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11/01/2011
3D, Blu-ray: Here To Stay?
Some technologies enjoy a huge amount of initial hype and then flame out. That’s a bummer for early adopters, who then need a good technology-recycling plan. At a session at TelcoTV last week, Bryan Burns, vice president/Strategic Business Planning with ESPN, used his allotted time at a general session to talk about the inevitable ascension […]
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10/01/2011
Some Thoughts On LTE Interference
There’s a new kid on the block — the interference block, that is. That new kid is Long Term Evolution (LTE), a moniker for the next generation of mobile wireless broadband technology. What are known as LTE bands 12, 13, 14 and 17 are in a frequency range that overlaps frequencies used in many cable […]
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09/01/2011
dBmV: Voltage or Power? (Part 2)
Consider a sine wave viewed in the time domain – that is, amplitude vs. time – as might be seen on an oscilloscope. This alternating current waveform’s amplitude or level can be characterized in a variety of ways. One can measure the sine wave’s peak-to-peak, peak, root mean square or average values of current and […]
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07/01/2011
dBmV: Voltage Or Power? (Part 1)
The concept of decibels often is confusing, especially when it comes to the decibel millivolt (dBmV) the cable industry has used for years as a metric to characterize signal levels. The “mV” in dBmV suggests we’re measuring voltage, yet the decibel itself is by definition used to express a ratio of two power levels. Indeed, […]