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    2. organissimo - The Band Discussion

      Discuss the group, organissimo! The group's music, CDs, gigs, the three members, etc.

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  2. Music Discussion

    1. Album Of The Week

      A fine, original Organissimo tradition!

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    2. Artists

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    3. Audio Talk

      Components, interconnects, recordings, etc...

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    4. Blindfold Test

      Another fine Organissimo tradition!

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    5. Classical Discussion

      Self-explanatory...

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    6. Discography

      Artist discography questions and answers.

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    8. Jazz Radio & Podcasts

      Standard or internet, discuss your favorite stations and podcasts!

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    9. Live Shows & Festivals

      Hip fellow board members to upcoming concerts...

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    10. Mosaic and other box sets...

      All things dealing with box sets.

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    11. Miscellaneous Music

      Miscellaneous music discussion area.

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    12. Musician's Forum

      A forum for other musicians to share information.

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    13. New Releases

      Discuss new releases from various labels.

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    14. Offering and Looking For...

      Trade, sell, swap, recordings with fellow members.

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    15. Recommendations

      Suggest recordings to your fellow board (bored?) members...

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    16. Re-issues

      Discuss the current crop of re-issues hitting the market.

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    17. The Vinyl Frontier

      All things related to the long-lived analog marvel!

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  3. General Discussion

    1. Hammond Zone

      General discussion about all things Hammond organ!

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    2. Miscellaneous - Non-Political

      NO religious or political discussion will be tolerated.

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  • Topics

  • Posts

    • Slot Machine Music, Vol. 1 & 2: Field Recordings from Middle American Casinos
    • One of the last products I worked on was a "beam former". These beasts are used in 5G type communication systems. They typically work with 4 signals simultaneously, which is how you get so much data with 5G. A simplified block diagram doesn't even do it justice. Mounting these devices onto a board is a bear too. Each solder connection has to work at all 8 RF ports across the whole frequency band over the entire temp range. Not as easy as it sounds. Board assembly was a huge part of my days at Analog Devices, as getting these parts soldered down perfectly every time was ultra-important to our customers. The last one of these I worked on came in a bumped package i.e. little solder balls in the bottom. The biggest problem with them was that they curl a bit under solder heat temps (~260 degrees C) and sometimes, the little solder balls don't make good connections if the curl is too great.
    • When I decided to retire, I took a few pictures of my last work areas. I was an applications engineer for Analog Devices' RF products group. I tested parts from MHz to 100 GHz. Here was one of my last test benches, but I don't think the product was mine. By this time, I was responsible for beam forming products. This looks like a GaN ampllifer - you can tell by the monster capacitor on the test board. Those things needed to be pulsed and the drew a ton of current, so you needed a massive cap to be able to supply that current quickly. It was probably this 1-22 GHz amp: https://www.analog.com/en/products/adpa1112.html The labs I worked in typically had 50 or 60 test benches like this. Here is one "chase" with about 10 test benches/racks in it. The floor is conductive (as are  the chairs) for ESD purposes. You can see a temp chamber on the left. We used to have to characterize our parts from -40 degrees to +85 degrees Celsius. The plexiglass box/cover is there because we had to pump in Nitrogen to prevent frost/freezing. This was one of our workhorses in the test lab. As you can see if you can zoom in, this box could test from 2 Hz to 110 GHz with extraordinary dynamic range. Cabling was extremely important with these test boxes. Some of our cables cost upwards of $12,000 each. My understanding of using cables capable of cleanly transmitting high frequency signals is why is am a bit biased against a lot of the audio cable debates... audio (Hz to maybe 16 kHz if you're lucky) is a piece of cake to conduct compared to the signals I used to have to worry about.   BTW - I took this picture to show to the Keysight rep. Those calibration stickers have to be redone every year in a special cal lab.
    • No way of knowing. It could be anyone. 
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