Pat Hindle, MWJ Editor
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Hindle
Pat Hindle is responsible for editorial content, article review and special industry reporting for Microwave Journal magazine and its web site in addition to social media and special digital projects. Prior to joining the Journal, Mr. Hindle held various technical and marketing positions throughout New England, including Marketing Communications Manager at M/A-COM (Tyco Electronics), Product/QA Manager at Alpha Industries (Skyworks), Program Manager at Raytheon and Project Manager/Quality Engineer at MIT. Mr. Hindle graduated from Northeastern University - Graduate School of Business Administration and holds a BS degree from Cornell University in Materials Science Engineering.

RF/Microwave Calculator and Converter Apps

July 7, 2010
I recently came across this very nice microwave toolbox for Android mobile devices that Faust Nijhuis developed (posted on our LinkedIn Community). He has created a free lite version with a few useful calculators and a 1.99 euro version that has 6 calculators and 2 converters for the full toolbox. Below are a couple of sample screen shots from his web site.


MW calculator lite is the lite and free version of the microwave tool box with the following tools:
  • PI and T attenuator calculator
  • Reflectometer calculator
  • Mismatch error limits calculator

MW calculator is a microwave tool box with the following tools:

  • PI and T attenuator calculator
  • Reflectometer calculator
  • Mismatch error limits calculator
  • Microstrip calculator
  • Stripline calculator
  • Coplanar waveguide calculator
  • Power and voltage converter
  • Field intensity and power density converter

You will find the applications in the Android Market and more information can be found on his web site at http://www.mwave-design.nl/mw/index.php?title=Android.

At IMS 2010, Agilent launched the Agilent MicroWave calculator to help calculate the errors in microwave measurements. It consists of Directivity Error Calculator, Mismatch Error Limit Calculator, and Ratio-to-dB Calculator. The Directivity Error Calculator shows the accuracy of a reflection measurement of unknown impedance based upon the directivity of the coupler used for the measurement. The Mismatch Error Limit Calculator shows the potential error in a transmission measurement due to imperfect source match and load match. The Ratio-to-dB Calculator simply converts between voltage ratio, power ratio, and dB.

It can be downloaded at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microwave-calculator/id369705771?mt=8.

Please let us know if there are RF/microwave related tools that you would like to have in an app. What other mobile phone apps have you seen that would be useful to microwave engineers? This should be a very interesting area to watch as new apps are developed for our industry.

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