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.

Anritsu Techtime Tour Visits Boston Area

May 20, 2011
I attended the Anritsu Techtime Tour this week (co-sponsored by AWR) since it was in our neighborhood in Chelmsford, MA. The Techtime Tour is a complimentary full-day educational seminar focused on the applications of Vector Network Analyzers (VNAs). Presentations included both lecture and live demonstrations presented by industry experts and allowed everyone to ask questions.



The topics covered were:



  • VNA Fundamentals

  • Advanced Amplifier Design and Test Including Nonlinear Measurements

  • Advanced Time Domain Techniques

  • Co-Simulation with Real-Time Channel Measurements

The session covered everything from the basics to the more advanced subjects in the afternoon so there was something for everyone. This was the last stop of the 6 city tour which included 2 stops in CA, 2 in TX, NJ and the Greater Boston. There are typically around 50 people who attend these sessions and if this tour is successful, they will try to continue having them from time to time.



I met one very interesting guy there who had his own personal VNA in his backpack. I was curious to see what he was using and he told me it was a VNWA which can be purchased as an assembled kit online for about 400 pounds from SDR-kits.net in the UK. It works up to about 1.3 GHz and he showed me the unit in action by measured a homemade filter he had rigged up. It is only 10.4 x 8 x 4.6 cm weighing 0.2 kg. A far cry from the VNAs sold by Anritsu but it is an interesting product.



Anritsu does have a big announcement for its VNA product line being released for IMS MTT-S so catch the news on the MWJ Online Show Daily.

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