Great Technical References from N1UL, Dr. Ulrich Rohde

Ulrich's dad was the 'Rohde' in R &S. I believe Ulrich remains an owner in R&S.

But Ulrich is a successful business man and inventor in his own right. Didn't come up on anyone's coattails.

Ulrich was a recent co-author of a very interesting two-part series on metamaterial switching, in the latest Microwave Journal issues.

73
Chip W1YW

 

Worked you many times on FT8!! 73 Dr. Rodhe!!
Jim

 

Ausgezeichnet, Herr Doktor! Vielen dank.

 

Good morning to all, yes R&S was found 1933 by my father and his friend and colleague from the university and their first product was loss tangent measurement device for ceramic at RF frequencies.
R&S has no outside share holder, only direct children become owners of R&S, which has about 13 ooo employees and $ 2.2 billions in sales.

i control conflict free 25 % of the company, and unfortunately I am the only RF engineer amongst the owners, the rest have different education and interests.

On the positive side having no external shareholders outside the two families we are really a well balanced team.

Thanks for the interest and best 73 de Ulrich
N1UL

 

Ulrich,

I think the thing that most interests the folks here is that you've not only maintained the legacy of your father, but personally extended that important spirit of innovation and progress into new realms , undreamed of just a few years ago.

Ulrich is the man!

Stay well!

73
Chip W1YW

 

Agree.

The "Test and Measurement..." article is fantastic and will take some time to digest.

The "Rebirth of HF" article mentions ALE. ALE doesn't just "listen" as one might think after reading the article, it also transmits a series of sounds during the handshaking and calling.

It will do this right over the top of an active HF QSO. As I've experienced ALE, it's harmful interference in the ham bands. It doesn't ask the equivalent of "is this frequency clear", it just opens up and hammers your QSO with interference.

IMO, ALE should be limited to emergency communications and military use only unless the protocol changes and the interference is stopped.

Click on this video and jump to 3:07. This is the ALE signal that has blasted directly into HF phone QSOs.

 

Once upon a time we would sometimes hear R & S referred to as "the German H-P." That comparison has long since become semi-useful only if reversed -- except that what radio technologists historically thought of when they thought "H-P" has been spun off and name-changed two or three times (depending on the product) over recent years such that the brand -- whatever it's called in any particular year -- has been diluted. Now IMO it's R & S that's the quality standard against which RF/lab-instrumentation competition should be judged.

And it's good to know we won't be seeing dilution of the R & S brand by the likes of consumer printers and ink cartridges anytime soon...

 

Well, since I'm the author of that paper, I'll chime in here

I do mention that ALE builds its LQD by transmitting periodic sounding signals and that newer generations of ALE (see pg. 18-19) include occupancy detection. One thing that's not mentioned in the paper is that in 4G ALE, not just the sounding signals but even short messages can usually be sent on top of an active connection without either operator noticing (very fast, i.e. sub second)

73,
Paul, KO4LZ

 

Hi Paul,

Nice to know that ALE's harmful interference to active QSOs may be reduced or significantly shortened by 4G ALE. I haven't used PC ALE, but if it doesn't advance in the same way that 4G ALE advances to reduce stomping on ham QSOs, I will remain in the camp of reserving ALE in any flavor for military and emergency communications only.

I'm surprised ALE was allowed to develop and deploy to the point that it has with the interference that it creates.

73,
Hugh-WA2LXB

 

Hello again Dr. Rohde,
I greatly enjoy our FT8 contacts! All the best! 73 de K6HR.

 

Dr. Rohde -

My CMU-200 is the best, most useful RF test gear I ever had, or have had access to - TU for great, useful equipment - And nice to work you on the bands -

73 ES GL Chris KD8TNF

 

What did you talk about?

 

Thanks so much for passing on these articles.

DV

 

Thank you for starting this thread.

I spent much of my 40+ year career with companies that built very high performance receivers and other state-of-the-art RF equipment. Several times I had the pleasure of attending meetings and conferences with Dr. Rohde. He is a brilliant man.

 

His MM operations.