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   ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 03:12:29 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

   it amuses me to hear a presenter say "RF engineering is pure wizardry" when this thing comes on a screen and it's _obviously_ a mm wave Doppler radar

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     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 03:14:58 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     (in this case, I'm cheating: I've used this exact device before. but I'm only cheating a little, because when I've first seen it, I asked an EE about all the bits and pieces it's made out of, and it all has rational explanations despite looking like arbitrary, nonsensical runes)

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     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 04:40:40 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     • Ignas Kiela

     @ignaloidas but it's often said *by* EE-adjacent people *to* EE-adjacent people!

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     Ignas Kiela (ignaloidas@not.acu.lt)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 04:40:42 JST Ignas Kiela

     in reply to

     @whitequark@mastodon.social nobody is saying wizardry doesn't have explanations, it's just that to those not in the know it may as well be arbitrary and nonsensical

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     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 04:41:38 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     • Ignas Kiela
     • F4GRX Sébastien

     @ignaloidas @f4grx discrete capacitors and resistors aren't like the nipple! you aren't born with knowledge of how to use them either

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     Ignas Kiela (ignaloidas@not.acu.lt)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 04:41:39 JST Ignas Kiela

     in reply to

     • F4GRX Sébastien

     @f4grx@chaos.social @whitequark@mastodon.social I mean sure, it's the same with regular electronics, it's just that without some knowledge the blocks don't make sense, and without knowing how said blocks interact, the arrangements don't either.

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     F4GRX Sébastien (f4grx@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 04:41:40 JST F4GRX Sébastien

     in reply to

     • Ignas Kiela

     @ignaloidas @whitequark it doesnt take much to identify building blocks. I would say that RF electronics has fewer tricks, it's basically a sequence of lego blocks.

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     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 04:45:50 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     • F4GRX Sébastien

     @f4grx it's a pair of diodes iirc

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     F4GRX Sébastien (f4grx@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 04:45:51 JST F4GRX Sébastien

     in reply to

     @whitequark looking at this I see a schelatic and imlediately understand what I see.

     Q2 is not a transistor.

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     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 04:49:57 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     • Ignas Kiela
     • F4GRX Sébastien

     @ignaloidas @f4grx it seems like we agree here

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     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 05:30:27 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     • Ignas Kiela
     • F4GRX Sébastien

     @f4grx @ignaloidas that would be SUCH a good resource

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     F4GRX Sébastien (f4grx@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 05:30:29 JST F4GRX Sébastien

     in reply to

     • Ignas Kiela

     @ignaloidas @whitequark sometimes nornal analog circuits are built with non-obvious complex tricks, branches, feedbacks, etc. not so much with RF.

     In a ideal world i should do an encyclopedia of RF building blocks.

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     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 05:49:18 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     • Ignas Kiela
     • F4GRX Sébastien
     • Orman

     @orman @f4grx @ignaloidas isn't software like that too?

     (i'm biased, i'm a systems and language design critter)

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     Orman (orman@furry.engineer)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 05:49:22 JST Orman

     in reply to

     • Ignas Kiela
     • F4GRX Sébastien

     @f4grx @ignaloidas @whitequark circuit design, especially RF circuit design, looks like the opposite of Lego to this SW dev because all the pieces couple to each other to some extent or another

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     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 06:11:29 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     • ftg

     @ftg yep

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     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 06:11:29 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     • ftg

     @ftg how the fuck could you tell the exact frequency from the photo?

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     ftg (ftg@mastodon.radio)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 06:11:31 JST ftg

     in reply to

     @whitequark
     And it's a rather straightforward centimetric-wave (10.525 GHz nominal) doppler radar at that.
     Single transistor DRO oscillator, couple of radial stubs, one power splitter and a single balanced diode mixer.

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     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 06:19:16 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     • F4GRX Sébastien
     • ftg

     @ftg @f4grx ohhh that's how that works

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     ftg (ftg@mastodon.radio)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 06:19:20 JST ftg

     in reply to

     • F4GRX Sébastien

     @f4grx @whitequark
     Single balanced mixer with BAT15-099.
     The "U" shape on the side of with two pins of the SOT23 package is the transformer that does the 180 degree phase shift. And does the balanced part of single balanced mixer.

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     F4GRX Sébastien (f4grx@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 06:19:22 JST F4GRX Sébastien

     in reply to

     @whitequark it has to be, it's wired as a subharmonic mixer IIRC. Most probably anti parallel diodes.

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     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 06:25:21 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     • linear cannon

     @linear i think this boils down to seeing so many people say "wizardry" as _a means of conveying they won't even try to understand it_

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     linear cannon (linear@nya.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Dec-2025 06:25:23 JST linear cannon

     in reply to
     @whitequark@mastodon.social i mean, i've written the software to drive RF circuits like this (well. a bit different, it was 5G cellular beamforming stuff) while sitting in the same room as the people who designed it, and fully understood its operation, and i'd still call it wizardry
     
     i do not envy the type of person who can no longer find the magic in something like this after learning how it operates