RF Shorts – Dec. 2, 2010

By Doug Lung
published

  • •Last week I linked to the Weekly World News satire article Wi-Fi Is Killing American Trees. For more information on the research that prompted that piece, see Dan Nosowitz's article Wi-Fi Radiation is Killing Trees, New Study Finds in Popular Science. Forbes Magazine writer Katherine Baker, writing on Mother Nature Network, says Wi-Fi may not kill trees after all. The Dutch Antennae Agency issued a statement saying, “The researcher from Wageningen University indicates that these are initial results and that has not been confirmed in a repeat survey. He warns strongly that there is still no far-reaching conclusions from its results. Based on the information now available, it cannot be concluded that the Wi-Fi radio signals leads to damage to trees or other plants."
  • •At a technology event in Silicon Valley this week, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs touted the important role mobile TV plays in broadcasting live events. In the article Live Events Important for Mobile TV Success, Bloomberg writer Aaron Ricadela reports Jacobs said “Live sports and other events may be vital for TV services on phones and tablets, and vendors should allocate sufficient bandwidth to those broadcasts."
  • •Yoshitaya Yoshina at Sony received a U.S. Patent for an Earphone antenna according to Interconnectionworld.com. The abstract states, "An earphone antenna includes: earphone cords; an earphone portion; a coaxial cable; and a pin plug connector portion; wherein the earphone cords cooperate with a shielded line of the coaxial cable using a connection point with the coaxial cable as a feeding point to constitute an antenna for receiving RF signals; wherein conductor lines constituting a core wire of the coaxial cable form signal lines for transmitting audio signals and a ground line; and wherein the coaxial cable is connected with a separation-superimposition circuit portion which is mounted at a side of the pin plug connector portion or at a side of a wireless electronic device and acts to separate the RF signals and the audio signals and to superimpose the audio signals."
Doug Lung
Doug Lung

Doug Lung is one of America's foremost authorities on broadcast RF technology. As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, H. Douglas Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings. Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack.
A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Doug is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He is the recipient of the 2023 NAB Television Engineering Award. He also received a Tech Leadership Award from TV Tech publisher Future plc in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.