D. C. Smith Consultants
High Frequency Measurement Website
Douglas C. Smith
 
DCS header


High Frequency Measurements Web Page
Index and Technical Tidbits
D-104 mike
Welcome to my High Frequency Measurements Web page. Below you will find links to interesting technical goodies for download, as well as other interesting websites, information on my seminars, and much more. I will be adding to this site weekly, so check back occasionally. Feel free to print out pages on this site and to give them to others, but I ask you to include the complete page with header. Check out the monthly Technical Tidbit article linked at the bottom of this page. Each one will illustrate a design or measurement principle, sometimes what not to do.

HF News is my email newsletter to inform visitors of this website when significant new content is added and for important news related to the website or to high frequency measurements and design. There is no charge to sign up for this email service and it will not contain paid advertising. The list will be kept confidential and will not be disclosed or sold to anyone. To sign up via email, click here and put "hf news" in the subject line. The number of email messages will be limited to one or two per month. Most months there will be only one message.

Design and Troubleshooting Tips and Techniques: You will find many tips on design and troubleshooting on this site, yet what you see is just the "tip of the iceberg" compared to what is available in my on-site private seminars. The seminars cover many effective design and troubleshooting techniques developed by myself and not taught anywhere else!  Click here to request more information via email.

Quote from a visitor to this site:
"Every time I browse your site, I never get any work done. I spend hours on it and get in trouble."


High Frequency Measurement Partners


EMC Desisgn Advisory Service

High Speed Digital Design Link

Boulder Dam Hotel and Museum
Our office, laboratory, and classrooms are located in the
----------
Historic Boulder City Dam Hotel and Museum
1305 Arizona Street, Boulder City, Nevada 89005
Phone: (702) 293-3510
----------
Come for a technical seminar, design review/troubleshooting, or just for a visit and mix a little history of the Old West with your work!


Hangar One
Our Silicon Valley branch office and lab are located at
----------
NASA-Ames Research Center
RMV Technology Group
Bldg. 19, Suite 1073, M/S 19-46C
Moffett Field, CA  94035



URLs to Access This Site

http://hfdesign.org
(mirror site)
http://emcesd.com
(main site)

http://www.dsmith.org
(pointer to emcesd.com)

Design Troubleshooting, EMC, and ESD in Boulder City, NV!
August 13th-15th, 2012
Testimonials
Boulder City Dam Hotel and Museum
For more pictures of Boulder City, NV click here
For more information on Boulder City, NV click here
For more information on the Boulder City Dam Hotel and Museum, the site of the seminar click here

This three day seminar takes the best points from my seminars and compresses them into three action packed days with lecture, video, and many demonstrations on live circuits. Time is allowed for attendees to operate the experiments if they want. In two days, you will learn how to make accurate measurements in the lab and then apply those techniques to design verification and troubleshooting as well as EMC problems. The techniques and experiments are geared to the development lab and common equipment found there. During an optional third day, ESD/EMI at the system level will be covered as well as applying system level ESD stress to components, such as LEDs, in a test environment. Click here, for an outline of the seminar. This seminar is derived from the following seminars and is composed of the best points from them to make the best use of your time. All attendees will receive a pdf copy of the course notes and a one year membership in my training site http://circuitadvisor.com.

In addition, the seminar fee includes (for the same price that other seminars in the field cost for just the seminar and lunch):
  1. Round trip transportation by Lincoln Towne Car (or equivalent) to/from Las Vegas McCarran Airport and the Boulder City Dam Hotel
  2. Three nights in the historic Boulder City Dam Hotel and Museum
  3. Breakfast and lunch each day
  4. A PDF electronic color copy of the notes
  5. A one year membership in my training site http://circuitadvisor.com
You just have to get to Las Vegas McCarran Airport and I take it from there except for dinner each day.

During your stay, walk around town and experience the scenic, quaint town of Boulder City, NV.

This seminar combines features from the following seminars into three days. Seminar Outline
Click here to see testimonials about Doug and the seminars
Click here to send an email for registration details.

Contact me if you are interesting in having a semi-private "seminar-on-demand" for your company in Boulder City. The material can be custom tailored to your interests from topics you see on this website for groups of 2 to 8 on short notice. Click here to send an email requesting details. I can also arrange a session in Boulder City to troubleshoot your design on my test bench for small products.


Go directly to my papers, articles, and Technical Tidbits on this site!

CircuitAdvisor.com logo

My new website http://CircuitAdvisor.com is now open!

CircuitAdvisor.com is devoted to engineering information and training delivered through video and audio multimedia as well as written text. The site also contains regular podcasts of the latest engineering news, blogs, and more. In addition to free audio and video content for non-members, the member side is inexpensive to join at $10/month or less for access to content worth much much more than that. New content is added each week including podcasts and tutorials. We are building this site into the place to come on the Internet for engineering training and information. Have a difficult design or field problem? CircuitAdvisor.com is the place to come. There are even original engineering cartoons! Trouble accessing mp3 or video files at work? No problem, the content is available in Flash to view right in your browser.

Technical Tidbit:  
This month's Technical Tidbit describes an unusual side effect of trying to use inexpensive BNC hardware. Click here to go to the bottom of this page for the article (but you will miss the about 200 papers and articles in-between).

Audio-Visual Tutorials and more: Check out http://circuitadvisor.com for in-depth audio-visual tutorials, technical news, HFNews archives,  and much more (subscription). CircuitAdvisor.com carries topics on this site further, delivering valuable insight of immediate practical use. Extensive use is made of audio to deliver useful information in the shortest possible time.  The cost is less than most paid technical magazine subscriptions and comparable to many consumer print magazines.

Have a tough design problem? Design problems can be very costly. Even if caught in the lab, precious resources can be wasted tracking such problems down. My private seminars cover design and troubleshooting techniques I developed that are not taught by anyone else! These techniques have solved tough problems in a day or two after design teams had struggled with the problems for weeks or months, not to mention avoiding the problems in the first place. Click here to request more information.

Design troubleshooting and verification: Tracking down design problems in the lab can be time consuming. The public seminars listed below and my private on-site seminars include new information to minimize debug time. The difference can be hours to a solution instead of weeks! Click here to hear a 1 minute, ~128K, audio clip discussing the seminar.

Also, check out the job listing page updated October 30, 2011.




Book image

D-104 mike
New site, Circuit Advisor.com, is coming soon for engineers and technicians! 

Click here for more information, books, seminars, and  consulting on high frequency measurement, design, troubleshooting, signal integrity, and EMC.

Upcoming Seminar Dates:


The Newport Beach, CA seminars listed above are very special events. Attendance is limited to 6 people to insure a "one-on-one" experience and they are held in a breathtaking setting in Orange County, CA. And yet, these seminars cost no more than most public seminars. Previous people attending have rated these seminars as the best they have ever taken! There are no lengthly forms to fill out, just contact me by phone or email for details or to register. To see testimonials, click here




University of Oxford - Continuing Educatioin           High Speed Week

Doug's iNarte certificate
(click on the image to enlarge the certificate)


Check out my interview on EEWeb! Click here to see the interview.


s
News and Items of Interest
Unique and Useful Instruments

Technical Information and Downloads

Technical Tidbits (archived, current article is at bottom of this page)


Talks and Presentations

The links listed here are Adobe Acrobat (pdf) files containing the visuals of recent talks and presentations I have given to various groups. You will need Acrobat Reader V4.0 or better to read the files as well as a password. If you have attended one of  these presentations, then you already have the password, if not and you would like to view the file, click here to request the password. Keep in mind that the visuals only cover about 50% or less of my presentations. Live demonstrations and discussion of past experiences make up most of these talks.


Links to Interesting Sites and Events


Information About My Seminars


Information About Myself


Miscellaneous


Technical Tidbit - February 2012
The Melted BNC Adapter

This month's Technical Tidbit describes an unusual side effect of trying to use inexpensive BNC hardware.

Abstract: I often solder wires or components to BNC hardware to make voltage probes and magnetic loop probes. The process usually goes smoothly, except this time. Who would have guessed that the metal portion of BNC hardware could melt from the heat of soldering!

Typical common mode current plot
Click on the picture to read the article.


Need help with a design or additional training on technical subjects? Click on the image below to go to CircuitAdvisor.com, a new engineering resource for training, news, and fun.

CircuitAdvisor.com

Interested in more information on this and related topics? Click here for a schedule of upcoming design and measurement seminars.

Top of Page

Questions or suggestions? Contact me at doug@dsmith.org
Copyright © 1999-2012 Douglas C. Smith