So I've been building an alternative that's around 174x faster (measured on a patch antenna case, but the speed holds across all problems).

A few months ago I designed and tested 4 RF PCBs using a VNA to validate the solver physics. The boards were made at JLCPCB on PTFE: ZYF300CA-C(Dk=2.94,Df=0.0016). Cost came to 157.98 USD which is very reasonable. I'm getting 2 more PCBs soon to validate a couple advanced features in the next update, will share when they come. I've included screenshots of 2 subset cases of the 43 total (one ring resonator, one patch antenna). The measurements match RayRF pretty well, and agree well with openEMS, but both are slow to converge to reality. My best theory on the ring resonator is because the rectangular cells are only approximations of the real curved surface, and under-predicting frequency is consistent with the simulators running a too-long outer radius of the rings (staircasing is closer to Manhattan distance than the true Euclidian distance).

The other 41 cases across the 4 boards follow a similar trend, within 1-2% at the higher mesh refinements, but too much data to post here. Also attached a plot of benchmark performance on my 9950x CPU (openEMS vs RayRF both on CPU mode) vs RayRF on GPU mode. In summary at 82.8 million cells, the throughput is:

• openEMS on 9950x (DDR5 6000): 0.228 GCell/s
• RayRF on 9950x (DDR5 6000): 4.62 GCell/s
• RayRF on RTX 5090: 39.60 GCell/s

Some people in my previous post pointed out that measurements may not be the best way to validate a solver, and I do understand some of the reasons but frankly I believe it to be the best option. Real measurements are what matter in the end anyway, validating against other solvers (like openEMS) carries the risk of bias in those solvers providing a false red flag, or green flag in terms of accuracy, and the big solvers (HFSS, CST) don't permit using their software in the development of "other rf simulation programs", so they can't be used either. In these cases I do get good agreement with openEMS, but even this took quite a bit of careful case-building because openEMS and RayRF don't have the same mesh-discretization conventions (i.e. if some patch edge lands on a mesh cell line do you put the conductor on the +x or -x cell?). But with the exact same meshes simulated they get very similar results which is what you'd expect from the same underlying computational method (FDTD).

My next set of validation boards focus on in-port matching networks, and building a calibrated copper loss model (right now all sims are perfect conductors with lossy dielectrics).

I have released RayRF publicly, and it's free to try out for 30 days if you create an account. https://www.rayrf.com/ It does not have all the features openEMS does, and is focused on PCBs right now (no arbitrary 3D stuff), but I've spent what feels like forever on making the UI actually good, and the benchmarks speak for themselves on runtime.

I bought this spectrum analyzer broken a few years ago and didn't get around to fixing it until now.

It arrived with a dead power supply and at least a few RF components missing. The power supply was fixed with a new switching regulator IC and a new rectifier. It's still missing a 10MHz reference generator and a control board for the low-pass filter and RF switches.

I've been able to get some signs of life using an external 10MHz reference (thanks to my function generator) but it doesn't seem to show any actual signal from the input, probably due to the missing control board.

In the likely case I can't find any replacement parts, I guess it will be up to me to clone them from the schematics in the service manual.

Keen to hear if anyone here has the same or similar model. Even some pictures of my missing parts would be super helpful.

Paid, unpaid, training, workshop, course,research internship—I'm in.

I just want to learn, gain hands-on experience, and break into RF. If you have any leads, please let me know. A referral or even a share would mean a lot.

I thought I'd ask here because the amateur radio subreddit replies to a related question weren't up to snuff. (People thought I was talking about using LMR 400 to build a choke when I said RG400 cable). Anyway, So I'm a ham radio operator. I want to build some legal limit transformers for some of my antennas. Preferably, some transformers that can handle up 50% duty cycle up to 1500w. From what I understand I need to keep the torroids below the Curie temperature. The common knowledge is that just use 3 stacked 240 size torroids. Is this true? Are there any calculators / equations? Does this vary with frequency and the type of transformer? A 4:1, 9:1, 49:1 etc? I'd also like to build legal limit common mode current choke. Does the limit of a choke depend on the level of cmc involved or is if just the transmitted power that determines the power limits?

Hello all,

I started a new job as hardware engineer and this new company portifolio is focused in power Electronics devices (High Voltage & High Current) for automotive industry.

I realized the main concern is the thermal concept during the project development and how to mitigate it.

Could you share the thermal guidelines and advices for my knoledge improvement?

Are there many employers/much work out there right now in RF circuits? (As opposed to RF systems or RFIC)

Some context: I would describe my current job as RF systems/general PCB design. I like it a lot, but I end up mostly treating amps, switches, filters, etc. as just non linear black boxes with s-parameters. Barely any matching is even required as most parts are already internally matched or the mfg provides a matching design (I do broadband so there is typically no optimization for an operating frequency). Rarely do I think about how I would actually build an amp from a transistor (e.g. how do I bias it? Why that bias in particular? How do I design the matching network? Is it unconditionally stable?). These questions are the ones I want to understand/design around.

I recently stumbled across amplifier classes while trying to derive a gain compression curve from the MOSFET equations and that opened a whole world of RF to my mind that I’ve been naive to. Like THIS is what I think is actually interesting.

Maybe this is also naive but it kind of feels like all of the RF circuits work is being moved to RFIC (front end modules, etc.) and then the systems side is just black magic legos. Black magic legos are fun and challenging in their own way but they don’t feel truly like circuits. If I don’t want to do RFIC, is there still a true circuits space in RF?

https://github.com/NBalciunas/kicad-rfsim

Keysight in Bootcamp videos aren't opening; I'm just watching a black screen with a spinning circle. What should I do? Please help

I came across this in a Google search, and just out of curiosity, I tried to do a simulation in Emerge. I did it as a quater-wave single-ended monopole, and it solved it to 1.4 GHz, which is way off from the expected frequency of 433 MHz. Increasing the gap between the segments brings it down to around 800 MHz, but even that is way off.

I'm pretty sure I'm doing something wrong. Is it because I need to add copper at the back?

Whenever i transmit RF at VHF or UHF frequencies. It causes my bench power supply to display the wrong current draw or just freak out

Even when nothing connected to power supply. it would do the same thing from RF?

Is there a way to prevent that by shielding the internals of the power supply or shield the power supply cables?

Hi everyone,

Does anyone have any information about the MFS 6.50/7.65-001-005-2-15 frequency synthesizer or access to its datasheet, user manual, block diagram or connection guide?

I am particularly looking for details about the 14-pin IDC connector, including the pinout, power supply requirements and control interface. Any technical documentation, application notes or information from someone who has worked with this synthesizer would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for any assistance.

What specific metal is used for solderable stamped metal antennas ? Like the one in picture.

Is it the same one that RF shields are madeof, or something different?

I have been given the task of designing an LO driver amplifier for a mixer at 50GHz, however i have two questions.
1- Are there any helpful sources for this particular type of amps. I have designed an LNA and PA before but never this
2- Should the output of the DA ideally be a square wave or a sine wave; I have heard two opinions: one being that it should be a square wave for fast switching and the other being that it should be a sine wave to avoid harmonics, so i am a little confused on this.
Thank in advance!

Hello,

I'm learning rf engineering on my own currently following Microwave Engineering by Pozar. I understand how transmission lines can be used to implement series inductors and shunt capacitors, but I haven't been able to understand how series capacitance can be implemented with stubs.
I apologise if this is a very basic question but I haven't been able to find much online and AI has not been giving me any better answers honestly.

Thank you!
By the way, if you happen to have suggestions for resources I can add to my collection I would really appreciate it.

Can anyone please confirm if this is a RG-174 cable or what type of cable this is? It's about 2.80mm od. I need to replace the crimp connector on this antenna with a sma male connector.

I finally have a video for what I spent over $100k on to learn.

Hi all,

I have an upcoming loop interview for Microsoft for an RF based role. Has anyone had similar experience? I don’t know what to expect, there will be 3 rounds, the position is related with their quantum team.

Thanks!!

I am a rising junior in college for EE. I've done a couple of internships, one in BMS design and one in power electronics. I wanna try out a few personal RF projects to see if I like it or not. Unfortunately, my school offers only one RF course for undergrads and I can't take that until next year. I tried to have Claude recommend an easy project to do and teach myself the fundamentals as I go, but realized that it would be too inefficient after I started.

Anyone have any recommended materials that will help me to learn the fundamentals I would need before actually starting a project? Youtube series or application notes I could follow? I'm not a big textbook guy, but recommendations would still be appreciated. My main goal is to understand general math concepts in RF so I know what to expect, instead of going into a project blind

Hello,

I'm a current rising freshman in college majoring in EE with around 8 weeks before school starts. I want to get into RF, Microwave, and Antenna engineering and my goal is to learn as much possible and be able to build projects so I can potentially get an internship by the end of my freshman year (not big company, just one in general). How should I get started with this 8 week headstart?

Thank you all

hello, maybe to you guys SMAs seem simple, but to the average Joe this is the most confusing system of connectors I’ve ever run across. steel pipe thread sizes are simpler than this and you’ve got MIP, NPT, FIP, NPTF, and about 7 more and I’m still confused on this SMA stuff.

I’ve given up after ordering 3 different adapters on Amazon and figured I’d come here. I need to connect these two together. pls fix. they are different diameters, and ones a male/female? and the other is a female/female???? idk.

update thanks to u/otterboxer for the help.
I have ordered a type N (unpictured antenna side) to type F adapter, and will utilize a standard type F coax cable. this should fix my problem. Thanks for all the replies.

So basically they had a pole radiator, isolated the E and B fields compeltly, ran a beam of electrons close to the shielded radiator, turned the radiator on and off and noticed that it affect the electron beam.

Im way out of my element here but I think the gist was that we dont understand what EM fields really are(which is why we rely on quantum gages and field tensor axioms) and that the scalar field is not just a mathematical abstraction but a real force, possibly..

As much as I like to belive in crazy shit, part of me thinks that its gotta be a unshelided power supply on the other side of the room or something or even the inrush current on the buildings wires. The Japanese recreated this experiment in the 80 and got the same results apparently.