http://stevensholland.com Technically speaking... Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:43:15 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I need to take some time to find a good plugin and get this site setup so that spam comments are reduced -- I am getting upwards of 10 spam comments a day at this point -- but until then I am shutting them all off.  Currently I don't even ... http://stevensholland.com/change-in-comments-2/ Every now and then I write or modify a matlab function that I need for my research, and will post them to this blog here and there, with the hopes that they will be useful to someone doing antenna/microwave design.  I know, there is the Matlab File Exchange (which is ... http://stevensholland.com/smith-chart-matlab-function/ This article from NASA talks about the measurement of magentic portals that connect the earth to the sun every 8 minutes, due to their magnetic fields pushing against each other and forming connections.  It is always interesting to see something happening on a such a large scale and with these ... http://stevensholland.com/magnetic-portals/ I only have one course this semester, focusing on my Probability and Random Processes course and doing research.  This is by design, since I knew probability is a course I haven't taken in 6+ years now...and I am super rusty.  But I have our text for the class, the schaum's ... http://stevensholland.com/probably-a-good-sign/ After spending most of the season in first place, it was looking dicey as it wore down and they slipped into 2nd place last week... but they pulled it off tonight!  Although I would have rather went to the game (as most of my family and friends got some of ... http://stevensholland.com/the-did-it/ I got an email informing me that my masters thesis is now accessible through the University of Massachusetts "scholarworks" site, their digital library of thesis and disseratations. If you are interested in taking a look at what I spent the last two years working on...you can find it  here. The thesis was ... http://stevensholland.com/masters-thesis-update/ I have been running some Ansoft HFSS simulations of infinite arrays of antennas, recently.  A peculiar thing I noticed is that some of the impedance data, which is calculated from the S-parameter matrices, had sizable spikes (upwards of 300Ohms) inside a frequency band that, from the S-parameters, looked smooth and ... http://stevensholland.com/hfss-calculating-incorrect-impedances/ Here is an interesting Java applet that allows good visualization of the fields of some basic antenna elements.  http://www.falstad.com/antenna/ You can readily see the field pattern distortions that occur from things like making a dipole or loop longer than half a wavelength in size, the multiple lobes that form, and how ... http://stevensholland.com/antenna-java-applet/ My friend Bill Whirity (see link to his website on the side) is making a movie (look for his other movie Broke on netflix!...I was supposed to be Eddie Beats but had my wisdom teeth out right before shooting...I digress) called The Misadventures of Milo Weatherby.  From what I have ... http://stevensholland.com/the-misadventures-of-milo-weatherby/ Images of the earth and moon from 31 million miles away. "A NASA spacecraft designed to look for comets turned its cameras homeward, capturing a unique view of the moonEarth as seen from 31 million miles away. The spacecraft, Deep Impact, took shots at 15-minute intervals, which were combined to make ... http://stevensholland.com/moon-revolving-around-the-earth/