My first 5 months in industry

I still recount the day I left for Huntsville AL where a job was waiting for me, I was a excited but very very scared. Was I good enough? Did my degree mean anything in the real world? Did I have the skill set to make things happen?

After my 5 months in industry, I designed my first product that has now gone into production. I have learnt so many skills like milling a printed circuit board, soldering a 0201 resistor on a board, the magic of copper tape in antenna design, knowing the steps involved in product development, heading a design effort, learning how to deal with a multitude of personalities on a daily basis. I have been lucky to be part of a small company so I am allowed to head a design effort and watch my design go through the several stages before it matures into a full grown product line. Though I am still not at the finish line but the very brief journey thus far has been very educative and exhilarating.

I have loved every second of my work and hope this is just a start to a long journey ahead.

My last few months in school!!!!

I have spent 25 of the 29 years of my existence on this planet in schooling. At the end of this long arduous journey, I finished up with a PhD in electrical engineering on 22 Dec 2007. The last few months were a struggle with my future hanging on a thin thread. I had spent the last summer working on half pay (20 hrs per week) for nearly the entire summer except the first month (May). I got married on 16 Sep 2008 and now had the added responsibility of caring for another person who left a thriving career back home just to be with me. Every day and night was spent in trying to culminate a 5 year effort into something fruitful and useful. I have my beautiful wife to thank for the dozen or so 150 page thesis copies she had to read and correct. I was not planning on graduating till the may of 2008 because I had no future till the 21 October 2008. I got this call from one Mrs Jennifer Goodman saying her company offered me a job. My world changed after that day. I knew I had a life and a future. I knew my hard work had paid off. My fears of managing a family changed to joy and a sense of pride at my accomplishment. I could see myself dealing with difficult situations with a new found confidence.

I am so happy I did not give in when the going got tough.

My thoughts on transient antenna radiation - Part 1

Antennas have been used extensively since hertz first sent out signals wirelessly across the seas. There has been extensive work done in the field of antennas in the last 100 years. Still the radiation of a short pulse(transient response) from an antenna has a lot of outstanding questions that remain unanswered.

In the last 5 years, I have been working on one aspect of this problem which is the shape of the radiated electric field pulse and its relation to the geometry of the antenna. Reading books like Schantz, Stutzman and theile or Kraus, tells us that if you want to radiate a broadband pulse then a fatter, planar antenna works more efficiently than a thin wire antenna. Again this statement is arguable as the immediate question would be "what do you define as a more efficient antenna?" There is always two design trade-offs associated with broadband antennas: (1) How good do they match to a 50 ohm transmission line which feeds power to them?; and (2)How good do they radiate that power and in what direction?

The first question seems more difficult to answer to me at this time and so I will start with the second question. In my experiments, I have found that planar (fat) antennas with smooth edges (e.g. Ovals) tend to radiate a pulse with lesser time dispersion than antenna structures with sharp edges (e.g. diamond dipole). I think that antenna structures with sharp edges tend to cause changes in flow of charge and the rate of change of charge velocity is the current. Following Maxwells' curl equations we know that the radiated field is the delayed time derivative of the current density integrated over the surface of the antenna (Volume in general case). It is important to note that the partial time derivative involves not just the current density in an infinitesimal area on the antenna but also the delay associated with the distance from the infinitesimal surface to the point in space where the field is to be determined. Hence the shape and dimensions of the antenna play a vital role in defining the shape of the radiated electric and magnetic field pulse as they control the path taken by the charge flow.

I assert that the aforementioned reason is one cause of pulse distortion and not the only cause.

Schantz's book states that charges mainly flow along the edges of the antenna structure as there can be no field inside the conductor. Though FDTD simulations done by me show that the current follows the edges I do not agree with this statement for planar board antennas as the charges spread along the copper surface of the antenna and there is considerable difference in the radiated pulse shape as seen on the DSO in a anechoic chamber if only the edges of the antenna are considered and the copper in the middle is scratched off. It is obvious that this reduces the copper on the board and hence the surface integral would result in a different value for the radiated field strength. But it also important to note that the radiated pulse shape changes which is not stated in previous work. I do not know if what I am thinking is right or wrong in this regard.

Now coming back to the first question, the impedance, a measure of the obstruction to flow of current, of an antenna needs to be matched to 50 Ohms (normal transmission line impedance). Of importance is the geometry of the antenna structure when the transmission lines feeds to the planar antenna structure. If the structure is wide compared to the i/p transmission line the current entering the antenna spreads out and this means that the impedance of the antenna structure is lower at this point. If the structure is narrow compared to the i/p feed line, the current entering the structure encounters a large impedance. This mismatch in the i/p impedance would imply a loss of signal power as well as distortion of the i/p pulse shape.

Now looking at impedance from the frequency domain perspective would mean that the antenna structure needs to be such that it matches to 50 ohms over the transmission band which for certain applications such as ultra wideband is as large as 7 GHz. Impedance match over such a large impedance match is difficult to achieve.

I still do not have good insight on how geometry could be modified to acheive a good impedance match and provide omnidirectional or direction radiation with minimal pulse distortion depending on the application.

In the second part of this posting I will discuss my experiments and what I might be doing wrong and ask for insights from readers who might come across this column (If I am lucky)

Have you wondered.......

I have always puzzled over how I turn out to be a grumpy couch potato when I am in the midst of certain people. I sit in a room filled with a variety of people some of whom I really adore and other whom I just cannot stand. Okay how many can stand me ??? I would say very few. I am no prophet but I do not think of myself as a fake person. I am like my sister Aparna would put it an "emotional fool" with an extremely expressive self. My face 98% of the time echoes my sentiments like a mirror. Someone who knows me can read what I am thinking from my face.

Anyway my current post is just a rant about a bunch of people (whom I claim are plastic). I cannot stand plastic people... people who smile at you but cannot think of a single coherent nice thought about you. Is it so hard to come up to a person and say "Hey I dont like you". Actually it is hard being that direct but I think there are more ways to letting a person know that your not comfortable with them than telling them. I am not direct but my body language would convey what my words cannot. So in that sense I think I do a fair job of echoing how I feel.

Hope some day I would be amidst a few people and always keep smiling. That is still an elusive dream.....Mebbbe the evil is within me :)

My rants on the final day of Indian Idol 2

I am happy that reality-based shows are gaining recognition as a platform to give that shred of hope to hitherto-unknown faces to prove their mettle. The final day of one such reality show, Indian Idol, is upon us. The stage is set and time is running out to vote for the right person. The two guys in the running, N.C. karunya and Sandeep Acharya, are both extremely talented from different viewpoints.
Karunya, with his mellifluous voice, is a very versatile and talented singer with a carnatic music background. Sandeep is more eye candy with a very sweet sounding voice but an average at best singing talent.

The viewership (I mean people who can vote) for the show is mostly from the northern and western parts of the country. I know for a fact that Indian idol is known merely to a small fraction of people in Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. My mom who watches hindi soaps in chennai did not know about Indian idol. Thats how sad the viewership of the program is in the south. The program is also mostly viewed by women. I asked 50 of my friends (72% tamil speaking, 27% hindi speaking, 1% telugu speaking) of which only 11 had heard of the programme and 8 of them were women.

This explains several outcomes of this show that has puzzled me:

1) The lack of any of the female contestants in the final four (THEY WERE TALENTED).

2) Sandeep voted ahead of Meenal, Amey, Anuj, Antara and Monali. I thought they were all phenomenal singers.

3) Karunya being in the bottom three/two on 7 of the 10 galas. Karunya's performance in every gaala has been mind blowing. The only person in his league or some might say ahead of him was Amey. It was very sad to lose him.

4) Amey being third in the Piano round when I thought his 'Tu Hi re' performance was flawless (Suprising).

The past several weeks have seen verbal bashing by many viewers stating Karunya has been whining about lack of regional votes as many in the south do not watch hindi channels. Before I tackle the question about why people don't watch hindi channels down south I would direct the readers' attention to the following article... http://indiaimage.nic.in/languages.htm.

Is hindi, the language in which the programme is held, required to be known for someone to qualify himself or herself as a Indian??????

The problem of wether everyone in India should know hindi is a big one which is more categorically dealt with by my friend Ashok.

Anyway what Karunya claims is a genuine problem faced by any south indian (hemachandra in SRGMP 2006) in these reality shows held in India in the so called national language (Hindi).

Though for my part I have been sending out messages to family and friends to vote for this talented youngster (YES he is only 19), I think Sandeep will walk away with the title. For me Karunya is a talent to look out for in the future and whatever be the result of this program will not fade away.

ps: S.P.B. praised Karunya for his rendition of ragam sivarnagini when he was 12 years old in chiru ragamallika in a telugu channel.

Indian Idol 2 - Final Frontier

Well this show is getting worse as the days go by as it comes to a close for the second time. I think the favouratism to get Karunya to be the idol is apparent. It is sad that in all this game of votes and politics, the 19 year old's real talent seems to be masked. I have been reading some of the message boards on the sony website and on india-forums and it shocks me that people say karunya cannot sing or he whines.. I pride myself on having a above average knowledge in carnatic music, and I think Karunya sings really well. I thought Amey and Meenal also sang really well and had classical trained voices.

One more thing - It pains me to read poeple write unfair blogs stating Karunya cannot sing and made hundreds of mistakes when he sang his last song. I have heard manna dey's song and the way Karunya sang it and I beleive durbar is a difficult ragam to sing and he sang really well. There were three places in the kalpana swaram where he faltered and I hope he practices to rectify his mistakes. I wish him a long career in music. Amey's rendition of "Laga Chunari mein daag" was awesome. I thought he sang the song with a lot of soul and made fewer mistakes. I was also moved by meenal Jain's rendition of "lambi judai". I think she sang really well.

I am not too bothered who becomes the indian idol as this is just a game played by a channel and a few companies to fill their coffers, but I do wish Karunya, Amey and Meenal a long journey in their singing careers.

Indian Idol 2 - My Take on this travesty of the Pop Idol

I dont know if it could be called a travesty of the "pop idol" (not intended), but Indian Idol season 2 is one filled with gimmicks and all set to play on the sentiments of the emotional indian audience just for TRPs. If you wade through the gimmicks in search of some real talent you will find a few very good aspiring singers. To name the ones that really caught my attention - Amey Date, N. C. Karunya, Meenal Jain and Monali Thakur. I thought these four were really good and should have been in the last four. Well in the last week of this season only Karunya remains with another ever smirking person called Sandeep Acharya. Karunya's singing and voice has been a saving grace for the last three weeks at Indian idol. Well I cannot make a sweeping statement like that as Sandeep has gradually improved his rendition of songs and voice quality. I hate it when he smirks for reasons beyond my comprehension. The judges panel is a joke with only one name - Sonu Nigam - worth any mention as a singer. I cannot imagine anu malik as a singer or composer. He steals songs and claims them as his own is all I will say. I have begun to like Farah Khan for her straight shooting comments and honest overtures. There are billions of blogs and websites discussing several aspects such as regionalism, favouratism, eash person. Each page with someone pitching for his or her own idol.

I am a ardent music lover and play the mirdangam, a carnatic music instrument. I beleive Karunya has a carnatic trained voice. Amey had several shades of hindustani in his voice. I think Amey was a better performer than Karunya. The clarity with which Karunya sings high pitched songs is mind blowing but I would like to see him render a soft song. Amey has a very sweet sounding voice with a pleasing personality. I wish him well.

I hope these talent shows bring out the real talent beyond regionalistic differences. I feel sad that the show has to be only in Hindi. Being a tamil I know there are specific tamil talent shows like raga mallika and TVS saregama but I wish the whole indian country can warm up to a non regionalistic search for real talent. I think that way we can reach people who are immensely talented and the real cream of the billion or so people in our country will come to the fore.

Back after a looonngggg break

Heyyy to all my faithful readers (Arun me myself....) I am back after a longggg break. Well after a long and wonderful trip to Bangkok and India and giving away my beautiful sister in marraige I think its fair to say I have had a eventful four months. Now I am back in the snowy shadows of the Alaskan ranges getting on with my effort to complete a doctorate in electrical engineering.

There were soo many cool places I visited in Thailand and in India (YES been there all my life)I can gladly say that my trip was very fulfilling. I even got to attend my best friend Sri's wedding in a small town close to kumbakonam in southern india.

I will write more about them in my forthcoming blog entries.

I am happy to be back to blogging