About the Author: “The Cable Guy” — Product Marketing Manager — Amphenol Cables on Demand (https://CablesOnDemand.com)
Born in 1980 in Southern California, “The Cable Guy” is a lifelong avid electronics and computer enthusiast, who took on an early fascination with the prospective technological advancement of mankind through the repeat childhood viewing of legendary 1980’s films such as “Back to the Future”, “Ghostbusters”, “Wargames” and the epic (and technologically accurate) film, “Real Genius”. Prior to the age of ten, “The Cable Guy” had a natural talent for understanding how 80’s-era technology worked and would frequently be seen fixing broken radios and chronically teaching his grandparents how to program their VCR to watch their two favorite shows, “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune”.
Around Christmas-time at age ten, “The Cable Guy” assembled his very first computer, an IBM 286 clone with a radically-large (at the time) 30-Megabyte hard-drive and blazing fast 2400-baud modem, which he quickly utilized to access the “Prodigy” network prior to the proliferation of the world-wide-web. At age 13, he assembled a far superior 386DX-40 PC from scratch and installed two separate 28,800-baud modems in it, from which he utilized for the creation of a dual-node dial-up Bulletin-Board-System (BBS) — a precursor to the internet where individual users could call one of two separate phone lines and connect to the BBS, which featured classic online games like “Usurper” and an array of downloadable software titles. His parents grew discontent when their phone lines were unusable due to the constant banshee screams of the 28.8 modems.
At 14, The Cable Guy expanded his horizons by getting into the radio hobby, such as scanning, amateur radio, CB radio and an initial foray into broadcasting. His Freshman year science project, involving the purposeful irradiation of radishes planted from seed with 24/7 exposure to 27MHz RF electromagnetic fields, determined that chronic RF exposure caused biological changes in the plants, either preventing germination entirely or, conversely, causing an accelerated growth rate and weakened structural rigidity. The project ranked first place out of his 2400-student high-school and ranked fourth place in the entire county of Riverside.
At 15, his follow-on project used AC capacitive coupling to inject RF modulated video signals onto traditional 120V home power lines. A video signal was output on channel 3 (66-MHz), amplified, coupled to the home power lines and then received via a TV or VCR with a reciprocal device. This project ranked 1st in his High School, ranked 1st in the entire County of Riverside and advanced to the state science fair at the University of Southern California (USC), where it achieved a commendable 12th place ranking in the entire state of California. The Cable Guy highly regrets not patenting his Capacitive Coupled Baseband Video Power Injector at the time.
Not yet satisfied with his electronics endeavors to-date, “The Cable Guy” spent the summer before his Junior year in High-School building his very own low-power FM broadcast radio station from scratch. A 9th circuit court ruling in 1996 sustained a challenge by low-power FM pioneer, Stephen F. Dunifer, founder of Free Radio Berkeley. The court’s temporary injunction challenged the ruling authority of the Federal Communications Commission to control the rights to broadcast in the U.S. by proclaiming broadcasting a form of protected speech under the 1st amendment. This decision led to a nation-wide renaissance of low-power FM broadcasters.
The Cable Guy’s radio station, under the call-sign of KAOS, had its maiden broadcast on July 20th, 1996 on 104.7 MHz on the FM radio dial. The broadcast featured the Alice in Chains debut album, “Facelift”, on repeat for 96-hours. The station consisted of an MPX96-based PLL FM Stereo Transmitter, a 20W BGY33-based broadband amplifier module and a 1/4 wave ground-plane antenna, located 10-feet above the roof-peak of his childhood home. Because the home was high up on a hill overlooking the vast Inland Empire region of Southern California, “The Cable Guy” received reports from new listeners as far as 35-miles away. During its initial 6-months of operation, the entire “studio” took up the corner of the Cable Guy’s childhood bedroom and the “DJ” staff consisted of a 5-disc Sony CD changer on random-play.
By mowing extra lawns and building computers on the side, “The Cable Guy” could now invest in some major station upgrades. The transmitter was upgraded, station amplifier power quadrupled to 80-watts and the antenna was promptly upgraded to a superior 3.14dBi gain Comet 5/8 wave vertical. These upgrades, coupled with a change in frequency to the interference-free channel of 87.9 MHz, more than doubled the station’s range. The station “DJ” was upgraded as well — to a Pioneer 24-disc CD changer on random play. “The Cable Guy” would frequently get on the microphone to host a daily “special request” hour, where listeners could call into the show by calling 369-KAOS, The Cable Guy’s dedicated hot-line.
Thanks to its commercial-free status and The Cable Guy’s eclectic taste in alternative and heavy-metal music not played by competing stations, the station exceled, acquiring an unofficial 1-point Arbitron market rating share with over 1/3rd of the market’s #1-rated rock station’s audience switching their listener loyalty over to KAOS 87.9 FM. A 1-point rating equated to a repeat-daily listening audience of approximately 10,000 people. In other words, a then 16-year old “Cable Guy”, with less than $1,000.00 worth of equipment in his childhood bedroom, managed to compete against multi-million dollar radio conglomerates. The Cable Guy ultimately shuttered the station in June of 1998 after two years of successful operations.
The Cable Guy subsequently started his studies in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Riverside. Under the supervision of Professor Alexander Baladin, The Cable Guy helped solicit a research grant from TRW to develop a hands-on laboratory course which would introduce Electrical Engineering students to the real-world concepts of RF engineering, radio propagation and antenna design. The lab course utilized a stationary 450MHz UHF transmitter on a portable tripod mount. A second tripod mount would be positioned 300 feet away. That tripod mount featured an electric antenna rotator.
The students would mount one of several types of antennas (1/4 wave ground-plane, vertical dipole, 3-element yagi, 5/8 wave vertical) onto the mount and proceed to rotate the antenna under test in 5-degree increments, logging the power of the signal on a receiver. After rotating a complete 360-degrees, the student would plot out the signal onto graph, from which they could calculate antenna gain versus an isotropic (perfect antenna in space) radiator. They would then compare their real-world antenna radiation patterns with the theoretical equivalents and hypothesize why discrepancies, if any, occurred.
The Cable Guy ultimately grew disillusioned with the Electrical Engineering program at UC Riverside. After over 2 and a half years of study, not one single class involved actual hands-on work with real-world equipment in circuitry. It was all done as MATLAB simulations or equations on paper. The only hands-on activity he completed during his studies was from the very antenna-focused laboratory course that he himself designed. The lab course was so successful that the university turned it into a dedicated course required for graduation. The Cable Guy was due to meet the dean of the school as well as TRW executives in recognition of his work on the lab course, but elected instead to formally hand in his withdrawal paperwork to leave the Electrical Engineering program and the university in general. The Cable Guy could no longer participate in an “Electrical Engineering” program that for nearly 3 out if its 4 years contained nothing remotely “Electrical” and certainly involved no form of “Engineering”.
The Cable Guy promptly shifted gears, transferring to California State University, San Bernardino, into a program that involved hands-on real-world coursework with professors who had spent most of their careers in the private sector prior to teaching at the university. The Cable Guy excelled in the new program, which culminated in a Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Information Systems with a minor in Business Administration. During his academic years, he worked part-time and full-time positions, first for Canon USA as a Retail Marketing Representative (for Canon printers and scanners) and eventually as an Assistant Territory Manager for the Southern California to Las Vegas, NV territory. From their, he received a competing offer from Hewlett Packard and landed a full-time Territory Sales Manager (TSM) position for their printer and scanner division, managing a territory consisting of Los Angeles, Hollywood, Pasadena and the surrounding area.
Following graduation from Cal-State San Bernardino, The Cable Guy was hired on for his first job in the interconnect industry, working for Deutsch Defense and Aerospace Operations (Deutsch DAO) in Hemet, CA as a Program Manager. As one of only three Program Managers in the company, The Cable Guy personally managed a $20-million per year product portfolio, requiring near-constant travel across the country to both support active accounts as well as design Deutsch connector products in on new defense/aerospace programs under the accounts.
The Cable Guy worked on numerous accounts and associated programs, including Raytheon Missile Systems’ Standard Missile in Tucson, AZ, Boeing’s Apache Helicopter retrofit program in Mesa, AZ, Boeing commercial’s 777 airliner program in Everett, WA, Lockheed-Martin’s F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programs in Ft. Worth, TX, Gulfstream’s G5 program in Savannah, GA, General Atomics’ Predator program in San Diego, CA and Panasonic’s In-Flight Entertainment program in Bothell, WA. The Cable Guy succeeded in designing in $10-million worth of lifecycle products on these platforms in under 2 years.
The Cable Guy’s greatest achievement during his time at Deutsch was his invention of the “Deutsch Wildcat Series” connector. The Wildcat was a miniaturized version of the most heavily used aerospace connector known as the MIL-DTL-38999. Defense contractors were eager to find ways of cutting down the weights of their aircraft, projectile and payload designs and a miniaturized connector platform would help fulfill this objective.
The Cable Guy took a commercial miniaturized connector platform used by Deutsch UK in Formula-1 racing applications and re-designed it to meet MIL-DTL-38999 standards, re-branded it with the “Wildcat” moniker as a way to poke fun at the competing (but larger/heavier) Glen-air Mighty Mouse connector and proceeded to introduce the “Wildcat” connector series into the U.S. market. It was immediately successful, where it was eventually designed in on both the Boeing 777 and 787 airliners, as well as Panasonic’s in-flight entertainment system, which is used by both Boeing and Airbus.
Looking to continue a career in the interconnect industry, but without the obligation of having to be on the road traveling half of the time, The Cable Guy looked for other employment opportunities. That opportunity would ultimately come from Amphenol, Deutsch DAO’s top competitor. Amphenol Cables on Demand launched in December of 2006 as a way to leverage Amphenol’s vast manufacturing footprint to produce industry-standard patch cables that were available to the public at large via an e-commerce store-front at CablesOnDemand.com. The company was in dire need of a product expert with marketing experience and The Cable Guy was hired on as a Product Marketing Manager in February, 2007, where he resides to this day.
To further expand his horizons, The Cable Guy received an Executive Masters in Business Administration (MBA) degree from California State University, Monterey Bay in 2012. With nearly 20 years of experience in the cable and connector industries, 25 years of electronics industry sales and marketing experience, an educational background in Electrical Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Marketing and Business Administration, as well as a near-lifetime passion of anything and everything electronic, The Cable Guy is well-suited to address nearly any technical topic pertaining to cables and connectors.
As Product Marketing Manager for Amphenol Cables on Demand, The Cable Guy is responsible for managing/creating all website product-related content, social media content, electronic newsletter content and blog content. He is the de-facto technical expert in the company and in addition to technical support, is heavily invested in the development and launch of new products at Amphenol Cables on Demand. The Cable Guy has since left Southern California and now resides with his family in the majestic Ozark mountains of Northwest Arkansas.
Do you have a question or topic for “The Cable Guy”? Would you like to see your question or topic addressed in one of The Cable Guy’s upcoming blog posts? He fully welcomes the opportunity to dive into the interconnect topic of your choosing. Send your inquiries now to “The Cable Guy” at: cablesondemandblog@gmail.com.
Sincerely,
“The Cable Guy”
Amphenol Cables on Demand Product Marketing Manager
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