Defense Articles

PYONGYANG - North Korea’s No. 2 leader said Wednesday that whether the country will carry out further nuclear tests following one earlier in the week would depend on how the United States treats the country.

In a meeting with Kyodo News, Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, said North Korea also considers U.S. policy toward the country the main factor for determining whether to return to the stalled six-party talks on its nuclear programs.

———- 83% happy with Abe’s China trip, opposition to Yasukuni visits rises

TOKYO - An opinion poll by Kyodo News has found that 83.2 percent of respondents hold a favorable view of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent trip to China and South Korea, while the total of those opposing a prime ministerial visit to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine has risen to 56.6 percent, up 5.3 percentage points from immediately after the launch of the Abe administration in late September.

The telephone survey, conducted Tuesday and Wednesday on 1,035 randomly selected people, showed support for Abe’s Cabinet stood at 62.7 percent, down from 65 percent in the previous survey on Sept. 26-27. Disapproval moved up to 19.5 percent from 16.2 percent.

———- U.S. forces unload missiles for Patriot interceptors in Okinawa
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NAHA, Japan - U.S. forces on Wednesday unloaded cargo believed to contain missiles for a U.S.-led missile defense system from a freighter that arrived in Okinawa on Monday and started transferring it to the U.S. Air Force’s Kadena Ammunition Storage Area in the same prefecture.

U.S. soldiers and other workers were able to unload the cargo after the local police cleared the route that civic groups were blocking in protest at the deployment of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor system.

———- Japan on alert, decides on additional sanctions against N. Korea

TOKYO - Japan decided Wednesday to slap additional economic sanctions on North Korea, including a total ban on North Korean ships’ entry into Japanese ports, with the nation remaining on high alert over speculation that Pyongyang may conduct a second nuclear test.

The measures, also including limiting imports from North Korea, were worked out in a meeting of Cabinet ministers concerned and are to be made formal through a meeting of the Security Council of Japan later Wednesday and a full Cabinet meeting on Friday, government sources said.

———- Chinese Communist Party meeting ends stressing social harmony

BEIJING - An important meeting of the Chinese Communist Party concluded in Beijing on Wednesday with Chinese President Hu Jintao highlighting social harmony, state media reported.

Hu, who is also the party’s general secretary, said while economic development was the key task, the country should put more emphasis on issues such as narrowing the wealth gap and creating more jobs.

———- Police says more terror attacks in S. Philippines

MANILA - Big cities and densely populated areas in the southern Philippines braced Wednesday for more terror attacks after a series of bomb explosions believed to be handiwork of al-Qaida-linked militants rocked the region, killing at least six people and wounding 29 others, police said.

Police and military in the jittery southern region of Mindanao Island, home to a decades-old Muslim insurgency, have been placed in full-alert as several towns will hold various festivities expected to attract huge crowds in the next few days, security officials said.

———- Japan says no radioactive material found in air

TOKYO - Midair dust collected by Japanese Self-Defense Forces aircraft following North Korea’s claimed underground nuclear test Monday contained no radioactive materials, a government liaison conference dealing with radioactive issues said Wednesday.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said seismic activities monitored in northeastern North Korea on Monday bore many differences to a natural earthquake that occurred in the country four years ago.

———- H.K. chief shifts governance focus away from politics

HONG KONG - Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Donald Tsang on Wednesday delivered to the Legislative Council his second governance blueprint, which focuses on economic development, family welfare, education and pollution without much emphasis on development of democracy in the territory.

Tsang pledged funding to support preschool education, to assist in goods design and to support elite athletes, as well as financial initiatives for car owners to replace their old, polluting vehicles and car registration tax rebates for environmentally friendly models.

———- Sri Lanka gov’t, Tamil Tigers to talk peace in late Oct.

COLOMBO - Norway announced Wednesday that the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers have agreed to meet in Switzerland from Oct. 28 to 29 and asked Oslo to make the ”necessary arrangements.”

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Insurgents hit an ammunition dump on a U.S. base with a mortar round, setting off fiery explosions through the night that shook buildings miles away, while renewed attacks Wednesday killed at least 14 people.

The corpses of seven people were turned in to the morgue in the southern city of Kut, including at least three apparent victims of sectarian death squads who were fished out of the Tigris River in Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad. They were shot, and had their hands bound.

The United Nations’ top humanitarian official said some 100 people are being killed in Iraq every day with sectarian and revenge attacks by militias and death squads going unchecked.

“Many of those are killed by gunshots or have been tortured to death,” Jan Egeland said in Geneva. “Revenge killing seems to be totally out of control.”

Among the 14 overall dead in attacks, five people were killed in three separate car bombings in Baghdad, while gunmen also shot and killed a policeman in the capital. Another policeman was shot and killed in the northern city of Kirkuk, while a civilian died in a roadside bombing on a highway in the north.

The director of Salahuddin province’s electricity department was kidnapped as he drove from Tikrit to Baghdad for meetings, provincial police said. Although his driver was later released, the official’s whereabouts remained unknown.

Government offices and schools were nearly entirely empty in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, with people staying away after leaflets signed by a previously unknown insurgent group warned of retaliatory attacks on government offices if a local army commander was not relieved of duty.

The group, Mujahdeen of Diyala, claimed the commander was responsible for attacks on Sunni Arabs in the province. The leaflets, dated Oct. 6, gave Wednesday as the deadline for his removal.

“These are the so-called representatives of the people, they do nothing … while the sons of Iraq are murdered,” the pamphlet said.

Abu Khalid, who works in the Baquoba municipal offices, said he stayed home out of fear.

“The situation is dangerous and the insurgent’s statement looks serious,” he said. “We cannot risk our lives.”

The Islamic Army in Iraq, a nationalist anti-occupation insurgent group, claimed responsibility for the Tuesday night attack on the U.S. Forward Operating Base Falcon in southern Baghdad near the Dora neighborhood that caused stockpiles of tank and artillery shells to explode through the night in spectacular bursts of flame and sparks.

“With the help of God, the mortar and rocket squads of the Islamic Army have shelled a U.S. Army base with two rockets and three mortar shells,” the group said in a statement posted on a Web site known to be used by insurgents. “The rockets and shells fell on ammunition dumps causing them to explode. Sounds of explosions were heard in Baghdad.”

The authenticity of the statement could not be immediately verified, but the U.S. military did confirm that the base’s ammunition depot had been hit Tuesday night by an 82mm mortar round fired by insurgents from a nearby residential area.

Personnel were put on full alert and soldiers and base employees were moved to bomb shelters, said base spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington. There were no injuries reported, and he said the attack had no strategic effect.

“The attack does not affect ongoing Baghdad security operations in the focus areas, and the loss of ammunition will not degrade the operational capability of the” U.S. forces in Baghdad, he said. “The base’s essential services were not disrupted.”

Explosions from detonating tank and artillery ordnance and small- arms ammunition stored at the site went off for hours after the fire erupted. Helicopters were seen in the night sky flying over the area.

The explosions on the base damaged nearby homes, but there were no casualties in the neighborhood, police Capt. Furat Gaiti said.

“The windows of my house plus three neighboring houses were smashed out from the heavy explosions,” said neighborhood resident Sabir Hassan, a 50-year-old teacher. “At first we thought the insurgents were shelling us with mortars and we rushed outside our houses.”

The mortar round set fire to an ammunition holding area, where material is kept temporarily before distribution to the units at Falcon, Withington said. He said more than three battalions were stationed there at the time of the attack but he would not give a specific number of troops.

Firefighters and hazardous material experts continued Wednesday to put out the blaze, while engineers and explosive ordinance specialists were to begin the clearance of unexploded ordinance, Withington said.

Falcon is located in a former commercial trucking depot in a sprawling industrial area at the southern entrance of Baghdad. It is near the violence-torn district of Dora, where U.S. troops have been focusing in a two-month-old sweep of the capital neighborhood-by- neighborhood aimed at rooting out militants and weapons.

The sound of a cement mixer breaks the silence in the darkness on a lone Iraqi road near the city of Fallujah. Marine combat engineers are working in what is known as a “blackout” condition–no light other than the moon and the occasional glimmer of a flashlight. It’s early morning, and the Iraqi sun will soon be rising.

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This is the time of day when many Americans get up for work, but the combat engineers have already put in an 8-hour day. The Marines of Charlie Company, commonly referred to as “Hell-Bent Charlie,” of Combat Logistics Battalion 5, are hard at work repairing the roads that intersect the city and countryside of Fallujah.

Repairing Iraqi streets isn’t quite like repaving a road in the United States. Instead of fluorescent orange vests and hard hats, Marine combat engineers carry rifles with optic sights and wear combat gear consisting of a protective vest, helmet, and ammunition–for a combined weight of more than 50 pounds. These roads, which are traveled by Iraqi citizens along with coalition and Iraqi security forces, are constantly damaged by roadside bomb attacks, and fixing them is crucial to the movement of supplies and troops in the area. In addition, the work is helping to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure.

The night repair mission begins right after dusk with a quick meeting to discuss the mission and the latest intelligence findings. Last-minute gear checks are conducted before leaving the security of Camp Fallujah. Charlie Company goes straight to work, quickly filling two holes as soon as it leaves the confines of the camp.

Soon the company encounters the very threat it is trying to fight–an improvised explosive device (IED). Security is set up, and the explosive ordnance disposal team is called. The potentially deadly device is neutralized in minutes, and the Marine road workers press on. These roadside bombs are a favored weapon used by the enemy to wreak havoc on coalition forces. The threat of IEDs is one of the main reasons these Marines are on the road. The roads, which have fallen into disrepair over the years, are a favorite place for insurgents to place IEDs.

Various teams within the company have specific jobs and responsibilities. The teams may be tasked to provide security, survey a crater to make sure it is safe to repair, or conduct the actual repair. For the craters to be repaved efficiently, these teams must work together while performing their individual tasks. The Marines have to work fast to avoid being a target of insurgents and still perform their job with precision. Many of these missions have been subject to deadly sniper and mortar attacks.

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Surveying is the first step to repairing a road. Many factors must be calculated to properly repair a crater–size of the hole, depth of the hole, and time needed on-site. For a crater to be filled properly, dirt is molded into a foundation and then cement is poured in. After smoothing off the top of the quick-drying road patch, Charlie Company searches for the next area in need of repair.

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Working with hundreds of pounds of concrete mix and dirt, in temperatures well above 100 degrees during the day, is a physically demanding job for these Marine combat engineers. But the results of their efforts are evident every time a convoy travels a road that has been made safer by their work.

Corporal Holt was temporarily assigned to Camp Taqaddum, Iraq, as a combat correspondent. His duty station is Camp Pendleton, California.

IN THE MID-1990S, EMBRYOLOGIST Jacques Cohen pioneered a promising new technique for helping infertile women have children. His technique, known as cytoplasmic transfer, was intended to “rescue” the eggs of infertile women who had undergone repeated, unsuccessful attempts at in vitro fertilization, or IVF. It involved injecting the cytoplasm found inside the eggs of a fertile donor, into the patient’s eggs.

When the first baby conceived through cytoplasmic transfer was born in 1997, the press instantly hailed Cohen’s technique as yet another technological miracle. But four years later, the real story has proven somewhat more complicated. Last year, Cohen and his colleagues at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science of St. Barnabas, a New Jersey fertility clinic, set off alarm bells among bioethicists with the publication of a paper detailing the genetic condition of two the 17 cytoplasmic-transfer babies born through the clinic to date. The embryologists reported that they had endowed the children with extra bits of a special type of genetic material, known as mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, which came with the cytoplasm transferred from the donor eggs to the patient’s.

That meant the resulting children had three genetic parents: mother, father, and mtDNA donor. It also meant that female children would transmit their unorthodox combination of mitochondrial DNA to their own offspring (mtDNA is passed down only through eggs), with unknown implications. In effect, Cohen had created the first bioengineered babies. As Cohen’s group noted, their experiment was “The first case of human [inheritable] genetic modification resulting in normal, healthy children.”

Just how normal those children will turn out to be is anybody’s guess. At a recent meeting in Europe, the New Jersey researchers reported that one of the children conceived through cytoplasmic transfer has been diagnosed with “pervasive developmental disorder,” a catch-all term for symptoms that range from mild delays in speech to autism. Cohen’s group maintained that it is extremely unlikely that cytoplasmic transfer and the resulting mishmash of mtDNA is to blame.

But geneticists have only begun to trace the connections between mtDNA and a host of diseases ranging from strange metabolic ailments to diabetes and Lou Gehrig’s disease, and some experts argued that the child’s disorder may well be caused by a mismatch between the donor and mother’s mtDNA. As Jim Cummins, a molecular biologist at Murdoch University in Western Australia, put it: “To deliberately create individuals with multiple mitochondrial genotypes without knowing the consequences is really a step into the dark.”

Welcome to the murky world of “reprogenetics,” as Princeton biologist Lee Silver has dubbed the merger between the science of genetics and the fertility industry. While much of the nation’s attention has been focused on human cloning, a possibility that is still largely theoretical, a massive, uncontrolled experiment in bioengineering humans is well underway in the Wild West of American fertility clinics, as Cohen and his colleagues have demonstrated. Indeed, there has been more debate over–and far more research into–the implications of bioengineered corn than of bioengineered humans.

Now, many bioethicists believe that Cohen’s experiment with cytoplasmic transfer was just one more small step towards a world in which eugenics is another name for making babies. Today, any couple with several thousand dollars to spare can choose the sex of their offspring, while parents who are carriers for certain genetic disorders can undergo IVF and have the resulting embryos genetically tested to ensure their children are free of disease. Tomorrow, parents may be able to enhance their offspring with designer genes. One day, the fertility industry’s efforts to help couples conceive could bring society to the brink of altering the genetic heritage of the species.

All that currently stands in the way of parents bent on practicing homegrown eugenics are the ethics of individual fertility specialists and the technical hurdles. Most fertility doctors have the best of intentions, to help patients get pregnant, and to avoid transmitting debilitating disease. And it is by no means certain that science will ever be able to offer parents the option of bioengineering their offspring.

All the same, the pace of the technology is dizzying. A year ago, scientists at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center announced the birth of the first genetically engineered primate, named ANDi (for “inserted DNA” spelled backwards), a rhesus monkey whose cells contained the gene that makes jellyfish glow in the dark. The experiment was something of a flop; ANDi does not glow. (Rodents implanted with the gene do.) But imagine that one day science does acquire the skills to make “designer babies,” that the connections between genes and complex traits such as intelligence or musical ability are finally known. While only the weirdest of parents would to want to genetically engineer offspring with jellyfish genes, others would undoubtedly jump at the chance to “customize” their children with a sparkling personality, brains, and beauty.

NEW YORK — Homeland Security Stocks.com (HSS) - (HSS) a leading investor information portal providing insight into the Homeland Security sector announced today that it has released Part 2 of it’s new Non-Lethal Weapons Industry Guide and has also introduced, earlier this week, our newest featured spotlight company Electronic Sensor Technology (OTCBB: ESNR) which brings the zNose(R) an exciting new broad range detection technology to the Homeland Security Sector.

Electronic Sensor Technology recently completed a $4.5 million financing and is now a publicly traded company after nine years as a private company. While privately held they perfected the innovative, patented, proprietary zNose(R) an electronic sniffer that can rapidly detect everything from bombs to biological threats. Their zNose(R) sniffer addresses key vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks on our airplanes, buildings, cities, trains, ports, buildings and food and water supply that still exist 3.5 years after 9/11. With a customer base that includes the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), Honeywell Corporation (NYSE: HON) and SC Johnson the zNose(R) is in use in approximately 30 countries around the world.

For Full Small Cap Spotlight on Electronic Sensor Technology

Click Here: http://www.homelandsecuritystocks.us/electronic_sensor_technology/

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HSS has also updated our Non-Lethal Weapons Industry Guide with the introduction of Part II: Liability Implications, which focuses on the important liability distinctions between “Non-Lethal” and so called “Less Lethal” weapons and the impact that may have on purchasing decisions.

This follows the previously introduced Part I of the Guide which highlighted the differences between “Non-Lethal” and “Less-Lethal” and the impact that the differences have on when, where, and how the Non lethal devices and less lethal weapons can and should be used.

The Guide is sponsored by Universal Guardian Holdings’ (OTCBB: UGHO) maker of the Cobra Stunlight(TM) The “Truly Non-Lethal” alternative that has been making news lately as competing “less” lethal weapons are linked by the media to more and more controversial and deadly incidents.

To Access Part I and II of the HSS Non-Lethal Industry Guide:

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To access the newly updated HSS Small Cap Spotlight on Universal Guardian:

http://www.homelandsecuritystocks.us/ugho/

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IF PUNK ROCK DIED when the first kid said, “Punk’s not dead!” then reports of the genre’s vitality would appear to be greatly exaggerated. Everyone from pop star Avril Lavigne to Nike CEO Phil Knight has recently avowed the living influence of punk on their respective cultural output. So many and sudden are allusions to the genre that detecting punk’s revivified presence has become the early twenty-first century’s answer to Elvis sightings: It’s the presence of absence that we’re really seeing. All the sneakers and twice-told tales and teen lip-synchstresses are mere memento mori, reminding us how brief punk’s moment was, how gone forever it really is.

Not one to linger in the past, Sex Pistols impresario Malcolm McLaren has settled (for now) in Paris’s haut bourgeois Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Impeccably dressed, his youth magically preserved like the Countess Bathory’s (does he, too, bathe in virgin’s blood?), McLaren takes a seat at the Cafe de Flore and outlines for me his recent travels around the globe, from Zurich to the Parisian working-class suburb Ivry-sur-Seine to the future/past whiplash culture of Beijing to Mexico City in quest of his latest quarry: pop music composed with the Nintendo corporation’s Game Boy unit. “It’s lo-fi, low-bit. It doesn’t play chords, and the timing is not in sync, so every song, every performance, is new,” Malcolm explains over tea, protesting against what he calls the “sameness” of digitally produced, Pro Tools-dependent, multitrack, “high-bit” music.

Malcolm McLaren? Game Boy music? You raise an eyebrow, but consider another post-Pistols McLaren production: the still-influential 1982 concept album Duck Rock. While much of the credit (as usual) is due another–in this case, producer Trevor Horn–McLaren mixed then-nascent East Coast hip-hop, radio-DJ prattle, scratching, Zulu, Brazilian and Caribbean music with layers of classical strings, percolating New Wave synthesizer, the double-Dutch rhymes of Harlem schoolgirls, and Appalachian hillbilly songs. Eminem’s recent sampling of the album’s best-known song, “Buffalo Gals,” was much remarked, but Duck Rock has been sampled by countless artists over the years. In Cut ‘n’ mix, his 1987 book on Caribbean club culture, critic Dick Hebdige credits McLaren’s Duck Rock with nothing less than waging “war on people’s prejudices about modern music.” DJ culture, genre busting, proto “mashups” … Check that date again: 1982.

While lo-bit’s roots can be traced from Lev Termen, the Russian physicist who in 1919 invented the eerie-sounding theremin, to the invention of Robert Moog’s first synthesizer in 1954, most agree that Johan Kotlinski (aka Role Model) is the movement’s Prometheus. In 2000 the Swedish DJ created a custom Game Boy cartridge that turns the device’s internal synthesizer into a musical workstation. He manufactured the cartridges in a small run in Japan and made them available to would-be composers for seventy dollars on the Web. Kotlinski called his invention Little Sound DJ (LSDJ). The same year, German art student Oliver Wittchow designed another custom cartridge, which he called Nanoloop. “I got Nanoloop in 2000,” says Game Boy musician Chris Burke, who performs as Glomag. “A little later I found out about LSDJ, which started around the same time, and I bought one of those as well. I love the direct nature of writing and performing on the Game Boy–I can write music on the subway.” The nomadic life of McLaren and the Game Boy musicians and the mercurial nature of their music and thus far primarily Web-based distribution techniques make for a nascent subcultural current that is (perhaps deliberately) difficult to pin down. But the use of this inexpensive, discarded digital technology (the first Game Boy programmers found their secondhand machines in Paris’s puces) is no doubt meant to challenge that primary symbol of baby-boomer rebellion–the guitar.

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Perhaps it is fitting that a generation with “baby” in their designation would find the process of maturation rough, but Gen Xers like me can testify to the horror of owning many of the same records as our parents. For years we experienced the frustration of not having come up with anything sufficiently hostile or annoying to distinguish ourselves from the generation that preceded us–until the computer. The loudest rock ‘n’ roll elicited not a murmur in the household of my preteen years, but the sound of Pac-Man absolutely drove the folks mad. For decades the art world was unperturbed by all manner of scatology and profanity, but the appearance of digital art got middle-aged critics harrumphing. And if punk rock delivered the first blow to the record industry, it is software engineers in their twenties creating primitive digital production tools and file-sharing technology on their basement computers who are poised to deliver the coup de grace.

When you run an active gun shop you get to see a lot of handguns damaged after having been dropped, shot out of battery, fired with an obstruction in the bore or fired with a big overload of powder. In all of the cases I have seen the shooter has never been injured more than a very minor scratch or two.

If you shoot a lot, you to will have some sort of accident sooner or later since we do make mistakes! Most of the accidents I’ve seen involve a simple bulged barrel due to shooting with an obstruction in the bore. That blockage is normally a bullet fired from a case with only a primer and little or no powder [Read Charley’s Handloading column in this issue for more on the matter Ed]. The shooter is concentrating on marksmanship and is “zoned out,” failing to notice the squib load that has not pushed the bullet out of the barrel. Thinking he just had a failure to extract, the shooter manually ejects the spent case and chambers the next round. Kaboom! You got yourself a new barrel.

I’ve always detested the word “change.” Usually when that little word pops up in conversation around my home, it means I’ve done something wrong once again and need to “change” my ways, or “change” this, or “change” that. Seldom is the word “change” associated with something good, happy, or fun. It has always been a despicable, worthless, and measly idiom that I refuse to acknowledge. Having said this, if someone will loan me a ladder, or give me a shove, I’ll get off my soapbox and tell you about the one and only time I can remember the word “change” correlating to something worthwhile.

New Service Pistol For The GI

The early 1980s was a time of drastic and inventive change in the hearts and minds of shooters and the gun industry as a whole. Uncle Sam was in the process of retiring the venerable and much hallowed 1911 service auto from regular active duty. Wailing, whimpering, and gut wrenching moans could be heard from coast to coast as the old warhorse was presented its gold watch and veteran shooters gave it one final salute. John Browning’s legacy could rest easy; it had paid its dues and deserved a little rest and relaxation.

Gun manufacturers from across the globe entered the race, grabbed their ponies, and jockeyed into position for first prize–the coveted contract to produce sidearms chambered in the popular 9mm Luger or Parabellum for the United Slates government. We all know who’s mustang finished first by a nose, but the real winner in this race, the ones who took home the blue ribbon, the gold medal, and found the Cracker Jacks prize diamond ring, was none other than you, me, and Sturm Ruger and Company.

The “wondernine” years, which stretched from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s, was a lucrative period for handgun manufacturers. Anyone and everyone who marketed a high capacity semiauto pistol was almost assured of success. When Uncle Sam goes “new wave” and procures the latest blaster for his troops, you can bet the law enforcement community, as well as John Q. Public, is going to stand at attention, take notes, and get one for himself.

A Different Approach

Amidst all the hoopla that went along with the search for a new military handgun, Bill Ruger quietly went about his daily business, unnerved and unshaken by events unfolding around him. For several years he had been working on and designing his company’s first centerfire semi-automatic handgun. If he happened to complete his pet project in time to enter the shoving contest with the other big name gun manufacturers that would suit him just fine. On the other hand, he had no intention of unveiling his latest adventure in handgun design until he was satisfied his efforts had produced the perfect semiautomatic pistol.

Work on the project was completed in 1985, hence the sobriquet P-85, but as is often the case these days when new products are announced, shooters were not able to put their powder stained hands on one until two years later, in 1987. By this time Uncle Sam had already selected a replacement for the 1911-A1.

Sturm Ruger and Company built their reputation by supplying quality firearms to average shooters like you and me. Often its designs were offered at a fraction of the cost of similar quality arms, and they didn’t do it by relying on the whims and demands of a government spending barrels-full of tax dollars on every fancy that caught their eye.

Ruger’s organization was built on the simple principle that if be could produce the best product on the market for the least amount of money, we the consumer, would continue to buy his firearms. This business concept has made Sturm Ruger and friends king of the mountain and no one has yet to topple them from their peak.

Anxiously Waiting

For years Ruger had claimed the lion’s share of the law enforcement and civilian marketplace, a fact that made other manufactures turn green with envy. This was due in no small part to Ruger’s firm belief in customer satisfaction. In a span of time shorter than it takes to read this “article, law enforcement agencies from across the country began placing orders for the new P-85 9mm. Civilians practically stood in line for a chance to purchase one. At the time, I was still in the retail firearms business, and I vividly recall the frustration associated with customers waiting, sometimes weeks at a time, before being able to take one home.

Orders for the new auto poured in from a variety of governments and police agencies from around the globe, the Middle East, Central America (which has long relied on Ruger performance, Europe, Asia, and many others. One the first American police departments to adopt Ruger’s big 9mm was California’s very own San Diego Police Department.

Many of you are already aware of GUNS magazine’s sister publication, American Handgunner. What you may not be aware of is Roy Huntington, resident guru and editor of AH, spent more than two decades wearing the badge of a San Diego police officer. Roy informed me the other day that he was one of the first officers to carry the P-85 as his duty weapon. It came straight from the factory, Roy gobbled it up, and the rest is history. Roy described the Ruger P-85 as, “tank tough, solid performing, and utterly reliable.” Roy’s judgement of the P-85 mirrors that of many street soldiers who have had the pleasure of living with one day in and day out.

vailable in 10-pin, lead-free package, Model LM3200 features analog voltage-control input that dynamically controls output voltage of device depending on power requirements of power amplifier. High switching frequency of 2 MHz allows it to use small external components. Unit steps down input voltage from 2.7-5.5 V to variable output voltage from 0.8-3.6 V. It is suited for smart phones, wireless LANs, PDAs, and other portable wireless devices.

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National’s New LM3200 Is the First in a Revolutionary Family of Analog DC-DC Converters Optimized to Save Power and Reduce Board Space in Smart Phones, Wireless LANS, PDAs and Other Portable Wireless Devices

SANTA CLARA, Calif. and MUNICH, Germany, Nov. 9 - National Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE:NSM) today announced a new family of DC-DC converters optimized for powering radiofrequency (RF) power amplifiers from a single lithium-ion battery. These new chips from National will enable cell phone makers to reduce power consumption by up to 80 percent, while increasing talk time as much as 90 minutes. The first cell phones to use National’s new LM3200 DC-DC converters will appear in the market by year-end.

With 2.5G and 3G wireless handsets gaining popularity, cell phones are becoming a one-stop multimedia station with features such as text messaging, email and software downloads. These new handsets require higher transmit-and-receive rates for (RF) power amplifiers, which mean that they consume more power. Because the RF power amplifier consumes 40 to 60 percent of the overall power budget, reduction of its power consumption will provide a significant increase in the battery life of a handset.

National’s new LM3200 is designed specifically to power RF power amplifiers. Compared with previous step-down switchers, the LM3200 has a high switching frequency that allows it to use small external components such as a 2.2 uH inductor. The LM3200 also has an analog voltage-control input that dynamically controls the output voltage of the device depending on the power requirements of the power amplifier. Its bypass operation allows it to support the power amplifier’s power requirement during peak usage periods to keep the phone running longer. The converter steps down an input voltage from 2.7V to 5.5V to a variable output voltage from 0.8V to 3.6V, while output voltage is set using a voltage-control analog input for adjusting power levels and efficiency of the RF power amplifier.

“With these new products, National is targeting the power amplifier — a previously unregulated portion of the cell phone — to enable dramatic improvements in battery life and talk time,” said Peter Henry, vice president of National Semiconductor’s Portable Power Products Group. “National’s LM3200 features a small-size chip-scale package, high switching frequencies and compatibility with a wide variety of industry-standard platform reference designs that will enable our customers to offer phones and other portable devices with outstanding performance.”

Key Technical Specifications of National’s New LM3200

The LM3200 offers four modes for mobile phones and similar RF PA applications. Fixed-frequency pulse-width modulator (PWM) mode minimizes RF interference and provides efficient performance under typical operating conditions. Forced bypass mode turns on an internal bypass switch to power the PA directly from the battery. Automatic bypass mode minimizes dropout by turning on the bypass switch when the battery decays close to the output voltage. Shutdown mode turns the device off and reduces battery consumption to 0.1uA (typ.). The LM3200 is designed on National’s CMOS7 process, built at National’s plant in South Portland, Maine, and tested and assembled at the company’s facility in Melaka, Malaysia.

National’s LM3200 is available in a 10-pin lead-free micro SMD that measures only 2.2 mm by 1.8mm. A high switching frequency (2MHz) allows use of tiny surface-mount components. Only three external components, a 2.2uH inductor and two 10uF ceramic capacitors, are needed to complete the application circuit. National’s LM3200 is priced at $1.60 each in quantities of 1,000 pieces.

About National’s Power Management Products

National Semiconductor is the number one supplier of power management ICs with 12.8 percent market share, according to iSuppli’s 2004 voltage regulator/reference survey. National’s power management revenue grew 29.7 percent in 2003 over the previous year, compared to 17.3 percent growth for the industry during the same time period. National’s innovative power management products include best-in-class linear regulators; power monitoring, control and reference ICs; and switching converters, such as high-voltage ICs for DC/DC conversion, switched capacitor converters, lighting management ICs and inductive switching converters. National’s WEBENCH(R) online design tool allows designers to select a power management product, create and analyze a design, and then build custom prototypes that can be delivered within 24 hours. More information about National’s power management products is available at http://power.national.com/ .

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

The figure shows one of four solid-state power amplifiers, each capable of generating an output power > or =240 mW over one of four overlapping frequency bands from 71 to 106 GHz. (The bands are 71 to 84, 80 to 92, 88 to 99, and 89 to 106 GHz.) The amplifiers are designed for optimum performance at a temperature of 130 K. These amplifiers were developed specifically for incorporation into frequency-multiplier chains in local oscillators in a low-noise, far-infrared receiving instrument to be launched into outer space to make astrophysical observations. The designs of these amplifiers may also be of interest to designers and manufacturers of terrestrial W-band communication and radar systems.

Each amplifier includes a set of six high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) GaAs monolithic microwave integrated-circuit (MMIC) chips, microstrip cavities, and other components packaged in a housing made from A-40 silicon-aluminum alloy. This alloy was chosen because, for the original intended spacecraft application, it offers an acceptable compromise among the partially competing requirements for high thermal conductivity, low mass, and low thermal expansion. Problems that were solved in designing the amplifiers included designing connectors and packages to fit the available space; designing microstrip signal-power splitters and combiners; matching of impedances across the frequency bands; matching of the electrical characteristics of those chips installed in parallel power-combining arms; control and levelling of output power across the bands; and designing the MMICs, microstrips, and microstrip cavities to suppress tendencies toward oscillation in several modes, both inside and outside the desired frequency bands.