The Midland Fire Department has strengthened its emergency response capabilities by upgrading its radiation detection technology, giving firefighters faster, more accurate insight during hazardous-material incidents and other emergencies.

With the support of grant funding, the department added the Berkeley Nucleonics SAM 950 handheld radiation detection system. This SAM 950 is designed specifically for first responders, nuclear field analysts, and specialized military and security teams.

According to Lt. Tyler Alden, the new system has become a valuable operational asset.

“It is an asset. It makes our department quicker,” Alden said. “It makes our response to radiation faster.”

Photo by Katy Kildee/Midland Daily News

Bringing Radiation Detection into the Modern Era

The department received the SAM 950 in January and now shares it across stations among trained personnel. While radiation monitoring has long been part of Midland Fire’s mission, the new technology represents a major step forward.

“This equipment brings our radiation detection from the 1960s into modern day,” Alden noted.

With real-time analysis and advanced identification capabilities, responders can quickly determine what type of radiation is present and how to proceed safely.

“It tells us what kind of radiation it is,” Alden explained. “It tells us if it was medical radiation or ill intent.”

Advanced Capabilities in a Handheld Platform

The SAM 950 combines multiple critical tools into one portable system, including:

• Radiation survey meter
• Spectral analysis
• Secondary screening
• Isotope identification and confirmation
• Source location features

These capabilities support hazmat response, medical and industrial monitoring, event security, and port and border enforcement.

By consolidating these functions into a single device, Midland firefighters can respond more efficiently and with greater situational awareness.

Rapid Training and Deployment

Firefighters trained on the SAM 950 were able to learn the system in just one day, allowing the department to deploy it quickly across multiple stations.

This rapid adoption ensures more personnel are prepared to operate the equipment when needed—improving readiness and response times.

Commitment to Safety and Innovation

By investing in modern radiation detection technology, the Midland Fire Department continues to demonstrate its commitment to public safety and operational excellence. The SAM 950 enhances the department’s ability to protect first responders and the community while staying ahead of evolving threats.

Credit
This article is adapted from:
“Midland Fire enhances radiation detection” by Tereasa Nims, Midland Daily News, May 13, 2022
Source: https://www.ourmidland.com/news/article/Midland-Fire-enhances-radiation-detection-17160177.ph

The post March 4, 2026 – Customer Spotlight: Midland Fire Department Enhances Radiation Detection with SAM 950 appeared first on Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation.

Image is AI-generated.

With sweep rates up to 3 THz/s, the system can scan very wide frequency ranges in only milliseconds. Sweeping a 1 GHz band with a 120 kHz RBW achieves roughly a 1.7 ms POI, allowing emissions and short bursts to surface immediately instead of being missed between sweeps. This gives a much clearer picture of switching noise, digital interference, and other intermittent effects.

A major advantage is the ability to run meaningful EMI pre-compliance without a shielded room. Using the Spectral Background Mask block, the analyzer records all ambient RF activity and builds a mask to remove environmental noise. This often drops the ambient spectrum by nearly 20 dB and produces a clean spectrum for DUT measurements, even in noisy environments. Tests can be done at the bench, in a lab, or even in a simple tent setup, which offers far more flexibility than the traditional chamber-only approach.

The V6 also provides a 30 ns probability of intercept in real-time mode, making it possible to capture very short events. Transients from power supplies, processors, and mixed-signal systems appear instantly. With a frequency range from 9 kHz to 140 GHz, the platform supports nearly every modern EMI and wireless application.

The software includes standard EN, CISPR, and FCC limit lines, and additional limits—such as FMC or custom profiles—can be added quickly using the built-in power limit editor. Users can also record and save spectra for documentation, before/after comparisons, reference measurements, or long-term troubleshooting.

A typical EMI setup includes the V6 analyzer, HyperLOG and BicoLOG antennas, a pre-amplifier, an OCXO timebase, and the Spectral Background Mask option, along with a high-performance PC using USB 3.2 and a Ryzen 8-core processor with 64 GB RAM. Optional shielding cubes, tripods, and compass modules help build a more complete workflow. The SPECTRAN V6 provides a much faster and more flexible method for EMI pre-compliance, allowing engineers to troubleshoot quickly, shorten redesign cycles, and work without the limitations of a dedicated chamber.

The post November 18, 2025 – Skip the Chamber: How the SPECTRAN V6 Enables Real-Time EMI Testing Anywhere appeared first on Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation.

Exceptional Speed and Resolution

The Model 686 delivers a real-time sampling rate of 20 GS/s and up to 6.5 GHz sine output, all while maintaining a true 14-bit resolution. That level of performance means you can emulate the kind of signals seen in PCIe Gen3, USB 3.0, and other high-speed digital systems. It’s not just fast—it’s clean, giving you low-distortion waveforms that reveal how your devices behave under real-world conditions.

Sharp Transitions and Signal Strengths

Semiconductor testing often requires precise edge transitions and varied voltage levels. With a rise time of just 50 ps and output voltages reaching 5 Vpp, the Model 686 enables both. Whether you’re testing a fast-switching digital circuit or an analog front end, this AWG gives you the signal sharpness and strength to do it properly.

Synchronized Analog and Digital Outputs

Each unit can output up to four analog channels along with 32 digital lines, all running in tight sync. This is especially useful for mixed-signal testing—like running a baseband signal while toggling control lines or injecting parallel data. Everything lines up in time, so your test results are as reliable as your setup.

Room for Complexity

Test scenarios aren’t always simple. Fortunately, the Model 686 gives you 9 GSamples of memory per channel, letting you load extensive waveform data without breaking a sweat. Complex multi-step test sequences, real-world signal captures, or stress patterns—this AWG handles them with ease.

Built to Scale

As your test requirements grow, so can the Model 686. Connect up to four units via its internal synchronization bus and you’re working with 16 analog and 128 digital outputs—without losing timing accuracy. Great for parallel testing or large-scale IC evaluation.

User-Friendly from the Start

The included Simple Rider software is just what it sounds like—simple. It’s touchscreen-ready and designed to make waveform creation and device control intuitive. Whether you’re setting up pulse trains or working on custom digital patterns, the interface won’t slow you down.

Purpose-Built for Semiconductor Work

From high-speed interface simulation to power device characterization, the Model 686 is well suited for semiconductor labs. You can generate PRBS data streams, control voltage ramps, or emulate noisy environments—all with one box. It’s built to handle whatever modern test benches demand.

A Tool That Grows with You

Beyond semiconductors, the Model 686 is also a staple in photonics, aerospace, and RF labs. That versatility makes it a solid investment—not just for today’s needs, but tomorrow’s challenges too.

Final Thoughts

The Model 686 isn’t just another AWG. It’s a tool that’s been engineered to keep up with how fast the semiconductor industry is evolving. For test engineers who need dependable, high-performance signal generation, this instrument checks every box.

The post June 13, 2025 – Why the Model 686 is the Go-To AWG for Semiconductor Testing appeared first on Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation.

Whether it’s ICCD/PIV testing, laser triggering/gating, pulse DUTs and pump lasers, radar/sonar simulation, high speed photography, or another intensive application, it is undeniable that the Model 588B has a lot to offer beyond its box-to-lab speed. The 588B boasts 250 ps delay resolution, less than 5 ps RMS jitter, and an accuracy of 1 ns + 0.0001 x delay. It is currently offered as either a 12 or 24 channel unit with USB, RS232, and/or ethernet communications to ensure that operating this unit is smooth and straightforward.

Click the image below to navigate to the BNC YouTube channel and get a peak of what it’ll be like when your Model 588B arrives in the mail.

The post May 29, 2025 – Unboxing the Model 588B appeared first on Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation.

In many labs and production environments, traditional RF signal generators take up more space—and budget—than they should. The RFS-1000 Series from Berkeley Nucleonics changes that. It delivers serious performance in a compact form factor, without compromising specs or usability.

What Is It?

The RFS-1000 is a USB-powered RF/Microwave signal generator offering continuous wave (CW) and sweep mode across two wideband options:

• 0.1 – 22 GHz, or
• 0.1 – 42 GHz for extended coverage.

Housed in a rugged, portable aluminum enclosure, it’s a fraction of the size of traditional generators—yet fully capable in the field or on the bench.

Why It Stands Out

Wide Frequency Range
From low-GHz work to mmWave development, the RFS-1000 supports radar simulation, RF component characterization, telecom testing, and more—without the need for multiple instruments.

Adjustable Output up to +15 dBm
Whether you’re driving filters, amplifiers, or mixers, the RFS-1000 delivers ample power with precision control.

Low Phase Noise, Excellent Spectral Purity
Despite its small footprint, the RFS-1000 offers impressive spectral performance, suitable for demanding R&D and manufacturing test environments.

USB-C Powered
One cable. No power bricks. Just plug into your laptop or bench supply and you’re up and running.

Portable and Rugged
Built to travel, this signal generator is ideal for tight test racks, field deployments, or mobile lab kits.

Who Should Use It?

• RF Engineers looking for a powerful, portable test source
• University Labs & Students needing a high-performance, budget-friendly solution
• Startups and Agile Test Teams working on tight timelines and tighter benches
• System Integrators who want reliability without the rack space burden

Final Thoughts

Whether you’re characterizing components, troubleshooting field gear, or building out a compact test setup, the RFS-1000 Series delivers the right combination of performance, portability, and value. It’s proof that small form factor doesn’t mean small capability.

Explore the full specs and request a quote here:
www.berkeleynucleonics.com/rfs-1000-01-42-ghz

The post May 1, 2025 – Serious Performance in a Compact Form Factor appeared first on Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation.

Hi there, my name is Cameron Simmons and I am an applications engineer here at Berkeley Nucleonics. Today I am going to do a video about one of our lesser known products – the PVX-2506. It is a hybrid voltage current pulser. We refer to it as a precision voltage pulser and it’s got a lot of cool features that may help your application. Today we’re going to show those off. Enjoy!

The PVX-2506 is what we refer to as a precision pulse generator, because we tune the overshoot and undershoot so that it never exceeds the pulse top and bottom voltage. This can be really good for semiconductor material testing because you know your material is never exposed to a voltage higher than required for your testing. You can get great data on it. The unit can do 50 volts at 10 amps which is extremely high for a voltage pulser of this type, and because of this the PVX-2506 can be used to test a lot of high voltage and high current semiconductor materials. Another great feature is that the 2506 accepts a high voltage power supply and a lower voltage power supply so that you can actually float it up to ten volts and again this can be really good if that is the voltages that you want tested at or if you just want a less noisy signal moving above ground like that will take out some of the noise and help you get cleaner data.

Here I’ll show you the cable that’s included with the 2506. As you can see it’s nice heavy duty connector. Gold pads. Very low inductance. The same thing with this cable can take a lot of voltage but it is also very low inductance so you’re not going to get any added overshoot and zero ringing, which makes this overall a very good cable for this application.

An interesting feature of the PVX-2506 is that it has sort of a utility section here that will help you invert and copy your trigger signal so you can take one trigger in from your source and instead put it in the RF logic input. Then you’ll get a TTL copy of that signal and an inverted TTL version of this signal. This will trigger RF as well. So you can put a sinusoidal wave form in and it will create a square trigger signal. Then perhaps you want to trigger your oscilloscope to this one to see other aspects of the signal; you can take the inverted RF out and then have that be your trigger signal for the output of the unit itself and then you can switch those two around. This makes testing and collecting data easier without having to have an external box that does this.

Here we can see the output of the voltage pulser on the oscilloscope. It’s a nice clean 30 volt pulse going into our 5 ohm load. No aberrations, no overshoots, very square pulse, low noise as well. Then we’ll go ahead and zoom in on the rising edge and you can see the overshoot tuning at work; you can see by the curser there that it’s right on the pulse top. The time scale is about 25 nanoseconds so there is probably about 10 to 20 nanoseconds of oscillation on the rising edge to get that nice fast rising edge. But you can see that the top never exceeds the actual pulse top, which means that it’s really a finely tuned rising edge and falling edge. The falling edge is the same thing – it never exceeds ground and you can get some very clean data with this.

The output of the PVX-2506 is floating and it actually has two voltage inputs. The good thing about that is you can bias it up just to reject noise if that’s the voltage that your experiment calls for. Here, I am at about 30 volts to ground and I’m going to engage the second power supply and bias it up about 10 volts. That’s what that looks like here! There you have it – the features of the PVX-2506.

The post April 25, 2025 – The PVX-2506: It’s a Voltage Source, It’s a Current Source, It’s Everything! appeared first on Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation.

The PCX-7500-EX is most suitable for driving laser diodes, bars, and arrays. It has voltage drops that are up to 110V, output power up to 1000W, an adjustable pulse width between 4 µs to 5,000 µs, and its settable output current ranges from 10A to 450A.

Let’s talk about the external DC power supply. The use of an external power supply to source the laser diode forward voltage has a host of advantages. Perhaps the most notable bonus is the unit’s ability to source a variety of laser diodes at full output from a single device to a 110 volt diode array. This can be done by matching the DC supply to the diode’s forward voltage. Talk about a pliable tool to have in the arsenal!

A bonus feature for a good product is a well designed chassis: the PCX-7500-EX has conveniently located front panel BNC connectors that allow it to be externally triggered and synchronized for specialized interconnected equipment applications. Other remarkable specifications include the following: the input impedance of the trigger is selectable to either 50Ω or 10,000Ω; the synchronization output pulse is synchronized to the leading edge of the output current pulse and is active with internal or external trigger.

Interested in learning more? Visit the product page linked [here] or contact us [here] for more information. Alternatively, go ahead and try out the chat feature on the BNC site itself to speak with an engineer or sales person in real-time!

The post April 16, 2025 – A Competitive High Power Current Source: The PCX-7500-EX appeared first on Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation.

ECPD – 6th European Conference on Plasma Diagnostics

BNC’s regional sales manager in Europe, Roberto Foddis, had the pleasure of attending ECPD 2025 with BNC’s partner SI Scientific Instruments. Not only was the conference located at the Czech Academy of Sciences in the beautiful city of Prague, but Roberto was able to further nurture connections within the industry as well as show off our vast array of test and measurement equipment. It is always our gain to be able to glean from the wealth of knowledge that scientists and engineers bring to the table with applications varying from magnetic confinement fusion, beam plasmas, astrophysical plasmas, and much more.

CBSOA – California Boating Safety Officers Association

No matter the year or location, Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation always counts down the days to attend this incredible event. As predicted, this year’s CBSOA had the most vivacious attendees from familiar faces to new contacts that never fail to offer intriguing conversations around BNC’s lineup of radiation safety equipment.

The post April 11, 2025 – Week Recap: Conferences Across the Globe appeared first on Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation.

It is a great treat to learn about the ways in which our equipment from Berkeley Nucleonics has improved applications, driven solutions, and provided answers for research teams at some of the most decorated institutions across the world. Most recently, we’ve touched base with a researcher at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) following their purchase and use of the PVX-4141 bipolar pulse generator to be involved in the design and subsequent testing of a fast machine protection system and chopper monitor system.

In the case of this particular operation, PVX-4141 is tested for use in a linear accelerator to verify that our bipolar pulse generator works fast enough for the intensive operations at FRIB. Spoiler alert: it does. Read through the quick synopsis here to find out what this type of rigorous unit testing entails from its beginning concepts to its conclusion. Or, navigate to FRIB’s published article, linked [here].

Design:

The design of the system is relatively common. The IOC/OPI is the user interface. The user can set threshold values, different beam modes, and verify that each element of the system is working as intended.

The chopper monitor system takes analog information from the PVX-4141 and other parts of the accelerator systems, digitizes them, and performs operations using an FPGA to compensate for small changes in the beam in real time. This is done by modulating the frequency and width of the gate signal controlling the PVX-4141 pulse width and repetition rate. In other words, the PVX voltage monitor and current monitor provide data used to maintain stable operation.

Pulse Checker:

The signal from the PVX-4141 is not static. The width and frequency are “ramped” aka slowly increased in a linear fashion in different phases. The pulse checker monitors the ramp rate and ensures it is behaving correctly.

Voltage and Current Monitor:

The Voltage monitor (VMON) and current monitor (IMON) go into the ADC and are processed by the FPGA. The ADC takes in the VMON and IMON signals and converts this to digital information, as explained above. In a quick summary, the FPGA is a computer that performs mathematics on this received digital data.

To read the super-fast current pulses, the IMON signal shown in purple is integrated with a capacitor during the rising edge, then reset with the signal shown in yellow before the falling edge, then reset again after the falling edge before the next pulse

This creates a clear, readable signal for the FPGA to measure the current flowing in and out of the plates that accelerate the particle beam.

Test in Beam Line:

The validation results are displayed in image 2. Lets break down the meaning of the results pictured.

Image sourced from Page 2, chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://accelconf.web.cern.ch/linac2018/papers/tupo007.pdf

The green line is at 1, which means that the beam is started; then the green line is at 3 which means the beam is on.

The red line goes from zero to 1. This means there is a fault, which causes the green line to go to 2 – the beam is stopping. The green line then goes to 0 – the beam is off.

Conclusion:

So, what does this mean? This test has verified that the beam auto-shutdown works and that the time it takes the PVX-4141 to react to the error is short enough to stop any damage from taking place. This paper highlights the 4141’s aptitude for integration in scientific testing and research. This model (as well as the entire PVX line) is already set up in such a way that useful information for automation and real-time feedback is available. This makes it an ideal candidate for use in large complex systems where every aspect must be measured and monitored.

The post April 4, 2025 – The PVX-4141 at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams appeared first on Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation.

Monday, April 7th

• 10:00 – 10:30 /// Division of Boating and Waterways – Romona & Joanna
• 11:30 – 12:30 /// Crystal Kanada – Financial wellness and retirement planning
• 2:00 – 3:30 /// Dr. Theresa Larson- Be Well to Lead Well
• 3:30 – 5:00 /// Casey Cheshier- LASD-SEB/ESD Author: Treading Water

Tuesday, April 8th

• 8:00 – 8:30 /// CBSOA Officer and Director Election
• 8:30 – 9:30 /// Butte County Sheriff’s Office. Sgt. Bryan Evans – After Bay Duck Hunters Recovery
• 9:45 – 10:15 /// Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office- Bodega Bay double fatality & high risk apprehension in the Petaluma River
• 10:30 – 11:30 /// LA Port PD Dive Team – Underwater crime scene preservation and investigation
• 12:00 – 4:30 /// Lunch and on the water demonstrations – Marina View Lawn and San Diego Harbor Police Docks

Wednesday, April 9th

• 8:00 – 9:00 /// Herb Hass – Safety inspections and procedures
• 9:20 – 10:00 /// BUI refresher – CBSOA VP Billy Poe
• 10:15 – 10:45 /// Sgt. Brad Mclean Tulare County Sheriffs – Lake Isabella search and recovery

*** To view the full schedule, click the image below to navigate to the landing page for this event. Fill out the form to let us know you’re coming, schedule a meeting, or inquire about your equipment needs.

The California Boaters Safety Officers Association is paramount to the safety of our waters and we hold them in utmost regard for all associated members’ dedication to public safety. Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation has long since been a supporter of CBSOA and we make a point of regularly contributing towards their efforts by providing demo equipment for training purposes as well as in-person unit instruction as needed.

The post March 25, 2025 – 52nd Annual Three Day Boating Safety Symposium appeared first on Berkeley Nucleonics Corporation.