Foundations Of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio Having been able to call myself an amateur for over a decade, it might come as a surprise to you that it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that I thought about attenuators for the first time. They're a curious tool and once you come across them, you'll never be quite the same. Before I dive in you should know that an amplifier is an active tool that makes things bigger and an attenuator is a passive tool that makes things smaller. To look at, attenuators are diminutive to say the least. The ones I have in my kit look like barrel connectors, a male and female connector and seemingly not much else, but looks can be deceiving and I'll mention that shape isn't universal. The purpose of an attenuator is to reduce the power of an RF signal by a known amount, preferably without distortion or any impedance mismatches. When you go out hunting and gathering, your choice of connector is the first obvious selection, but soon after you'll be asked for a frequency range, an impedance, a pow