Attenuators, the missing link...

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 power level and an attenuation level, so let's take a look.

I have some attenuators with N-type and SMA connectors. There's options for every connector under the sun, so consider what you're using with your gear and remember to think about your measuring equipment connectors as well. In my case my shack is pretty much SMA the whole way, but a friend had some broadcast N-type attenuators and I was unable to resist.

The next thing is impedance. In my case 50 Ohm, but there's options for other choices like 75 Ohm for TV based attenuators.

The purpose of an attenuator is to reduce power. It does so by converting power into heat and more power handling means more heat. Too much heat and the attenuator starts letting out the magic smoke, so consider how much power your RF source is generating. Putting out 5 Watts? Then make sure that you don't connect a 1 Watt attenuator to that radio.

Now for the attenuation level. It's described in dB or decibel. At first the numbers look bewildering, but pretty soon you'll be familiar with how it hangs together. A 3 dB attenuator will halve the signal, so a 10 Watt signal will be reduced to 5 Watts and a 200 mW signal will be reduced to 100 mW.

If you have a 6 dB attenuator, it will halve again, so 10 Watts becomes 2.5 Watts and 200 mW becomes 50 mW.

A 10 dB attenuator is a little more than 9 dB, so you could try something along the lines of a bit more than half again, but you don't need to. 10 dB attenuation is essentially moving the decimal point. A 10 Watt signal with 10 dB attenuation becomes 1 Watt. A 200 mW signal becomes 20 mW.

If you have a 20 dB attenuator, it moves the decimal point two places, 10 Watts becomes 0.1 of a Watt, or 100 mW and 200 mW with 20 dB attenuation becomes 2 mW. You can connect two attenuators together and combine their values by adding them together. For example, combining a 10 dB attenuator with a 3 dB attenuator makes for 13 dB attenuation which moves the decimal point and then halves that.

All that's fine and dandy, but what's the point?

Well, imagine that you want to measure the actual power output of your radio. If you were to pump the minimum power level of my Yaesu FT-857d into a NanoVNA you'd blow it up, but if you added say 20 dB attenuation, that 5 Watt would become 0.05 Watts or 50 mW which is half the power rating of the NanoVNA. If you're not confident that your radio is actually putting out 5 Watts, you could add 30 dB attenuation and have a safe margin at an expected output of 5 mW.

I mentioned that attenuators don't all look like an innocent barrel connector. That's because if you have to attenuate something with higher power levels, you'll need a way to dissipate heat, in much the same way as a dummy load has cooling fins, higher power attenuators can come with cooling fins too.

On the inside of this contraption is a simple circuit made from three or four resistors which combine to attenuate your signal. If you're inclined to build your own, there are plenty of online calculators to be found that show how to put an attenuator together.

One thing I've skipped over is the frequency range. Most of us are having fun with HF, VHF and UHF, generally below 1 GHz, so most attenuators will be fine, but if you are playing at higher frequencies you should take note of the frequency range specified for the attenuator.

While on the subject of frequency range. You can easily measure the actual performance of an attenuator using a NanoVNA. Connect Port 1 to Port 2 through your attenuator and using the magnitude trace you can see just how much attenuation it provides. Be sure to set the intended frequency range and calibrate without the attenuator before measuring.

Now that I know about attenuation, I cannot imagine a life without, but to be fair, I was in blissful ignorance for more than a decade, so this might not apply to you, yet, but one day perhaps you'll find yourself thinking about adding some attenuation to your tool kit.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB