Homebrew Attenuator Measurements

I recently acquired a homebrew attenuator (called the copper attenuator in this blog). The construction is modeled in line with the QST article of September 1982 titled "A Step Attenuator You Can Build" by Bob Shriner WA0UZO and Paul Pagel N1FB although the named attenuator pad values were different.

On opening up the unit I was mystified by the values used for four of the PADS. The parallel and series values appeared to have been transposed in error. I reworked these values using standard nearest value resistors.

The switches are in excellent condition with no signs of wear. As can be seen from the linked spreadsheets below, I tested the attenuator over the HF frequency range only. A maximum of 0.1dB insertion loss was observed at 28MHz.

The worst case error observed was +0.4dB for the 16dB PAD.

With all PADS switched in to yield a maximum attenuation of 71dB the maximum error was 0.8dB at 10MHz.

Click on the link below for details of the measurements made. To return to this page please use the back button.
Attenuator Measurements

Click on the link below for details of the resistor Pi Network Values. To return to this page please use the back button.
Pi Network Resistor Values, dB(calculated), Return Loss (calculated)