Dear OM Elmer,

depending on the power You intend to use, I recomend homebrew Dummy Loads, indeed attenuators only up to a power of 100 Watt. Wovings of bifilar wound fibre glass filaments and Nickel Wire (Manganin or Konstantan) are recomended in HF-Books before WW2 for LF and MF. Add a power meter at the low power output of the attenuator.  At Ham  Radio in Friedrichshafen I acqured two DL 60 Ohm /100 W dry and a big boat anchor of 60 Ohm/1,3 kW, wet , both from Rohde und Schwarz. The power dissipation is for measurement purpose (cw 24/24h) for ham radio measurements the power is larger. As Power meter I use one of Sat-Technik Ulf Schneider, in see Internet    www.sat-schneider.de    . Of course I have put some attenuators of minor power at the output of the Dummy Loads. On LF/HF-frequencies I prefer stable test set ups, with 50 Ohm or 60 Ohm resistance in matching and measuring. Please dont waste time in ham construction, I remember plenty of them for Dummy Loads in HF. More upon request.

 

55, Hans-Albrecht DK 8 ND