On Jan 17, 2:54 am, MGFoster wrote:
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I saw this 50 ohm "terminator" BNC connector at Radio Shack today and
was wondering if it could be used as an antenna dummy load? It is
designed as a computer network terminator - just a female jack without
any output connector. I believe the only question would be "Could it
stand the power output?" What if the output was just 5W? Anybody know
about this product or have used it as a dummy load?

It'd sure save the price of a "real" dummy antenna (it was priced about
$4.00 USD).

Thanks
--
MGFoster:::mgf00 at earthlink decimal-point net
Oakland, CA (USA)
** Respond only to this newsgroup. I DO NOT respond to emails **

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As others have noted, beware of the power rating. On the other hand,
I have a dummy-load-on-BNC-jack that I made with four 200 ohm 2 watt
metal-oxide resistors (and the connector, of course). The connector
is one with a square base, four ground pins and a pin in the center,
for mounting on a PC board, like DigiKey A24512-ND. I cut the lead
completely off one end of each resistor, and trimmed the lead at the
other end of each so when folded over back against the body it reached
not quite all the way to the end with the lead cut off. The four
leads are soldered around the center pin of the connector. The
insulating covering is scraped off the resistor ends with no lead,
exposing the metal cup that contacts the resistive element. The four
ground pins are clipped off the connector, and the cups are soldered
directly to the connector ground, one in each corner. The result on
my HP8753E network analyzer (freshly calibrated and all that) shows
return loss greater than 40dB (S11 below -40dB) out to beyond 300MHz,
and greater than 20dB to about 850MHz. In other words, it is as good
as my semi-precision loads out to 300MHz, and quite a bit better than
a whole bunch of other 50 ohm BNC loads I have -- quite adequate for
any ham work I would do out to 500MHz at least, and able to dissipate
a moderate amount of power. YMMV, of course, depending on the
particular metal-oxide resistors you use, and admittedly it is really
helpful to have a good network analyzer around to test it on. But it
should be no problem making a load that way, usable through at least
VHF.

Cheers,
Tom