[Elecraft] Dummy Load

[William M. Spaulding, Sr.]

OK, Tom et al,

I have a question.  What impedance are we trying to match?  Most likely the
source impedance of the power amp isn't 50 ohm or 51 ohm, or even 47 ohm.
The feed cable may be nominally 52 ohm, or it might be 75 ohm, or it may be
j-weird driving a strange balun and a 600 ohm line to a long wire.......
Maybe we're trying to measure the true impedance of the antenna at the power
amp feed point by using a bridge and a standard resistor all done at QRO
levels.

Chances are your Heath Cantenna has a nominal 52 ohm resistor in it, and
we've all used that forever with perfectly acceptable results.

What load is a dummy load supposed to simulate?  I think it may be all the
above.  So let's pick a resistor nominally 50 ohms +/- 3 ohms, concentrate
on heatsinking and packaging it with low VSWR through VHF and call it an
Elecraft Smartload, because it is low cost, and useful over a wide range for
a lot of folks for a long time!

Bill
NA7Y