[Elecraft] Cheap 'n Dirty HF to 440MHz Dummy Load

[Tom Hammond]

Hi folks:

Well, we beat it around a while back on the reflector... the subject of 
building a low-cost, 50-Ohm (resistive) high-accuracy QRP dummy load.

Today I built mine and thought you might like to read a bit about it.

A few early impressions... many of my projects are just 'ho-hum', but this 
one's WOW!

   50-Ohms (well OK, 50.34 Ohms), and essentially NO
      reactance detectable from HF thru 440 MHz.
      SWR = 1.1:1 from HF thru 440 MHz.

   25W-30W for more than just a couple minutes with
     no axillary cooling required unless you really
     drive it long and/or hard (say 100W)

   Total investment, about $10 (US), including shipping
     of the parts from the parts house, LESS if you
     already have the coax connector.

   EASY to build using hand tools.

   Use a discarded heatsink from a dead PC CPU...
     the larger the better, within reason.

The article, a 600kB PDF (PLEASE DOWNLOAD and read off-line!), is available at:

   http://qsl.net/n0ss

I hope the project fits someones fancy pocketbook.

73,

Tom   N0SS