POWER ATTENUATORS

TYPE ATF - National RF, Inc

National RF’s Type ATF Power Attenuators were designed to allow interfacing of linear power amplifiers to RF exciters, where a specific amount of drive to the amplifier is prescribed. Often, however, drive from the RF exciter exceeds this minimum prescribed level and some form of power attenuation must be used in order to not damage the input of the power amplifier. National RF’s type ATF-3 offers 3 dB of power attenuation (1/2 of the power) when used between the exciter and the amplifier and will handle an input power of 132 Watts, RMS (continuous power) while providing about 66 Watts RMS output power, when it is terminated into 50 ohms. In practice, the ATF-3 attenuator will handle exciters achieving Peak Envelope Power levels (PEP) in the area of 200 to 250 Watts while providing half of that power to the load. For less attenuation requirements, the ATF-1 and ATF-2 offer 1 and 2 dB of attenuation, respectively.