10 dB attenuators of Stefano IZ1OQU

On my Blog and website I show information, on how I work with QRP and QRPp and the use of attenuators for more than 1000 Miles per Watt QSO's.

Stefano IZ1OQU built a 10 dB attenuator, that I described in an earlier post. (Click to read) With this attenuator Stefano made QSO's with 50 milliwatt in SSB from his home over more than 2000 kilometers, using vertical antenna's.

With a difference of 13 dB between SSB and CW, the 50 mW in SSB can be compared with 2.5 mW in CW.
Congrats to Stefano, for this great achievement.

Stefano has recenly built a light weight attenuator with two sections of 10 dB. He wants to use the attenuator in SOTA and portable operation.
Here is the interesting e-mail from Stefano with photo's of the light weight attenuator.


Dear Bert,
I'm IZ1OQU Stefano. I wrote to you some months ago for the attenuators on your website.
With the 50 mW of the first attenuator that I built, I had my best Miles per Watt SSB QSO's with Finland, Russia and Georgia, over 2200 kms with the top-score of 2700 kms with Georgia: 
54.000 kilometers per watt.

I'm writing again to show to you the new step attenuator that I've made: with switches and 2x 10 dB steps to reach the 5 mW output with my FT-817.
I attached some images of the new toy, made with pcb enclosure. I left one removable side just to shot some photos. You'll see, It's tiny (about 6x3x3 cms size) and low-weight. With that small space it was hard to solder everything but I did it!

I'll look forward to find ways to reduce again the size wile adding more steps but not before some testing: you know, SSB is not the best way to play MxW with such little power but I am still newbie with CW.

I keep following your blog, I shared it to some friends because they also like MxW, QRP and homebrewing things. The MxW comunity in Italy is slowly growing thanks to the WxM (watt per mile, or mile per watt... anyway we call it, it's the same thing) contest.
Go on with your good job

73 from Italy
Stefano IZ1OQU 

Light weight 2 x 10 dB attenuator IZ1OQU 

Stefano will use the attenuator on SOTA and portable operation. FB.
To read more, visit Stefano's interesting QRZ page by clicking on the link.

10 dB attenuator for 5 W built by Stefano IZ1OQU

I received a very nice and very interesting e-mail from Stefano IZ1OQU.

Dear Bert,
I'm IZ1OQU and my name is Stefano, from Italy, and I'm writing you to thank you for the attenuators that you have so simply and clearly explained on your website.
I built one, 10 dB, for my SSB DXing activity. It's really fantastic and I wonder how people can receive me with 50mW SSB!
I tryed on 20, 12, and 10 m bands with same good results, with three top-qrb of 2300 kms (Russia, Finland and Georgia).
Everything under 2000 kms it seems easy to reach. I use vertical dipoles, so not that big antennas even though they are full-sized for their bands.
I'm gonna build a 20dB attenuator to reduce more!
Thank again for your job.
All the best '73
Stefano IZ1OQU

10 dB Attenuator for 5 watts built by Stefano IZ1OQU

In a further e-mail Stefano wrote:

I designed the 10dB attenuator for 5 W of max input power. 
5 W is the output of Yaesu FT817. 
You know: it has 4 switchable fixed power outputs: 0,5 W - 1 W - 2.5 W and 5 W.
With 0,5 W and 10dB attenuation, I can have 50mw. On 5 W, it falls to 500mW which is the standard low power - usually enough for many European QSO's.
The 5 W design let me switch on all the 4 power output even though it needs more resistors to handle the power. I could use bigger resistors of 2 W, but the only shop around here is not well supplied for values over 1/2 W. 

Stefano used the Power Attenuator Calculator from the PA1B QRPp page to design his attenuator.
This Calculator is developed to design Power Attenuators for 5 watts or more, built with resistors of a modest power, such as 2 W or 1 W.
I am very pleased to answer the questions that Stefano had.
Thanks Stefano for the questons.

Interesting info

Click on the interesting links on the top of the Blog.
I brought same interesting info from the PA1B QRPp page to this Blog and I wrote new pages.

The pages contain info on:

* How to work with the Lowest Possibe Power in QSO's.
* 10 dB Power Attenuators for 500 mW to 5 Watts.
   Build a simple attenuator for 10 dB to use with your set.

* The Excellent Power Attenuator Calculator.
   With this speadsheet in Excel you can design your
   own Power Attenuator for
   any power you want, build with in good available 
   induction free resistors from    the E12-series.
   The higher the input power the more resistors are
    needed.

* How to use the data from the WSPR database to
   make an detailed 
   WSPR Propagation Analysis.