Hwalker, ?JimAllyn & Phil Royce gave me VERY HELPFUL ANSWERS.
I have ordered the Nooelec SMA Attenuator Kit. ?Thank you for directing me there.
hwalker seems most clearly to understand my problem with attenuators. ?Yes, I may be over 70, but I'm still a student. ?I have a ham license, but I've yet to use it. ?What I have is a TinySA and I want to learn about is high frequency circuits using my TinySA. ?I also have a nanoVNA - F; as I understand it, the original concept came from the F?maker so I tried to reward that person with my money.
I seems clear, I do not want to stick an ohm meter to each side of my TinySA to find it's impedence; I strongly suspect NOTHING GOOD WOULD HAPPEN. ?Thus my poorly worded query about high power attenuators. ?My first thought if I were to encounter something high power is to make a voltage divider and tap off it at a lower voltage and thus not to over power my TinySA. ?So far I have put an antenna on it and observed my Baofeng UV-5RV+ and some local radio stations. ?I'd like to explore more but?? ?As I understand it, an attenuator is used to have the highest signal level on the screen without over loading the instrument. ?Why then to attenuators come with 'wattage'? ?Does an 100 watt attenuator absorb the 100 watts and leave a minuscule milliwatt signal at the output? ?Looking on the web, most appear to be nothing more than a pi filter. ?Further, you do not even need to do the calculations as there are sites that do the math for you.
I thank you all for your patience with the unwashed. ? ? ? ? ? larry
