Essential Guide to RF and Wireless, The

ATTENUATORS

Block Diagram

Figure 4-6. Block diagram of a generic attenuator.

The Attenuator's Function

Think of attenuators as anti-amplifiers. A block diagram of a generic attenuator is shown in Figure 4-6. As hard as it is to believe, sometimes in a wireless system the darn signal is just too big, which is where attenuators come in. They make a signal smaller by attenuating it. You may recall from an earlier chapter that attenuation is the result of insertion loss. Attenuation and insertion loss mean the exact same thing. Attenuators allow RF engineers to install a known amount of insertion loss into a circuit.

Visually, a big signal enters ...