"Dr. Honeydew" wrote in
oups.com:

On Mar 22, 12:31 pm, (Richard Harrison)
wrote:

What is the generator load that extracts maximum power from a
transmitter? A conjugately matched load, of course. To determine the
impedance of a transmitter, one only needs to find the load which
extracts maximum power. The transmitter impedance is its conjugate.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

We have a new signal generator here at the Labs, but it came without
any documentation. We've been hoping to find out more about it, and
your suggestion gave us a clue for a test to try. We have a limited

If you have a suspicion that the generator might be 50 ohms, and you have
a 50 ohm load, then the output voltage should fall by 6.02dB when the
nominal load is connected (compared to o/c).

One of the simple tests that is often used to verify that a generator is
loaded properly is that adding a second nominal load in parallel reduces
terminal voltage by 3.52dB. This test is often easy to perform, use a
power meter for the first termination, watch the reduction in indicated
power when a double termination is applied. Be mindful that transmission
line lengths need to be short wrt operating frequency.

Some numbers:

1st termination reduces output by 6.02dB;
2nd termination reduces output by 3.52dB;
3rd termination reduces output by 2.50dB;

Owen
....