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Reviews For: Bird 8401 Termaline Coaxial Resistor 600 Watt Dummy Load

Category: SWR & Wattmeters & Dummy Loads

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Review Summary For : Bird 8401 Termaline Coaxial Resistor 600 Watt Dummy Load
Reviews: 1MSRP: 843.00
Description:
8401, 600 Watt, Oil-Cooled Termination is a portable, self-contained general purpose 50 ohm coaxial transmission line termination requiring no outside power source or additional equipment. It provides accurate, dependable, and practically nonreflective termination for testing and adjusting transmitters under nonradiating conditions. The load consists essentially of a cylindrical film type resistor immersed in a dielectric coolant. The resistor, individually selected for its accuracy, is enclosed in a special tapered housing which provides a linear reduction in surge impedance directly proportional to the distance along the resistor. This produces the uniform, practically reflectionless line termination from dc to 3 GHz.

* Rugged portable Bench load for medium power base station RF testing up to 3 GHz
* Oil-assisted convection cooling for safe, continuous operation up to 600W full rated power
* Quick Change (QC) connectors to minimize the need for adaptors when making critical measurements
* Low-profile housing with handle for trouble-free operation in the most demanding environments
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.birdrf.com/Products/Terminations_Loads/Coaxial-Terminations/600-watts/8401_600-Watt-Oil-Cooled-Terminations.aspx
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0015
NG7M Rating: 2016-12-11
Bird Termaline Dummy Loads are the Cats Meow Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
It's hard to get excited about a dummy load, but when you are dealing with Bird design and find a new old stock Bird 8401 in pristine condition, it's hard not to get a little excited.

As other reviews for Bird dummy loads have mentioned, many are still in production and the Bird 8401 is no exception. You can pick one up new for $843.00 from the Bird website or you can take your time and find one on the usual auction site. Again, I don't think I could find one for the price and condition that I did again. I picked up the one in the picture above, shipped for $250. It still had the manufacturer cardboard wrapped around it which was sealed and had never been removed.

What can I say, I love owning a piece of quality equipment like these even if it's a dummy load. For a QRO dummy load you really can't get much better. It's good from DC to 3ghz and takes 600 watts continuous. If you use it at 1500 watts it would take 15-30 minutes or more before you would need to in-key. For Amateur Radio, this is going to be all you ever need in a QRO dummy load.

No more irritating oil and bugs on the top of a typical cheesy cantenna... no more capillary motion of the oil making a mess on the top of the paint can style dummy load. The 8401 like the rest of the Bird products are meant to last. The oil is specifically designed oil for transformer heat dissipation in the commercial market. This is not surprising of course because this is a commercial dummy load (obviously). There is zero leaking of the oil and I have restored several previous Bird dummy loads, an 8201 and an 8404 for a good Ham friend of mine.

If you are considering one of these coaxial resistors for your shack, I took a few more pictures and you can find them at this link: http://www.nc7j.com/downloads/NG7M/Bird8401DummyLoad/

Happy used Bird Termaline Coaxial Resistor Hunting!

Max NG7M