Power Divider Insertion Loss
I am doing some measurement using a 8way equal split power divider. But I am using only 5 output ports out of 8. The remaining 3 port are terminated with load. After the measurement, I need to compensate back the loss from the power divider. The loss that I compensate back is it the same for using 5 ports compare to using all 8 ports? Please advice. Thanks.
I think you should see around 9 dB loss across each output port with other ports terminated with 50 ohm impedance. And if you are using a 2-port VNA to do the measurement, then you can measure the insertion loss across only one output with the remaining 7 ports terminated with 50 ohm load.
What do you mean by compensate back the loss from the power divider ?
Theoretically, it is 9dB=10*log8. But the additional loss maybe about 1dB, because 2-way dividers additional loss is about 0.3dB.
You should use amplifier to compensate the loss, so the gain should be about 10~12dB. It's better to use 12dB, better have gain margin.
I am measuring the gain of the antenna. So if i use a power divider for measurement, I should add back the loss of it to calculate the actual gain.
yes, correct