Fiber optic testing with an OTDR is a fairly straight forward process. When you’re talking single-mode fiber most customers require, at a minimum, testing each fiber at 1310nm and 1550nm windows to insure that splice specifications are maintained. When testing outside plant this involves an OTDR , a pulse suppression box (launch) , knowledge of [...]
I just got of the phone with the nice folks at Legacy Fiberoptics. We were discussing an upgrade of a few of our OTDRs. Starting January 2011 they will be offering upgrades for the CMA4000 OTDR which will outfit your OTDR with a removable compact flash. Here are a few questions and answers concerning the [...]
Fiber Splicing Resulting in High Splice Loss
It’s time for a few more pics from the the world of unacceptable fiber optic splicing. The following photos shows a splice tray from an OPGW 24 fiber splice location mounted inside a Windsor splice closure. The first pictures shows that the tech used connector boots and silicon to protect the fibers from the edge [...]
Unacceptable Fiber Optics: Are You Doing This?
Time for a few more pics depicting unacceptable fiber optic practices. This first one is a classic. I’ve been in the business a long time and I can say that this is the first time I’ve ever seen this. The tech defiantly had no clue how to prep and wrap the cable entrys on a [...]
Evidence of unacceptable fiber optics If your fiber is being treated like this give us a call ASAP.
Viewing OTDR Trace Files Using TraceView
This short video explains, in plain English, how to use Anritsu’s software TraceView. This is a basic tutorial which shows the steps required to view a OTDR trace. It demonstrates how to add traces, set up the screen view, scaling the display range, setting A and B cursor locations and selecting loss modes. View OTDR [...]
If you own a older OTDR then you know how much of a hassle it is to copy trace files from the OTDR over to the PC. To put this into a little perspective, transferring a couple hundred megs of trace data off of a CMA4000 involves copying data to a floppy disk over 150 [...]
Calibrating Arc Fusion Splicers
There seems to be a fair bit of confusion surrounding the topic of how to calibrate a arc fusion splicer. This question crops up from time to time, from both project supervision level personnel to the hands on techs in the field. When using the word ‘calibration’ with regards to arc fusion splicers there are [...]
Compact Flash Upgrade For CMA4000/4000i
Back in January I posted about a compact flash that was hitting the market as an upgrade to the CMA4000/4000i OTDR. Since then we have had one of our machines upgraded and wanted to give a short review of the flash drive. IMHO the CMA is the best OTDR every developed for testing fiber optic [...]
