Cabling Chronicles
Testing Cabling With MPO Connectors – What’s New?
With the wide variety of standards relating to fiber optic cabling, the absence of published standards for testing fiber optic cabling terminated with MPO connectors might come as a surprise. Finally, a technical report (TR), written by this author, is scheduled for a June 2017 publication that provides such testing guidance - it is TR/IEC 61282-15. A technical report provides guidance on a subject but does not have requirements (e.g. no “shalls”) as an international standard or an ANSI/TIA standard would.
March 8, 2017
How to Test Shield Integrity?
Back when Wolfenstein 3D was all the rage, we set up an exhibit at a BICSI conference where we tried to make a Cat 5 link fail by inducing noise onto it. We tried all kinds of no-no’s, such as placing the cable next to a fluorescent ballast, a large electric motor, and even the coil of a running car’s engine, yet the link provided virtually error-free 100BASE-TX performance. At that point, it didn’t seem like there would be much benefit for screened cable for the vast majority of installations.
February 15, 2017
#ICYMI: Highlights from 2017 BICSI Winter
The 2017 BICSI Winter Conference wrapped up last week in Tampa where thousands of ICT professional from around the world had a chance to gain valuable industry knowledge and check out the latest products from nearly 180 vendors in the exhibit hall – including our new DSX-8000 CableAnalyzer.
February 8, 2017
The Road to a Category 8 Cable Tester
On January 23, we announced the DSX-8000 CableAnalyzer™, the first true Category 8 tester. You may be wondering what is required for a “true” Category 8 certification tester and why we launched it now.
February 2, 2017
Tips to Identify Copper Clad Aluminium (CCA) Cables
So you came across some Category 6 cable available online for practically half what you've been paying for that brand name. It claims TIA-568-C compliance, includes the UL listing mark and even has a ETL verification legend printed right on the cable. Before you get too excited, you might want to make sure that cable isn't made with copper clad aluminum (CCA).
January 18, 2017
January 11, 2017
Goodbye 2016. You Weren’t ALL Bad
All over the news and social media, 2016 has gotten a pretty bum rap.
With everything from shootings, terrorist attacks and the weirdest presidential election in history, to exploding cell phones, scary clown threats and numerous celebrity deaths, 2016 has been denoted as the worst year ever.
January 4, 2017
How to Save Money and Time in Testing Fibers with SmartLoop
The only way to get correct values when performing Tier 2 testing of duplex fiber links with an OTDR is via bidirectional testing that averages the measurements taken from both ends of the link.
Bidirectional testing used to involve testing the fiber from one end, walking the OTDR to the other end to test again and then averaging the two values to get the results—and it had to be done for each link.
December 30, 2016
Testing New Cable Tester in 2017
It's that time of year again when we take a look at what we predict to be next year's biggest trends in testing.
Obviously the Internet of Things (IoT) will continue to be a major driver in all things network cabling--from the LAN where we will see more devices than ever residing on copper twisted-pair network cabling, to the data center where demand for high speed fiber links continues to expand as companies are faced with the need to access, transmit and store more data than ever before.
December 14, 2016
How Accurate is Your Optical Loss Test Set?
You have just made a loss measurement using an Optical Loss Test Set (OLTS). The measurement was made to a test limit, the result was a PASS, and the margin was provided. Have you ever thought about how much margin is acceptable?
December 1, 2016
