Atec Fluke-OF-500 - Manual (Page 38)

OF-500 OptiFiber Certifying OTDR
Users Manual
28
Testing Your Reference Test Cords
and Launch Fiber
You should test your reference test cords and launch
fiber before each job. Use another set of known-good
cords to set a reference and run an Autotest on each cord
and launch fiber. Use Smart Remote mode to test two
cords at a time, or Loopback mode to test one cord.
You should also use a fiber microscope, such as the
FiberInspector video probe, to inspect the reference test
cord and launch fiber connectors for damage at least
once a day.
Using the OTDR
The OTDR helps you identify and locate faults on fiber
cabling. It also measures length, event loss, and overall
loss of the cabling and provides PASS/FAIL results based
on a selected test limit.
About Launch and Receive Fibers
Launch and receive fibers let the tester measure the loss
and reflectance of the first and last connectors in the
cabling, and include those connectors in ORL (optical
return loss) measurements. Without launch and receive
fibers, no backscatter is available before the first
connector and after the last, so the tester cannot
measure the connectors’ characteristics.
If the first or last connection in the cabling is bad, and
you do not use launch and receive fibers, the OTDR test
may pass because it does include measurements from the
bad connection.