EXFO AXS-100 Series OTDR - Manual (Page 146)

Description of Event Types
138 AXS-100 Series
Reflective Event
Reflective Event
Reflective faults appear as spikes in the fiber trace. They are caused by an
abrupt discontinuity in the index of refraction.
³
Reflective events cause a significant portion of the energy initially
launched into the fiber to be reflected back toward the source.
³
Reflective events may indicate the presence of connectors,
mechanical splices, or even poor-quality fusion splices or cracks.
³
A loss and a reflectance value are normally specified for reflective
events.
³
When the reflective spike reaches the maximum level, its top may be
clipped due to the saturation of the detector. As a result, the dead
zone—or minimum distance for making a detection or attenuation
measurement between this event and a second nearby—may be
increased.
³
If you set thresholds, the application indicates a reflective event in the
events table, whenever a value exceeds reflectance or connector loss
threshold (see Setting Pass/Fail Thresholds on page 31).
Reflected
power (dB)
Distance
(km)
Reflective events
Clipped level