A simple and portable add on converter module for communication and measurements

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a new versatile portable add-on converter module which can be used for analysing mobile communication and cable TV networks. Present testing techniques required separate test equipment for characterising electrical and optical networks. Here, we develop a new system work as an add-on module for electrical frequency domain reflectometer which can perform measurements in electrical as well as optical cable networks. Using this technique, millions of electrical cable analyser currently in use all over the world can be converted into the optical analyser. The same system can also be configured as a bidirectional communication system for a wide variety of applications like fibre to the antenna/fibre to the home, cable TV applications. We also show that the developed system has wideband performance over a frequency range from 800 MHz to 2.5 GHz and a dynamic range of 45 dB.