JDSU were kind enough to invite myself and Denis to a Test-Um product training day at the JDSU offices in Basingstoke. Michael, the Test-Um trainer, is extremely knowledgeable about cable testing in general (as an ex-installer himself) and about the whole Test-Um range in particular.

One heads up. The Test-Um name is going to start disappearing soon. All of the Test-Um range will be re-branded as JDSU Network and Enterprise Test.

In no particular order, the news from the Test-Um world:

• When toning, ground half of the cable pair if possible in order to increase the tone strength by around 3 times
• Measuring the distance to break using impedance or TDR is only accurate to around 3%. If there's a break in a cable a tone will generally stop at the break pinpointing it very precisely. However with some of the more powerful toners the tone may breach the break. Using the Banjo cable breakout box, LB68, you can split out each cable and earth them one at a time to detect very precisely where the tone stops and consequently the break. Expect to see the LB68 on our site real soon.
• All of the Test-Um range of tone generators are digital, there are no analogue toners, and asymmetrical, so they do not disturb the traffic even on a live Ethernet network. Although hub flash will also work on a live network it's sometimes hard to see the flash in among the normal network traffic. Tones are much faster and easier to pick up.
• The Wi-Net can display wireless signal level as both a percentage value and as a dB level. You can toggle between the two quite easily
• An update to the Testifier (to be called the Testifier Pro) is due in the UK in Q1 2008...features to follow closer to launch

We will be discussing a number of these items in greater detail in future posts.

SpamAssassin just works...

Why do I need a network tap?