Patent ID: 7720442

Claim:
A method for evaluating transmission equipment, the method comprising: repeatedly conducting a voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) test over a plurality of frequencies on a communication system comprising at least one antenna electrically coupled to an electrical signal processor/generator to generate a plurality of VSWR test results at different times for each of the plurality of frequencies; storing the plurality of VSWR test results in nonvolatile memory within the signal processor/generator; uploading the plurality of VSWR test results to an external memory bearing device; combining the plurality of VSWR test results generated at different times for at least a subset of the plurality of frequencies to generate at least one combined VSWR test result used in evaluating the transmission equipment; and comparing one of the at least one combined VSWR test result and the plurality of VSWR test results for each of the plurality of frequencies to a plurality of threshold values, wherein each threshold value indicates a degree of deterioration of the antenna.