Patent ID: 8458759

Claim:
A system for locating an impairment in a coaxial cable portion of a hybrid fiber-coax network, comprising: an encoder configured to couple to the coaxial cable portion of the network at a predetermined encoding point upstream of the impairment, said encoder including electronic circuitry adapted to automatically encode an identification code on a signal originating downstream of the encoding point and associated with the impairment; an impairment detector, configured to couple to the network at an access point upstream from the encoding point and to receive signals from the network, said detector adapted to detect from the received signals the signal associated with the impairment and generate a detected signal therefrom; a decoder, associated with said impairment detector, and adapted to decode the identification code of said encoder from the detected signal; and means, associated with said decoder, for identifying said encoder and the predetermined encoding point from the identification code, whereby the location of the impairment is determined to be downstream of the predetermined encoding point.