Patent ID: 7589535

Claim:
A method of identifying elements in a cable network comprising the steps of: a) performing a frequency domain reflectometer sweep of the cable network generating raw data with a plurality of reflections, each reflection having a peak value; b) removing all reflections having a peak value less than a predetermined peak threshold value; c) determining and removing second and third harmonic reflections; d) determining and removing side lobe reflections to generate filtered data; e) determining which reflections in the filtered data represent unterminated cables by comparing the peak values with a predetermined open threshold value; f) determining type and position of any splitters in the cable network from the filtered data; g) determining position of any barrels in the cable network from the filtered data; and h) displaying the type and position of the unterminated cables, the splitters and the barrels wherein step f) includes searching the filtered data for a collection of peaks corresponding to a known collection of peaks representative of a splitter; and wherein one of the known collection of peaks indicative of a two-way splitter includes a first reflection followed by two larger reflections at different distances.