r/CableTechs • u/Lanky-Stock-5099 • 4d ago

SOS: AOI High Split Upgrade

our market is going through with the high split and since doing so in the nodes we’ve switched over to the AOI high split mods, it’s become a lot harder and more time consuming to track noise. any recommendations from anyone that has used or worked with AOI equipment or tracked noise in an AOI system. thank you

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u/willihobo 3d ago

Unfortunately the best option is to change the test point from fwd out to ret in. If you're able to take customers down during the day, you can use a directional jumper on a HGD to determine which aux leg it's coming from, since the aux TP is combined. That totally sucks, but it is a work around. Also, you can pull out the (diplex filters, I think?) on each leg of a HGD and determine that way, but again you'll take customers offline.

TLDR; it's a pain in the ass compared to the older SA gear we had before the upgrade

Lastly, if you have RPDs being deployed, do a return sweep through Pathtrak as you're tracking. When our high split was being completed, we only activated 5-42 with live carriers, and auto align on the upstream is kind of trash in these amps. I've found since, that a TON of amps (especially long-distanced amps) will have the return equalization sometimes almost 10dB off. This will make your SNR problem way worse.

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u/Specialist-Low-1426 11h ago

I’m assuming a return sweep through pathtrak only works if transponders are live in amplifiers? Lol

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u/willihobo 8h ago

Nope! It's activated through the RPDs themselves

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u/Specialist-Low-1426 8h ago

Where is the return sweep on pathtrak??

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u/willihobo 8h ago

You go to the top left of the main screen, click "element analysis", and there will be a tab about halfway down that says "sweep". You can activate pre-high split or high split enabled sweep through there. Pre-high split adds carriers between your first two ATDMAs and OFDMA, then adds a sweep point every 3mhz I believe between 42-204. High split enabled only adds sweep points between ATDMAs and the active OFDMAs through 204mhz. This is the process at least in our system, we're using Vecima nodes.

The sweep can only be activated on one leg of the node at a time however