We recently re-installed a PTP800 6 GHz that had been mothballed since 2019. The system was running when it was taken out of service, however, I will have to concede I do not know the condition of the link when the system was pulled down.
So when we went to align the system earlier this week we had a terrible RSL in one direction only. The other direction appeared normal, around a -40dB RSL. The other direction was -65dB RSL and no amount of fine tuning of the dishes (RadioWaves 4’ HP) would get it any higher.
The old system was a dual elevation protect setup so I sent the protect radio up to the crew and they swapped the radio and immediately the RSL jumped from -65 to about -50dB (RSL at other end remained unchanged). So my assumption is bad receiver/radio? But still the RSL is running about 10dB lower than where it should be.
I’m wondering could I have two bad radios? Maybe prior lightning damage or some other kind of damage that had previously damaged the receiver sensitivity?
The second question I had is if it is safe to run a line analyzer on like a SiteMaster with the radio connected? I was considering sweeping the line from the ground to the radio to see if there is any potential damage to the line but would running that with the radio connected potentially damage the input circuitry to the ODU?
Also any chance I might have a bad IDU? I have not tried swapping IDU’s yet to see if the receive signal improves?
Thanks
