As the signal travels through the transmission path, some of the energy will be dissipated in
the cable and the components. A Cable Loss measurement is usually made at the installation phase to ensure that the cable loss is within manufacturer’s specification.
The measurement can be made with a portable vector/scalar network analyzer or a power
meter. Cable Loss can be measured using the Return Loss measurement available in the
cable and antenna analyzer. By placing a short at the end of the cable, the signal is reflected
back and the energy lost in the cable can be computed. Equipment manufacturers suggest to
get the average cable loss of the swept frequency range by adding the peak of the trace to the
valley of the trace and divide by two in cable loss mode or divide by four in return loss mode
(to account for signal travel back and forth