Most portable cable & antenna analyzers today are equipped with a cable loss mode that
displays the average cable loss of the swept frequency range. This is usually the preferred
method since it eliminates the need for any math. The graph in picture 3 below shows a cable
loss measurement of a cable between 1850 and 1990 MHz. The markers at the peak and
valley can be used to compute the average. This particular handheld instrument computes the
average cable loss for the user as can be seen in the left part of the display.