Top 5 Reasons FieldFox is Your Ideal Cable and Antenna/Line Sweep Tester

Keysight Technologies

Top 5 Reasons FieldFox is Your Ideal Cable and Antenna/Line Sweep Tester

For Wireless Installation and Maintenance

Your challenge

Fifty to sixty percent of cell site problems are caused by faulty cables, connectors, and antennas. As you know, degraded feed lines cause poor coverage, unnecessary handovers, paging failures, and access failures on the uplink. To avoid service quality problems, it is critical you have a reliable cable and antenna (CAT) analyzer to keep your cell sites’ systems in good condition. Until now, it has been challenging finding a tool that provides reliable and repeatable test results in varying environments and weather conditions.

Your solution

FieldFox handheld analyzers are rugged and portable RF and microwave analyzers that incorporate the same measurement science as many of the Keysight Technologies, Inc. high-performance benchtop instruments. FieldFox is a multi-function tool that enables you to handle wider frequencies, from the cellular to microwave bands, as well as different antenna and feeder-line configurations – whether it is a macro site, indoor DAS (distributed antenna systems) or outdoor DAS.

1. Rugged enough to meet MIL-specs

• Completely sealed instrument enclosure provides measurement stability in harsh environments
• Specially designed connector bay protects RF connectors from damage due to drops or other external impacts
• Water-resistant chassis, keypad and case withstand wide temperature ranges and salty, humid environments
• Case withstands shock and vibration
• Wide operating temperature -10 to +55 ºC (14 to 131 ºF)
• Meets MIL-PRF-28800F Class 2 requirements
• Type tested and meets MIL-STD-810G, Method 511.5, procedure I requirements for operation in explosive environments
• Meets IEC/EN 60529 IP53 requirements for protection from dust and water

2. Display designed for use in direct sunlight

• Bright, low-reflection display and backlit keys enable easy viewing in direct sunlight or darkness
• Easily switch display to outdoor mode for operation under direct sunlight

3. Make quick and accurate line sweep measurements in the field without a cal kit

Each instrument is CalReady at the RF Out port, immediately following power-on or preset. This means it’s already calibrated and ready to make measurements such as one-port cable loss, VSWR, return loss, and DTF measurements at the test port.

Industry’s first and only QuickCal: With traditional test instruments, you need to calibrate using a calibration kit (cal kit) when you add an additional device to the test port, such as a jumper cable or adapter. FieldFox provides the industry’s first and only built-in calibration system called QuickCal, which allows you to calibrate without the hassle of carrying a cal kit, and provides worry-free accuracy every time.

Broadband calibration: FieldFox allows you to make broadband calibrations, which means the instrument is calibrated over the maximum frequency span. After a broadband calibration, you can change the frequency range or number of points without recalibrating the instrument.

FieldFox provides the most comprehensive calibration techniques in the market place, and also supports OSL T cal, waveguide calibration and external ECAL.

4. Easily save, transfer and manage files

• FieldFox can save tests as state file/setup files, trace + state files, screen capture (png format) and CSV files. These files can be easily shared with other applications, like Microsoft Office and FieldFox’s Data Link software.
• Data and picture files can be saved to an internal flash drive, external USB flash drive or SD flash card. Files can be copied or moved from one media to another media without using any special software.
• USB mouse and keyboard are supported to operate FieldFox like any laptop or PC for easy file naming.
• FieldFox’s Data Link utility software can import trace files saved by FieldFox, process the data and generate reports.

5. Future-proof with flexible upgradability

The base FieldFox analyzer is a fully functional cable and antenna tester – which means no extra options are needed to put your team to work. However, if your tasks change in the future, you can easily upgrade FieldFox with simple software license keys with the following functions: spectrum analyzer, power meter, interference analyzer, insertion loss measurement, full-2 port vector network analyzer, GPS, DC power supply and more – all without sending the unit back to Keysight for the upgrade.