By R. Martin Eggerts, Blonder-Tongue Labs., Inc.
The FCC does not require a manufacturer of CATV equipment to obtain type acceptance or certification, but the equipment, when properly inst.:~.lled, must be capable of meeting the radiation limits imposed on the operator of a cable distribution system under Part 76 of the FCC Rules and Regulations.
This paper will outline some relatively straight-forward methods of measurement that can be used to obtain correlation between plant leakage and equipment radiation. Further, major sources of error and their possible magnitude are examined to establish safety margins in order to have confidence that FCC specifications are indeed met.
The application of these methods to determine shielding effectiveness of passives, predict ingress, and help the requirements of CLI are also discussed.