You have been asked to test and troubleshoot an installed base of cabling that is believed to be causing network problems. You are finding that there are high levels of return loss upon initial…

A power meter measures received optical power levels and is used exclusively for fiber optic link testing, not for diagnosing impedance-related faults on copper cabling.

Continuity testing only confirms whether a conductive electrical path exists end-to-end and provides no information about impedance mismatches or the quality of the signal path.

Level II testing refers to OTDR-based optical fiber certification testing and is not applicable to copper cable return loss diagnostics.

A TDR injects a signal pulse into the cable and measures the time elapsed and magnitude of any returning reflections, which allows the technician to calculate the exact distance to each impedance discontinuity such as a damaged connector, improper termination, or cable kink. This combination of fault location and reflection characterization makes the TDR the definitive diagnostic tool for return loss failures, going beyond pass/fail to identify the root cause and its physical position.