Introduction

The typical application for this is to measure the emitted light level of a transmitter, or the power going into a receiver. It is a fiber optic power meter test procedure.

When doing this, remember that if the transmitter is modulated at 50% duty cycle, the average power reading will be lower than the peak power by 50%, e.g. 3 dB. It is not recommended to perform power measurements on transmitters modulating slower than about 0.1 Megabaud, or inaccurate readings can result.

The power meter must be rated to measure the peak instantaneous power, or detector saturation may result in low optical power measurements.

Safety precautions must match the possible source power levels. With high power systems, this a significant issue.

• Turn on the instruments and allow to warm up. Clean and inspect the patch leads.
• Use a matching patch cord to connect the instruments to the device being tested.
• If testing a laser, use of an APC connector plugged into the power meter will reduce optical reflections, and so generally improve measurement accuracy.
• A multimode measurement requires a mandrel wrap if measuring source power against specifications. If measuring the actual receiver power on an installed system at the receiver end, do not generally use a mandrel wrap.
• Set the meter to the correct wavelength, in absolute (dBm) mode. It now displays the absolute power level in dBm.

How to calculate dBm

The linear-to-dBm calculation method is:

dBm = 10 log (P1 / P2)

where P1 = measured power level
P2 = reference power level, which is 1 mW

See: Decibel dBm definition (w/calculator)