You are close it's actually field strength meter, sorry couldn't help it, attenuation is cable loss pure and simple, Splitters and length of cable, temperature and frequency are some of the basic items that cause signal loss. you need to know your starting DBMV and calculate all losses that you pass thru, this will vary depending on the frequency you are checking, remember that higher freq. drop faster than lower freq. you can get a small pamphlet that gives you all attenuation losses at all frequencies, I like the small pocket size that C-cor gives out. And Joe is right you shouldn't be running service related calls without this knowledge even though i'd be willing to bet that most sat. installers don't know how to calculate signal loss. It's a cable thingy, lol
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