User Requirements

User Requirements:

In other words: If you are a skilled technician and used to install a normal SMATV Multiswitch, a simple MATV antenna system or a CATV system, you have an idea of how all the products are connected together and you should be perfectly capable of planning and designing your next installation in DOL.

We do claim DOL to be very easy to use, but we would be lying if we said that you do not have to learn anything to use it ! That is the reason why we have created this TRIAX DOL Documentation Web site. It should allow you to easily find help on issues where you got stuck, without forcing you to read a wopping 30-50 pages of a book or a PDF document, from start to end.

However, We do recommend that you browse through the documentation of this Web site to familiarize yourself with all DOLs many features and functions. We are sure it will make your job doing future DOL Plans a lot easier, than if you just go ahead and try out everything blindly.

The DOL Tool will follow your design as you go along and it will warn you if System Signal Levels become critical and/or outside of the specifications of the Products you select. But it is up to you to select the required products and put them together in the correct order. This is done in an easy drag-and-drop fashion.

The design steps are these (using your PC mouse and keyboard plus a Browser):

• First you select the product(s) you need from a list, and drag them onto a drawing canvas. Alternatively you may make a copy of an old design you have done earlier so you can get up to speed doing new ones quickly, OR you start with a fixed template design. We recommend the make-copy approach, because that way every design uses the products you know and have selected already for other designs.
• Then you select the cable type(s) you want to use from a list (products and cables will now appear as figures on the drawuing canvas)
• Now you drag-and-drop the cable ends onto the Products to connect them together (cable ends snap together with products)
• And finally you set the System Signal Levels out of the Headends, LNBs, Aerials or other Signal Sources in your design
• DOL will automatically calculate the cable related and frequency dependent losses, and show final Signal Levels and Frequency responses at every intersection and Product where a Signal Output is present. You may also view a frequency responce graph to be able to see the slopes, if any, in your Signal Levels.

In case a Signal Level is too High or too Low a traffic Light warning system alerts you, to allow you to set for instance correct Amplifier Gain, Slope/Equalizer and Attenuation settings.

This way you can 'play' with the DOL settings of your installation until you get it to perform correctly. Once you master this you'll probably find that you will do a lot less real-life adjustments and trial settings during actual installation time, because what takes time after having put a real installation together, is most often doing all the measurements and figuring out how to set all settings correct. Not to speak about figuring out how one change of setting behaves further down the distribution network. That can be very time-consuming in real life, but DOL can help you get through it even before you touch any products or install any cables.

DOL will not do the 'putting-stuff-together' part of the real-life work for you of course, but using DOL you will know exactly what to do before you start installation and you will know where to change settings. Consequently, the installation job should be a lot easier and go smoother.