The digital TDR 1170 will locate and identify short circuit (bolted) faults, low resistance shunt faults, open circuits, high resistance series faults, wet sections,splices, transformers, cable transitions, and concentric neutral corrosion. To locate high resistance, intermittent and flashover faults, the TDR 1170 is designed to measure in the digital arc reflection, current impulse, voltage decay, and all differential fault locating modes. The selection of fault location method allows the operator to select the method which they are most familiar with or the method that is most appropriate for the type of cable and type of fault that is encountered.

The TDR 1170 requires a high voltage coupler to interface to a cable fault locator (thumper). The cable fault locator then provides the voltage and current to enable the TDR 1170 to quickly and definitively locate cable faults.