Patrol Boat Communications

Pathfinder has performed several small scopes of work for optical fibre specialist inspection and repairs.
Austal manufactured a total of 14 Armidale class patrol boats for the RAN between 2004 and 2007 and included advanced networking and communications infrastructure as a part of the design.

During repair and maintenance work campaigns undertaken on several of the vessels, Pathfinder has been called in by Austal to perform OTDR and insertion loss testing of the on-board optical fibre cabling, report on the condition and perform any necessary repairs. This generally involved the in-situ re-splicing of optical fibre pigtails or fitment of site-installable connectors. This optical fibre work was frequently undertaken in extreme conditions of dust and heat during vessel dry-dock refit tasks such as painting and sand-blasting.