Smart receivers and transmitters for CATV networks

1. A method for analyzing a spectrum of optical signals sent from a transmitter to a receiver, the method comprising:

(a) applying at least one broadcast signal and at least one narrowcast signal to at least one input of the receiver;

(b) applying a control voltage to a distortion cancellation circuit in the receiver;

(c) toggling a multi-position switch operable to send to a spectrum analyzer: at least one selected at least one broadcast signal and/or at least one selected at least one narrowcast signal, and the output of the distortion cancellation circuit,

wherein at least one of four wave mixing (4 WM), per-channel power level, or Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) is detectable via a spectrum analysis of the at least one selected signal and the output of the distortion cancellation circuit;

(d) measuring distortion of the at least one selected signal at the control voltage; and

(e) adjusting the control voltage of the distortion cancellation circuit until the distortion is minimized.

2. The method of claim 1 where at least one selected signal comprises a plurality of tones at predetermined frequencies.

3. The method of claim 2 where at least one selected signal comprises a first tone below approximately 40 MHZ and a second tone above approximately 1.2 GHz.

4. The method of claim 1 where the distortion cancellation circuit cancels at least one of fiber distortion or passives distortion.

5. The method of claim 1 where wavelength drift is detectable from at least one of detected 4 WM or measured distortion.

6. The method of claim 1 where the distortion cancellation circuit comprises only a single mixer.

7. The method of claim 1 including the step of sending information to a transmitter, the information based on the measured distortion of the at least one selected signal, and the information used by the transmitter to reduce distortion in a signal sent from the transmitter.

8. The method of claim 1 where the at least one selected signal is a signal from a transmitter containing content from a head end to a customer over a cable television (CATV) network.

9. The receiver of claim 1 wherein the multi-position switch has a first setting that routes at least one selected signal from the at least one input to the spectrum analyzer, and a second setting that routes a signal from the output of the distortion compensation circuit to the spectrum analyzer.

10. The receiver of claim 1 capable of detecting 4 WM by toggling the switch.

11. The receiver of claim 1 capable of detecting SBS by toggling the switch.

12. The receiver of claim 1 having a first input capable of receiving a broadcast signal and a second input capable of receiving a narrowcast signal, and where the multi-position switch operates to send a selected one of the broadcast signal, the narrowcast signal, and the output of the distortion compensation circuit to the spectrum analyzer.

13. The receiver of claim 12 where the multi-position switch has a setting that routes a combined broadcast signal and narrowcast signal to the spectrum analyzer.

14. The receiver of claim 1 where toggling the multi-position switch between the selected at least one broadcast signal and the selected at least one narrowcast signal is used to modify the gain of at least one of the selected signals.

15. The receiver of claim 1 where the multi-position switch has a setting that routes a signal from the output tap of a node to the spectrum analyzer.