FIELD: electric engineering. SUBSTANCE: method involves application of sounding pulses to input of measuring object, receiving reflected pulse, continuous increase of these pulses following inverse function of measured pulse attenuation, detection response time for pulse reflected from fault or open or short-circuited line point, detection of distance to fault point or end using time interval between sounding moment and arrival of reflected pulse, conversion of same-polarity pulses which are reflected from break or short-circuit point into single-polarity pulses, generation of unipolar slow-dropping saw-tooth voltage, comparison of threshold voltage to amplitude of converted reflected pulse and detection of arrival time of reflected pulse when these voltage levels are equal. In addition method involves generation of reference voltage and its conversion to shorting voltage using scale factor which is equal to given shorting factor in measured line, conversion of time interval between arrival of reflected pulse and sounding into distance voltage using scaling factor which is equal to given shorting factor in measured line. EFFECT: increased functional capabilities. 8 cl, 10 dwg
