[OT] -- Oh Joy! I'm Connected again!

Look at the bright side. Now you can take your laptop and sit underneath the apple tree outside when the weather is good. Whenever that might be, it's freezing out here.

My advice: Run regular CAT-5. Much more reliable.

That's what I'm considering doing. I've been through three wireless access points and routers and none of them work worth a damn. I'm online now because I'm sending ping keep-alives to the wireless router.

Part of it is interference from nearby networks and that problem will only get worse as time goes on. I would have hoped they'd carve out the high end of the TV spectrum for new hom wireless networking.

I'd need about 150 feet of Cat-5 to wire up the living room, dining room, and the three bedrooms. And I think I'm going to do so because it's cheaper than building a Faraday cage around the house.

I'd have to run it outside, and I can't find listings for direct-burial CAT-5 cable. Moreover, I understand that even underground runs have ground-differential problems during a lightning strike.

If I could be confident that I'm not going to blow out everything on my network, and that the buried cable would last for at least 10 years I'd jump on it -- when I commisioned the garage-office all the "experts" I asked said "use wireless".

If you are still on the default channel (6), try something else, like 11.

Tam

The run between my office/shop and the house is cheapo cat-5 (Space Shuttle brand from ebay) buried in 3/4" black polyethylene water line. I pulled it in 4 or 5 years ago as I pulled out the coax that preceded it. The phone lines running in the same chase are interior rated as well, and have been in use for almost 15 years. PVC conduit bodies at both ends serve as pull boxes and a transition to PVC conduit to enter the buildings. Regular nylon barb fittings connect the poly pipe to the conduit bodies.

What's wrong with pot?

Leads straight to alky-haul.

I've considered that, but I have visions of water condensing in the thing, and over the years pooling.

Or am I borrowing trouble?

Two comments:

Where I lived for a while Comcast was busy burying PVC tubing because they were going to pull optical cable in a couple years. The existing cable was 15 years old and having lots of trouble. It would be easy to pull the coax in and then out for the optical stuff a bit later. No real extra expense now and reasonable savings in the moderate future. It may have even allowed them to use cheaper labor for the pipe burying and then the better technicians only had to worry about purely electrical issues.

To go wireless between building there are various directional antennas that can be used for fixed line of sight point to point. Treat that as an alternate to cabling and only use regular (omnidirectional) wireless for mobility within rooms and such.

I've wondered myself whether after all this time water has accumulated in the low spots, but haven't had any problems. When I pulled in the cat-5 cable there was no evidence of water in the line. It wouldn't be difficult to seal the points where the cables exit the PVC conduit if you're concerned about moisture condensing underground.

You could pressurise it :-)

Steve

Yep, Terry Given can tell you a story about that. OTOH it'll be buried in your case so the odds of lightning currents hitting the power line to your office are just as high. Or higher if that comes off a pole transformer. I have buried CAT-5 for other purposes. One just as is, the other wrapped in electrical tape. Works fine, isn't used for the LAN but goes to a controller where it directly meets 100V triacs.

For LAN you could wind yourself an extra set of iso transformers. Or go with fiber.

I haven't seen a laptop which could be used at the outside without breaking your eyes.

Well, if my understanding is correct the problem was with the configuration, not with the wireless. I wonder why nobody yet blaimed at Microsoft and Bill Gates, as it is customary in the cases like that.

Vladimir Vassilevsky DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

Use conduit (PVC, and use primer and cement on the joints) - it's cheap, and you only have to dig the hole once. When 100 gigabit horsehair becomes the next big thing in networking, pull out whatever is in there, and pull in 100 gigabit horsehair - or 5 terabit spider silk, or whatever the next thing is.

Fiber is the best option with lightning. Surge suppressors on the Cat-5 are OK if nearby lightning strikes are more something to be cautious about than a guaranteed regular event. Using cheap switches at each end is not really a lightning suppression strategy, but it's a lot cheaper to fry those (sometimes the whole thing, sometimes only a port or two) than to fry your actual equipment. Relevant only because they are cheaper than ethernet surge suppressors are (odd but true, at least when I shop.)

Vladimir Vassilevsky wrote in news:7F0qj.2288$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr21.news.prodigy.net:

And in the same breath extol the virtues of Linux :)

Not that I'm against using Linux but I really hate the vitrol from the zealots and Linux has a lot of them, Mac too for that much.

Billy Gates might be the devil incarnate but if you want to run the latest stuff you'll probably need some kind of MS product.

I will think of switching my main PC over to one of the Linux distros the day it will run MS Access directly in wine or the day someone back engineers an Access clone for open source. Wine will try to run it but with way too many problems and crashes and it would take someone from MS leaking the source code for Access for the other to happen but I can dream.

Bill

I am on channel 11 and it's still spotty. Right now it works because all the college students are off to school, people off to work, etc.

The statists and other war addicts hate it because it makes you peaceful. :-)

Cheers! Rich

I am not exactly sure how it works, but you might try setting the idle time to 0 to keep somobody from jumping in while you are not sending/receiving. Also, somebody mentioned directional antennas. One on the router end should work if you are always in the same direction from it. MFJ Enterprises sells one for $29, but they can be had for a lot less. MFJ claims 15 db gain.

Tam

Ecnerwal wrote: (snip)

As with surge surpressors you need a good ground on both ends. That is, the appropriate ground for the building.

I once wondered about a box on one end, plastic with appropriately isolated power and a short optical link. Maybe with power for the remote side coming through the conduit. Done right, you should be able to get a foot or so of isolation between the two sides.

-- glen