OT: Upgrade my network

I'd be interested in hearing the responses as I've got a similar problem. Our home was wired for cable TV when we built it18 years ago using RG59 cable - before the sheetrock went up. I installed a then current state of the art cable TV distributution amplifier to make sure we had sufficient signal to drive the 6 cable outlets, and it worked fine.

When we upgraded to digital TV this year, I had to buy a new 900 Mhz distribution amplifier, but now the higher numbered channels are noticably snowy on the two longest cable runs, when viewed on "cable ready" sets without a digital set top box.

Exactly as Karl sez, I could replace the cables, but the only reasonable way to do that will be to punch through to the outside of the walls and run the cables that way, dammit.

Jeff

-- Jeff Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"If you can keep smiling when things go wrong, you've thought of someone to place the blame on."

One option might be wireless. There are significant price breaks to be found. I have a wireless hub that I purchased on sale from Micro Center at $39.99, that less a successful $40 mail-in rebate made it essentially free. There are range and interference issues to be resolved, but it can be made to work.

Not an expert, but I don't know why twisted pair couldn't work over coax.

The connection rates across the cables are the same. Having said that, all coax based ethernets ran at 10Mbps, while the twisted COPPER (see, metal content!) pair types can be run at 10, 100, 0r even 1000Mbps, all depending on the interface cards (10/100 autosensing would be the most common today).

I doubt if you put 2 RG59 cables out to the barn, but if you did then some impedance macting transformers (baluns) could be used to drive twisted pair data down the RG59. You need two as the twisted pair ethernet has a separate path for transmit and recieve, while the coax based systems are one wire for both. If you do have 2 x RG59 to the barn let me know and I can point out some transformers (although they could be more expensive than the hub solution suggested below).

If you have a single RG59, then perhaps the best solution would be to put a small hub on each end of the RG59. You should be able to find 8 port hubs that have 8 RJ45 (twisted pair connectors) and 1 BNC (for the RG59). Simply connect the BNC to your coax, and the computers to the RJ45s and away you go. If you want new equipment, then look for something like the 3Com® OfficeConnect® Ethernet Hub 4C (go to

> hubs > Ethernet Unmanaged. I believe that these units would be less expensive than a media converter, such as the Milan MIL-C1111 which would also do the job.

Good luck.

Dave (long time networker, even before ethernet !)

75 ohm versus 100 ohm charactoristic impedance, bad reflections of electrical signals, lots and lots of data errors on the wire. Also, the coax could (with impedance matching transformers) be used for the transmit connection OR the recieve connection, but not both. See how little there is to being an expert ?

I'm not a big fan of wireless other than in the licensed bands. The wireless stuff for networks run in unlicenced bands along with cordless phones and baby monitors, to name just a few products that could interfere with a wireless network. A rural location would help cut down on the possibility of interference from neighbourhood devices. I still like the little hub at each end : )

Dave

If you dig around enough, you should be able to find some older hubs that have several twisted-pair ports and one BNC port on them. These will all be

10-baseT/10-base-2 hubs. If you really want to run 100-baseT, then you will need switches at the home end, at least.

Another possibility is to find some DEC DELNI (I think that's the model) hubs, which are all AUI (15-pin connectors). You plug something like a CentreCOM 201TS twisted-pair transceiver (available at various flea markets, computer junk shops, etc.) into most of the ports, and a similar unit for the 2 ends of the BNC.

If you are buying network interface cards, you can still find some with either BNC or AUI ports, so you may be able to delay the conversion a while.

Network connection rates? BNC gives you 10 MB/Sec, which is still WAY faster than the best DSL. If you have a "large" network, with 100+ nodes, the contention on 10-baseT slows things down, but a home network with less than

10 nodes will still be way faster than the DSL. So, for most home networks, 100-baseT has minimal benefit, unless you are sending movies from a "server" to a node that is displaying them. (Some people ARE doing this sort of stuff.)

I managed to drag some 24-port 10-baseT hubs out of the dumpster at work, and one makes a dandy hub for the house, with a spare. It works just fine, and all the nodes, including the DSL router/switch are plugged into it. It doesn't give me an easy way to hook a 10-base2 coax to it, but I don't need that anymore.

Jon

i dunno about your cable, maybe it just looks like tv coax, which is not supposed to be used for 10b2.

there is a simple and cheap solution for you, a hub with a 10b2 input and twp out. these are commonly junked nowadays, so you may want to start looking. otherwise you will pay plenty for new. you will have to keep the coax connection on the remote computer/s so that can be an issue, if not now, then later when they die.

your bottle neck will be the router/modem, not your network. 100bT is not much faster, wrt media specs, than 10b2, so that is not an issue either. the tcp/ip stacks were slower, so newer implementations of

100bT s/b a little faster, not to worry, tho. good luck, --Loren

This works great. We have all our pcs at home networked this way, thru a single DSL line. One literally cannot tell how many folks are online at a given time, the BW from the DSL modem is great.

The following items get mentioned:

DSL modem Router Hub Switch DNS server

The modem connects to the twisted pair phone line at one end, and spits out an ethernet connection on the other side. The ethernet connection it spits out is a local IP address. Some of the modems provide more than one ethernet connection, they handle multiple signals and coordinate them with the single twisted pair. This is often called a 'router.'

We have a simple hub which takes in one ethernet connection and spits out many. It has some smarts to prevent collisions between the different pcs that hook to it.

There is one device on the local network that gives out the IP addresses for the various machines, that one is said to have it's DNS enabled. (domain name server).

One is supposed to put high frequency blocks in front of all the phones in the house, but I never bothered to do this, and everything works just fine that way. One can hear the dsl signals a tiny bit in the phone though. Not enough to irritate.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Yes you want one. It's basically a processor that connects your home network to the cable or DSL modem. It handles all the connection garbage and keeps up with which of your computers asked for which data, etc. It will also most likely have a built-in firewall for security so you don't need to run one on each computer. I'm running a Belkin 4-port DSL/Cable Router. It cost me $30 after rebate and was a great investment! Before I got it I had to pay $10 a month extra for the 2nd computer because it needed its own IP address. Now the router has the only IP address and takes care of everything else for me.

But it's also a hub itself and you ordered hubs already so that may be a bit of a problem. Your best bet would have been a router that supports BNC if such a product exists. I think you can connect a router to your hubs but I'm not sure.

Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com

A router is sort of a traffic cop that allows multiple computers to share one DSL line. I have the cheapest one made- a D-Link DI-604. I bought it because the guy at the computer store said it was a better unit than D-Links more popular router (has lots of blinking lights). The DI-604 has to be set up for the the kind of DSL your ISP uses. That takes about five minutes.

I've had twocomputers downloading at the same time with no noticable loss in speed.

You spell your name wrong.

-Carl

There is another issue which you have not yet mentioned. Wireless hubs make it easy for someone to steal service from you, or to snoop out your passwords when you connect to your ISP. I would use such only with good encryption (e.g. SSH) between unix systems (and from PCs to unix).

It would need a bit of electronics. Twisted pair actually uses

*two* pair -- one for the signals from the computer, and one or the signals to the computer. Coax runs both directions through the same center conductor and shield. (And *good* coax has double or triple shielding, and handle somewhat longer distances. Note that one difference between the cables is how far you can go before you need a repeater. Longest with thicknet, next thinnet, and finally, 10BaseT (twisted pair).

IIRC, 10BaseT starts giving problems over 200 feet (or is that yards?) Anyway, I have seen it fail from one end of the building where I worked to the other, which is why the master hubs were relocated to a new phone closet in the middle of the building. The links between buildings, and between the servers and the closet hubs were done with fiber optics -- which happen to be a very good way to go to someplace which might have a different ground, and which might be hit by lighting, as only light goes through those cables, not electricity, no matter what the voltage. (This is what I have running out to /dev/barn01 from the cellar. The computer-room to cellar run is Thicknet. (10Base5).

The coax (10Base2) should be good for 10 MHz ethernet, but RG59 is *not* the right choice for that. Ethernet runs on 50 ohm coax (RG58), not the 75 ohms that you get with RG-59. (RG-59 *is* the right choice for cable TV, however.)

One solution might be to pick up a pair of hubs with a BNC for coax on one port, and several 10BaseT (twisted pair) connections. I'm using a mix of thicknet (with vampire taps) and 10BaseT, thanks to a hub at each location.

Used hubs can be found quite inexpensively at hamfests ($15-$20), and they usually have sixteen 10BaseT connections, one BNC (for thinnet), and one AUI connector (15-pin D series connector) to connect to an AUI hub, or a ThickNet transceiver -- possibly with a vampire tap.

They also typically have individual LEDs showing valid links, packets, and collisions at each port. (If you get lots of collisions, you probably need to create subnets.)

Smaller hubs are also available -- 8 port and 4 port, but they tend to not show up at hamfests, so you may be stuck buying them new.

Note that the 10 MB/S ethernet from thicknet, thinnet, and

10BaseT is probably faster than the connection you will get to the outsider world. But, for internal use, you can get faster versions, such as 100BaseT (100 MB/S twisted-pair ethernet), and now 1 GB/S ethernet, but I suspect that for each increase in speed, you either need to upgrade the cable, or have a shorter maximum length. To utilize those faster versions, you have to have the proper interface cards in your computers, and to have hubs capable of those speeds as well. Since most of my machines are old enough to not go beyond 10 MB/S, I don't bother with the faster (and more expensive) stuff. Note that a 100 MB/S ethernet will also talk to a 10 MB/S system. I haven't checked whether the 1 GB/S will also talk to its lessers, but I suspect that it will.

I hope that this helps. DoN.

I used a Dlink and it worked well. Sold it and put in a Netgear. Works the same. HAve also used G-Net (GVC) andPhoebe. Use with DSL and cable. Just make sure you have your ISP/provider supply an ETHERNET DSL Modem. Internal or USB do not work with routers. If you MUST have the internal, a software NAT (Network Adress Translation) router such as SyGate must be used. Not as good as a hardware router but does the same job - does not work on anything over Win98SE without a lot of hassle (on the host machine) but supports anything as clients. One machine (Host) MUST be running for others to connect. I've run 6 systems on Sygate in the past, and 25 on the G-Net router with DSL.

Good point. Verizon supplies a DSL modem with either an Ethernet or USB output, but suggests using the Ethernet out. I also learned the hard way that while the premolded Cat 5 cables aren't cheap, they are a lot more reliable than crimping connectors onto bulk wire.

-Carl

I also have problems with the higher analog channels being fuzzy. This summer the digital channels started to 'mosaic' and go blank whenever the weather was hot and sunny. The cable guy said the wires need to be replaced and there were too many splitters. He said they had not used RG59 for 15 years, actually he said they hadn't used 'beige wire' for that long. I assume he's dumbing down to talk to joe homeowner because obviously the color of the jacket isn't going to make any difference. Anyway the supposed solution is to homerun new RG-6/U wire. The cable company here (Shaw) will rewire your house for no charge but you end up with the wires stapled to your siding. They will also drop off a roll of wire for you to run the wires as you see fit. They come around hen you're done to crimp the ends on and make the connection to their drop from the pole.

Just today they left me a 1000' box of cable. Tomorrow I get to try and fish it through the walls. I'm lucky that there's a space beside a heating duct above the basement hallway which I can use to go the length of the house and then just cut a few small holes in the drywall to get into the joist spaces and then down into stud cavities. Another way is to use the attic and drop down into the walls from there. I ran some cat 5 wire that way, it's easy to push aside some of the insulation to find the top plate of the wall and drill a hole to get into the stud cavity of interior walls.

Mike

A company I HIGHLY recommend, that deals with surplus of all sorts, with huge mounds of switches and hubs is:

A great bunch to deal with. And Stuff can be had VERY cheaply. Particularly obsolete stuff as mentioned.

Gunner

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" -- Ben Franklin

Get a cable amplifier. It will make a huge difference if your reception is that bad. The cable company might install one for you for free. [free installation, not the amplifier, which usually run about $50]. Or ask an electrician.

100 yards or 300ft.

-- RellikJM RellikJM AT Yahoo DOT Com Don't forget about my "FREE" EPROM programming ! Advice is only worth what you paid for it!

maybe yards, the spec is either 600 or 900 and some odd feet, i don't recall which. but the number of taps derates this spec. in his case, probably not an issue. --Loren

I wonder if the existing coax has enough bandwith for the

811b or whatever wireless signal. Put the wireless card at one end, and a rubber ducky antenna at the other end.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

^^^^^^^^ this is because anything over Win98 has the NAT built into the operating system. you need to ethernet cards in the host to make this work though.

Matt