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OT: Upgrade my network

Most, if not all, cable TV and satellite wiring is RG-6 these days, the frequencies involved now are much higher and the old stuff has too much loss. Coax gradually degrades over the years anyway, gets lossier, it's probably time to pull some new stuff. If you've got a crawl space or an attic, it's not that hard to rewire things, electricians do it all the time without tearing out whole walls. A fishtape and a long auger bit go a long ways in that business.

On the O.P.s problem, I don't recall ever running RG-59 for 10B2, we had some skinny teflon stuff that we used. I don't think there's a

10B2 network card made anymore, haven't seen one for a long time, new. The newer network stuff uses CAT5 twisted pair cable, this is available in a variety of grades, some only good enough for baling wire. If you can install phone wire, you can install this stuff. If it's going to an outbuilding and you can't pull the old stuff out of the conduit to get the new stuff in, there's wireless networking available, has some security holes that need to be plugged, but available. If you use CAT5, get some decent ends and a good crimper, oddly enough, the best crimper I have for the plugs is also the cheapest, the most expensive one leaves open connections. CAT5 also needs a hub, switch or router to connect individual PCs to. With only two machines or devices, you can make up a cross-over cable, more than that and you need a hub and a place to put it, at least. They're cheap.

Stan

Reply to
Stan Schaefer
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It is slightly surprising that your old network worked with RG59. That's

75 ohm cable, and 10base2 thin net ethernet requires RG58 50 ohm cable. So you have a 1.5:1 mismatch already. That can cause data errors. RG59 is video cable. The newer 10/100baseT networks require CAT5 twisted pair cables.

I just replaced all the old 10base2 cables here with 100baseT cabling. I used the old coaxes as pull ropes to pull in the CAT5 cables. It wasn't that bad a job. Do note that you have to have a hub or router with

100baseT wiring. You can't just daisy chain it the way you could with 10base2 coax. I installed a Netsys router/firewall. That acts as the hub and also routes between the house lan and the internet. Works slick.

Gary

Reply to
Gary R Coffman

RG59 is video cable, ie up to 6 MHz. It can be used for VHF TV signals, but is too lossy for runs of more than a few feet at UHF. RG6U is what you want. Use the old cables as pull ropes to install the newer stuff.

Gary

Reply to
Gary R Coffman

No, RG-59 is 75 Ohms. RG-58 is what is used for thin-wire 10-base2, it is 50 Ohms, and you use 50 Ohm terminators at the ends.

I won't use wi-fi or any wireless system due to security concerns.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

Can still get brand new 10bT/10B2 combo cards - both PCI and ISA.

Reply to
clare

And you can buy a 10 foot pre-molded cable for less than the cost of 2 ends. Sometimes even a 25 footer.

Reply to
clare

Yes, but Sygate still works on Win98SE, and works better than the Microsoft supplied solution. Does NOT work on XP. XP NAT is OK, but a router is still a much better solution.

Reply to
clare

Both RG6 and RG59 are both good attenuators at wireless frequencies. The last spec sheets I saw indicated the loss was the same for both types of coax which I found a bit surprising. BTW odd

Reply to
keith bowers

i finally looked up this spec, it's 185 meters, which is why no one can remember it. "often rounded up to 200...for brevity". --Loren

Reply to
lcoe

Might want to look again. 10BaseT is 100 meters (10Base2 is 185 meters, though).

R, Tom Q.

Reply to
Tom Quackenbush

yes, i misunderstood, i thought we were talking about coax, --Loren `

Reply to
lcoe

yes, i understand, dunno why this thread got switched to thinnet, the guy has 10b2 installed(!). --Loren

Reply to
lcoe

I didn't look it up, but I believe that the specs for 10BaseWhatever do not specify maximum cable lengths, rather they specify maximum attenuation (at a specific frequency), cross-talk, and a bunch of other electrical parameters. In practice this has been worked out (based on typical cable spec's perhaps ??) to 500m for 10Base5 (original thicknet, bending radius of about a mile) , 185m for 10Base2 (thinnet), and 100m for 10BaseT. I believe that 10BaseT can work over longer lengths of Cat5 than Cat3, although both are acceptable in the specs. Both are commonly though of as having a maximum length of

100m. I recall that many years back Gandalf (a now defunct networking company out of Ottawa, Ont., Canada) advertised some of their products as having 10BaseT interfaces that could work 'up to 125m', which is simply a more optimistic estimate of how far 10BaseT works on reasonable cable. I have no idea how far 10BaseT will go on Cat6, but I've seen an article by AMP claiming that you can get 10BaseT to run 200m over Type 1 cabling (a 150 ohm Shielded Twisted Pair cabling system for IBM Token Ring) using impedance matching transformers (I've got a 175m run working today in our network).

Anyway, the length 'specs' are not specs at all, rather they are practical interpretations of fairly complex specs only an EE would understand.

Regards to all,

Dave

Reply to
Dave Keith

it just dawned on me that the 5 and 2 in the origianl spec are for 500 and

200 meters segment length. duh.... i use to know that. the "T"? thinnet, came later and segment didn't really apply. --Loren
Reply to
lcoe

yes i know the thick cable vs 10b2, but in my shop the twp was called thinnet. it took me years to remember that and you say, "wrong". christ, now i gotta dig out another reference...mumble.... Regards, --Loren

Reply to
lcoe

necessary? Does the newer cable give higher network connection rates?

Go wireless and never look back.

Pete just did this within the past couple of weeks. Total cost $100 from Amazon.com.

Reply to
PLAlbrecht

You're right.

IEEE offers free downloads of the 802.3 specs here:

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Some general Ethernet info:
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R, Tom Q.

Reply to
Tom Quackenbush

Just installed a wireless net this afternoon. DI614 router is $100 canadian. Phoebe Micro wireless card for laptop are about $50. Connected to DSL modem, one wired desktop and 2 wireless laptops. $200 Canadian (that's about fifty cents US) ;}

Reply to
clare

Karl Townsend scribed in :

what, CAT5? yes, 100Megabits per second, full duplex any other coax? didn't know anyone bothered anymore....

but I'd say, what about radio? 802.11 is reasonably cost effective now, each PC gets a PCI network card and they'll talk to each other. if the radio won't work across the long gaps between buildings, you can use high gain antennas to do end to end connections. if you still want wire inside the buildings, CAT5 with a small switching hub, with one wire to a 802.11 link to the house etc... quite doable up to 10 miles or more....

like this

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what's my involvement? a very interested party..... at home I have

2 computers that were using coax till it failed and within a few days will be running CAT5 100baseT (cross over cable) sometime in the next few months I will buy a switch, prob 5 port. sometime after that I will get a 802.11 unit and build a yagi antenna, and see what I can pick up around town (just for experiment sake)

this will also feed the workshop, some 9 meters away from the house. this might take a year or more to accomplish. so what... (-:

at the end of it I'll have a puta in the workshop driving various CNC things, connected wirelessly to the house so I can transfer CAD files etc, the pc's in the house talking to each other so the email server/firewall can manage the kids/wifes email without running up the phone bill. in time more PC's will arrive, and they'll prob get connected via CAT5 to the hub since running it in the ceiling is easy and cheap. BUT, 802.11 PCI cards are dropping in price, so it may be cheaper to go with radio links.

swarf, steam and wind

-- David Forsyth -:- the email address is real /"\

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\ / ASCII Ribbon campaign against HTML E-Mail > - - - - - - -> X If you receive email saying "Send this to everyone you know," / \ PLEASE pretend you don't know me.

Reply to
DejaVU

The desirability of wireless depends on where you live and the construction materials. Metal buildings, appliances, etc can block the signals. From what I read the security on the current version isn't very good; passwords transmitted in the clear. If you're in the middle of nowhere and trust your neighbors, all of whom are 1000' or more away, it's not bad. Yes I'm paranoid. but it doesn't mean someone won't be out to get me . I read something recently about a new version of the security spec. that works. The question is if current stuff can be upgraded via a download or new hareware required.

Reply to
keith bowers

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