Another Computer Question

[jdbower]

OK, I know what the Cat5 is for. What is the RG8 for?

My guess is satellite/cable signals. I'm still working through my RG6 spools, I didn't know they had RG8 since most are RG58/RG59/RG6. I've been toying with the idea of a centralized video system, but that gets more complicated since I'd have to run HDMI cables and hope there isn't a better standard anytime soon... I'd also love to run fiber for GbE/10GbE in the future, but all the "fiber" solutions for audio/video are less fiber and more thin tubes of plastic. Running real fiber is also not an easy task for most, but not many of you have access to a fusion splicer like I do If I have to pull more cable, I may splurge and get this stuff.

I'm not overly concerned about security so I'll probably be installing WiFi to cover most of my property (properly secured, of course, but it's not like I'm guarding national secrets on my PC), but if you're interested there is wallpaper and paint solutions that can help. The good variants are tuned Faraday cages that block WiFi signals but not mobile phone signals - pretty cool!

 

[MossRoad]

OK, I know what the Cat5 is for. What is the RG8 for?

Yikes! I meant RG6. I think RG8 was back from my CB days.
Anyhow, two coax cables for video distribution and/or satellite. If you run two coaxes you have an inny and an outy at any location. With the use of channel modulators you can watch or broadcast from any location in your house to any location in your house.

For instance, I can watch my sat, DVD, VCR or security cameras on any TV in the house or garage by selecting channel 3 or 4 using the internal modulators that come with the units. If I would spend a little money, I could by a four or more channel modulator and run more things simultaneously. But we usually watch TV as a family so no need. And if a big game is on, I can tune it in somewhere and feed it out to all TVs. Pretty nice.

I also mounted my sat dish on an unattached garage and a TV antenna, too. By using a diplexer I was able to combine the TV signal onto one of the sat cables and feed it all to the house in underground conduit to my video distribution center in the basement. I just made it myself with diplexers and splitters and combiners. By locating it centrally in the basement, all of the coax runs are about the same length so the signal is about the same strength in any room. I was fortunate that I didn't need to amplify the signal, but if I had to, by making all the coax runs the same length, I could get away with one amp.

 

[MossRoad]

Erk! I'm going to have to step up to HD soon.

 

[WVBill]

Question about networking to an out-building.

I just built a sewing studio building for my wife. It's 40 feet away from the house. It has electric power from a sub-panel through a buried conduit. Trench is still open and I'm about to put a second conduit in for a phone line.
Can I run CAT 5 or CAT 6 cable through the same conduit I use for the phone line? Would I use the same cable through the conduit as I use through the walls/suspended ceiling inside the house?

I have a Linksys wireless router that I use for internet access (via my HughesNet) for my work laptop when I take it home. It's in my basement office and it gets OK signal strength throughout the house but I'm not sure it will "make it" out to the sewing studio (maybe I should check - DUH).

WVBill

 

[MossRoad]

Question about networking to an out-building.

I just built a sewing studio building for my wife. It's 40 feet away from the house. It has electric power from a sub-panel through a buried conduit. Trench is still open and I'm about to put a second conduit in for a phone line.
Can I run CAT 5 or CAT 6 cable through the same conduit I use for the phone line? Would I use the same cable through the conduit as I use through the walls/suspended ceiling inside the house?

I have a Linksys wireless router that I use for internet access (via my HughesNet) for my work laptop when I take it home. It's in my basement office and it gets OK signal strength throughout the house but I'm not sure it will "make it" out to the sewing studio (maybe I should check - DUH).

WVBill

Yes, the CAT5 and phone cable are completely happy in the same conduit. Back in the old days when we were cheap, we would run one CAT5 cable to a desktop and split out the ends. CAT5 only requires two of the pairs. There are 4 pairs in a CAT5 cable, so we would use the other two pairs for a two line phone.

Now, when we wire a new location, our standard practice is to run two CAT5s and one 4 pair phone cable.

 

[SnowRidge]

Yikes! I meant RG6. I think RG8 was back from my CB days.

Yep, RG-8 is 50-52 ohms. That impedance is generally not used in video/TV applications, so I was confused.

 

[SnowRidge]

Question about networking to an out-building.

I just built a sewing studio building for my wife. It's 40 feet away from the house. It has electric power from a sub-panel through a buried conduit. Trench is still open and I'm about to put a second conduit in for a phone line.

Never ever put anything else in a power trench. It is extremely dangerous to do so. Lightning strikes on the power lines will get coupled across to the phone/data lines and will wreak havoc on connected equipment and pose a direct hazard to human beings.

The phone lines at our place here were eating data equipment, even with high quality surge protectors, which were destroyed so often that I was buying them in industrial quantities. I even resorted to buying the raw components and building my own surge protectors.

I finally traced the problem to an unused extension that had been run from the telco side of the demarc to a shop building. They had thrown the cable into a power trench along with a high voltage power line. It cost us a lot of equipment and protectors before we got it straightened out by demanding that Bell South disconnect the line, which they did.

I still don't know who ran the extension, or whether or not Bell South was complicit in it, but it could have gotten somebody killed.

 

[WVBill]

Never ever put anything else in a power trench. It is extremely dangerous to do so.

Eeek! I didn't know that.

How far apart should the power trench and the telco/data trench be to be safe?


WVBill

 

[Soundguy]

Another option is protocol incompatibility. My laptop will handle 'B' or 'G'... My old wireless access point only handled 'B'.. my new router only handles 'G' or 'N'

When we got DSL, I had to take down my old 'B' network, and essentially dump the WAP, and 2 B usb cards cards were linksys and had easy to configure software.. WAP was netgear and was brutal to setup.

New gear ( router and 1 usb adapter ) is 2wire provided by embarq.. ran right out of the box. My laptop picked it up immediatly, and y wifes laptop with belkin usb adapter grabbed it immediatly as well.. just had to add the WEP to all non-2wire devices involved.

Soundguy

Moss, he said it works if he takes his laptop's Netgear usb wireless adapter and tries it on the Win2000 machine, but not with the generic usb adapter he bought for it.

Also, it's not clear to me that AVG is really updating. That particular anti-virus tries to update as soon as you boot, and it puts a message up saying so, but is it really getting the update? I don't know and can't tell for sure from the posts so far, but he says that if he manually tells it to update, it says there is no Internet connection.

Nowhere do I see any indication that any wireless configuration has been done.

 

[SnowRidge]

Eeek! I didn't know that.

How far apart should the power trench and the telco/data trench be to be safe?


WVBill

OK, just to be clear. Not putting the stuff in the same trench is my opinion based on what I have experienced. I know others who feel the same way, and just as strongly.

However, if you go by the various authorities, you will see everything from no separation whatsoever up to 12 inches apart, but in the same trench. Often, the electric service and the phone lines must be separate conduits. In some cases, they can be in the same trench, but must be separated by so many inches of concrete.

Oddly, it is common to find that gas, water, and sewer must all be in a separate trench three to five feet away. You would think they would require similar separation for the phone lines, but they don't.

My suggestion, a separate trench at least two to three feet away. That will minimize lightning induced coupling between the power line and the telephone/data lines.