Help Networking Two Houses

[Ju1cyJ]

Where should I go to purchase cat5 cable, that is able to function outdoors safely, so I am not in danger of frying my equipment. I am listening, just trying to learn.

 

[ericboo]

Nighthawk69,

As the Linksys equipment I will be testing at home is not mine, I have the opportunity to look into what SMC offers. I already have an SMC router/print server which works well for me. My brother uses the Linksys at home with good results. I have known others who have tried wireless and failed, but in brick, stone or homes made with lath in the walls.

I would just need the Access Point for a link for my neighbor.

No matter what, I do not want to fry my computer equipment along with his, and I can always sell the equipment at a later date. Cheap enough insurance for me.

802.11a sounds like something we could all use.

 

[biologist]

The string regarding the difference in ground potential between two houses reminds of a neighbor that usta work under his car with just a bumper jack. He got away with it for years, through rain, sleet, and snow, until the one time it didnt work.

 

[ViperXX]

Why use garden hose when you can use 1/2 PVC water pipe? Thats what I used to incase the cable running from my house to the neighbors.

 

[DurocShark]

I don't understand the resistance I'm seeing to common sense.

If the grounding poles of the structures are far enough apart, then there can be a huge difference in the grounding abilities of the structures.

What a copper cable does is give another path to ground. From the structure with a higher grounding resistance to the one with the lower grounding resistance.

Of course, a kilovolt surge or lightning strike is just a bit more than your equipment can handle. Power strips, surge suppressors, etc can't handle it coming from the equipment side.

So where do those wonderful electrons go? To the nearest juicy body. You, if you're touching the equipment at the time. Especially headphones. LoL Direct path.

Save up for wireless or fiber. Is it *REALLY* worth the risk of using copper? (Of course, if it is... I've got some bare wire laying around you can use. No insulation! heehee)

 

[ScottMac]

Common sense will always be faught against tooth-and-nail by those that "know better."

Ask any driver with their license suspended for DUI.....they're never sorry till they're caught (or killed somebody). Then they're the sorriest sumbitches on the face of the planet.

Famous last words..."Gee, maybe they were right......." (usually followed by " I must have misunderstood")

Basically, I'm at the point where I'll tell 'em twice (maybe three times), then let Darwin take over.....

FWIW

Scott

 

[ArMs]

I guess I should reiterate and clarify a few things. When I said I knew what I was doing, I meant more in reagards to setting up the network and getting the wire there. When I said insulating it would take care of most of the problem, I had a "think" right before it. I wasn't sure, but I thought that would do it, I would really appreciate it if you guys would lay off. I am listening to you guys, and I beleive that it could get hit by lightning and destroy my equipment. I just said I had never heard of it happening. My mom and step-dad really do work for the local power company as an Electrical Engineer and Line Foreman respectively. I'm going to get their help with making this safe, but I don't have the money to go wireless or fiber. As for the PVC pipe, that was one of our first considerations, but I don't exactly have the straightest of paths to make to my friend's house. I have to run it from the front of my house, through my back yard, through the small woods between our houses, and then through his back yard and into his house.

 

[Tallgeese]

my favorite networking equation:

Copper + Between Buildings = Death Wish

 

[Garion]

OK, I'll bite. Keep in mind that I'm not a EE, I just play one at work. *grin*

How about if they put the Cat5 in a single, long hose through the ground without any copper connectors, then run a copper wire (very well grounded at each end) on top of it, connected to the upper side of the insulating material? That way, you'd get the best of both worlds - A good connection through a grounded medium and have a solid ground to carry any strikes away. Might be expensive, but doable. Duct take can work magic, you know!

That being said.. Each of you picking up a decent 802.11B and running them in bridge mode wouldn't really be all that expensive and would certainly be a lot easier and probably safer.

Last point. A lot of people measure the distance between two locations and decide it's within reach. What they don't factor in is that the cable run inside the premise ALWAYS seems to be longer than you think it is. Of course, I've seen Cat5 runs operating at 450 feet without much problem, AT 10BASET speeds - Push 'em to 100BaseT and, Houston, we've got a problem.

- G

 

[ScottMac]

The cost of the copper (for grounding) would be as much as the wireless stuff. Without looking it up, I suspect it would require at least a 6GA, maybe 4...times ~350ft...gonna be at least a couple hundred dollars.

Lightning is only one possible hazard. Differential ground potentials, loss of ground/neutral at one end, different potentials from diverse power taps are a couple others.

Putting a chunk of copper that long in the ground, and grounding it at both ends makes it a nearly perfect UHF/VHF collector (inbound HF common mode)...likely to screw-up the signal. Single point grounding creates a mini-beverage antenna, great for shortwave reception, more HF common-mode for the UTP.

With or without the very expensive antenna co-resident with your UTP, entrance protection is still a good idea (scan the archive for "Avaya"...the part numbers for external-rated UTP and associated entrance protection are in a post I did ~ a month ago.

External-rated UTP costs about the same as duplex MM fiber (per foot)...except it's sold in 1000ft spools.

Fiber or Wireless is still the best and ultimately cheapest way to go (aside from just doing a VPN through the Internet).

Good Luck, Happy Holidays

Scott

 

[ericboo]

Alright, the wireless setup would not work from my house to my neighbors. I could not even get a link going. My guess is the trees. Now, I don't want to leave a CAT5 cable blowing in the wind if I can help it, but I am down to few solutions.

One thought was to get fibre, but what does that cost for 100ft of cable and what hardware would I need to hook up to the NIC's.

Another thought was trying to dig out a couple of PNA adapters I have buried somewhere, but is that any safer out in the elements than CAT5, and will it even work over that distance. It is mostly for ICS, so file transfer or gaming is speed is not much of a concern.

Any input on this thought.

 

[mobly99]

I have a theory on why you have never heard of anyone's equiptment getting fried.....

If you were goofy enough to ignore the good advice of a group of people who know what they are talking about and who warned you not to install a big lighning rod between you and your buddy's equiptment, and then either you, your buddy or both of your equiptment got fried..... would you tell anyone?

 

[ArMs]

I would tell people like me who were interested in doing the same thing to prevent them from doing so. I just said I'd never heard of it before, now can everyone please lay off? I didn't do anything horrible here.

 

[spidey07]

<< I would tell people like me who were interested in doing the same thing to prevent them from doing so. I just said I'd never heard of it before, now can everyone please lay off? I didn't do anything horrible here. >>



Of course you didn't, you really did bring up a good question/point. But sometimes the networking guys here (me included) will steadfast enforce what we have already learned. Not from books, not from college, but by disobeying the specs and blindly thinking "well, i can just plug it in and it will work".

Sometimes networking seems almost too easy. Just plug it in and you'll talk. But hopefully by reading this thread folks will see that there is SO much more than just pluging that cable in.

Please let me slap the guy you work with that said a category5 cable looses most of it's signal after 25 feet. 100 Base-T works wonderfully from 1m to 100m. even 150m full-duplex (please scott don't smack me, i'd never EVER have a cable run over 90m) works fine if you have good cable.

 

[Tallgeese]

Hey now spidey...no need to apologize.
Remember, this forum is the most civil one on the entire Internet.
Jack said so!

And trust me, if anybody knows, it's Jack (you know he has a link to some FAQ somewhere proving it, too!)

 

[ttn1]

Actually cat5 does loose most of its signal in about 25ft. That is, if you wire it incorrectly. 100baseT connection dies in about 25 feet if you wire all the twisted pairs straight through without accounting for the crossed twisted pair in the center.

A very common mistake. And like everyone has said here, it comes from not following the specs.

 

[ArMs]

I was pretty sure 25ft. was too short as in our own store we carry 50ft. Cat 5 cables, I didn't really feel like arguing with Jon about what little sense it made to carry 50ft. cable if it only went 25ft. Also, 25ft. just seems too damn short, especially since it's used to network large buildings and such.