Use existing rg6 as 10base2 connection

[Jimmah]

Here is my problem - I have a PC in my guest bedroom I use as a baby monitor, it runs VLC streaming from a webcam in my kids room, we use this to watch him at night and during naps (11mo old). I have to use wireless N, the signal is very poor and I use a noodle strainer as a dish, this isn't a great solution as it only helps by around 20% and is really in the way. The wireless issues I'm having stem from too many walls/floors in the way and a heavily saturated 2.4ghz area. I cannot run any cabling up to the room as that would require extensive work/cutting of walls/etc.

The solution I can think of would be to use the existing rg6 (single drop to the splitter, it is disconnected as I don't have cable), an adapter and some 10base2 cards I have lying about. The bridging part would be relatively easy enough, just not sure if this would work. Right now anything would be better than the terrible connection I get to the player.

 

[ScottMac]

RG6 is a 75 Ohm cable, the coax used for Ethernet is 50 Ohm (actually 52, I think, it's been a while). It would probably work for a short run, but it's just not the best way to get 'er done. It's also highly unlikely that the coax topology is consistent with 10BASE2 layout; TV coax tends to be either home runs or a branching tree, 10BASE2 is a linear bus.

You would do better (though for more money) to use a pair of HPNA or MOCA bridges to convert from UTP-based Ethernet to a coax-carried signal and back. Using the MOCA or HPNA bridges/transceivers would also permit other drops from the same coax, even with splitters and taps (sometimes you need to replace the splitters with {MOCA or HPNA} compatible splitter.

 

[Jimmah]

RG6 is a 75 Ohm cable, the coax used for Ethernet is 50 Ohm (actually 52, I think, it's been a while). It would probably work for a short run, but it's just not the best way to get 'er done. It's also highly unlikely that the coax topology is consistent with 10BASE2 layout; TV coax tends to be either home runs or a branching tree, 10BASE2 is a linear bus.

You would do better (though for more money) to use a pair of HPNA or MOCA bridges to convert from UTP-based Ethernet to a coax-carried signal and back. Using the MOCA or HPNA bridges/transceivers would also permit other drops from the same coax, even with splitters and taps (sometimes you need to replace the splitters with {MOCA or HPNA} compatible splitter.

Is it 50ohm/ft or just terminated at 50ohm?

Also, the coax line is a straight cable with no taps, I think the previous owner ran it when they were remodeling.

I tried the homeplug dealy from Belkin, it kinda worked-ish but never would stay up long likely due to something in my house making line noise.

The MOCA bridge sounds interesting, just well out of my price range for now. If this endeavor looks to cost too much I might just stick with the wireless.

Thank you for your input and time

 

[ScottMac]

50 Ohm (or 52, 75, 92 ...) is the "characteristic impedance" and is not measurable with a regular ohm meter. An ohm meter measures the DC resistance; when you see "impedance" it means the resistance is occurring at some frequency or rapidly level-changing signal.

To use your coax, you'll need some sort of transceiver or bridge anyway. It's hard to believe that it would be much of a price difference for a MOCA or HPNA transceiver or bridge.

If you are looking at some kind of simple impedance matching gizmos and they're cheap, I'd say give it a shot, but don't expect much. UTP/Cat{anything} hs a characteristic impedance of 100 ohms; you'd be putting a high-loss device inline to bring the impedance to 50 ohms, that's actually interfacing to a cable with an impedance of 75 ohms, then back through another high-loss device, then back into UTP.


I've had good luck with the homeplug stuff, but results vary widely depending on the wire plant and unit locations.

 

[Eug]

Everyone who has tried MOCA seems to love it. I personally haven't tried it though.

What do you mean by "too expensive"? It's less than $200 CAD for two units.

The other option to try is powerline networking, but it depends on how much bandwidth you need. I'm assuming your webcam doesn't need that much bandwidth, and if so, powerline networking might work well, and usually better than wireless through lots of walls.

 

[drebo]

I used HPNA when I had uVerse (built in to the RG and the STBs) and it worked perfectly. Never, ever, had a problem with it.

Something like these: http://www.buy.com/prod/startech-com...217751911.html . Startech makes good, solid shit.

 

[smangular]

Yes bridging over Coax works, but what about HomePlug? i.e. Ethernet networking over your electrical wires. I've used it and its very often used by home AV installers to avoid running cables. If you have very old wiring like pre 1950 or are crossing different circuit breaker panels it may not work.

the way it works is you just plug a device into your wall outlet and it outputs an ethernet jack.

Many different manufactures make it from Linksys, Netgear, D-Link, Actiontec.

Here is just one example, that should solve your networking issue at ~$75.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-032-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-318-_-Product

(they also make 200MB versions if you want something faster)

 

[Jimmah]

snip

I tried a Belkin 85mb kit, really poor perf. and would drop randomly.

It looks lile every option is going to cost more money than I wish to spare, might just have to make a better dish for the wifi and hope for the best (maybe take the thing apart and solder in an antenna port). Might try the 10base2 thing anyway just for fun, from whateveryone is telling me the likelyhood of it working is near none, would be rather cool if it did connect though.

Thanks all

 

[Emulex]

moca is nice if you have good wiring and its not split nor used by anything. powerline would be awesome if it weren't for the power

you can get moca units at bestbuy at stupid prices and return them after you check them out. the only way i'd recommend it is if you use it as transport only. no cable/dish sharing the wire.

 

[RebateMonger]

About twelve years ago I considered using my house's cable TV wiring to get my network from one end of the house to the other. In those days, early consumer 10BASE-T routers all had a single 10BASE2 connector to interface the two networks. I hoped to use this 10BASE2 as a "backbone".

I never did try it, but guessed it might work. But about that time 100BASE-TX came out and I gave up on the idea of limiting my backbone to 10 Mbps.

I also experimented with a HPNA (phone-based) backbone, also limited to about 10 Mbps. HPNA worked well with a Panasonic hardware bridge (to get from HPNA to 100Base-TX), but was unreliable using a Windows XP box as a bridge.

I ended up throwing a CAT5 cable across the roof of the house. Probably dangerous, but the interior-rated cabling seems to last at least 7 years in the bright Arizona sun.

 

[Emulex]

1mm flatwire works great for me. out the window and back in 1 floor up. cheap stuff too. survived several winters and still pushes full gig.

 

[Jimmah]

About twelve years ago I considered using my house's cable TV wiring to get my network from one end of the house to the other. In those days, early consumer 10BASE-T routers all had a single 10BASE2 connector to interface the two networks. I hoped to use this 10BASE2 as a "backbone".

I never did try it, but guessed it might work. But about that time 100BASE-TX came out and I gave up on the idea of limiting my backbone to 10 Mbps.

I also experimented with a HPNA (phone-based) backbone, also limited to about 10 Mbps. HPNA worked well with a Panasonic hardware bridge (to get from HPNA to 100Base-TX), but was unreliable using a Windows XP box as a bridge.

I ended up throwing a CAT5 cable across the roof of the house. Probably dangerous, but the interior-rated cabling seems to last at least 7 years in the bright Arizona sun.

Ahh I am envious, our condo corp owns the outside of the house, we own everything to the drywall/studs so there is very little I can do and it all has to be indoors.

I'm thinking this is going to be a PITA, either I get to create a new antenna/dish, purchase HPNA/MOCA gear, or end up using the existing rg6 to pull a cat5 line to the bedroom and somehow getting another rg6 cable back into that room.

Anyone want to trade a dlink wireless N usb stick for something with an antenna port?

 

[Eug]

I have also used 10 Mbps HPNA and it worked well.

 

[d33pt]

if you already have the rg6 cable, why not use that as a pull line to get your cat5 through the walls?

 

[ScottMac]

HPNA3 (coax) runs up to 125mbps, maybe more by now ...