cat5 to coax and back again? help me please!

[heartsurgeon]

i have a cabling problem at home.

currently have a cat5 ethernet LAN at home.
want to add another computer (wifey's) - however her machine is going to be in a room that cat5 cannot be pulled to (long story)

looking at adding a wireless access point to get her on the network..however there is a unused direct coaxial tv line going to that room, which is accessible in the basement (where the switch/router is located).

nothing is on that coax line, and it goes directly and only to that room.

does anyone know of a way to hook/convert cat5 ethernet to go over the coax cable, then hook/convert it back to cat5 ethernet on the other end? heck, the cable modem feeds into the house over a coax line..there has to be a way

any help appreciated (obviously looking for low cost options)

 

[chiwawa626]

The reason cable internet runs over coax cable is beacause there is a modulator to put it in that form and a cable modem to "demodulate" it back....doing this for a home setup is pretty much impossible....but there are those phone line networking kits and ive heard of networking thru the electricity wires in ur house....anyways keep lookin around.

 

[ScottMac]

It's doable, but really ugly...and it violates a bunch of "rules" (as in, a pretty bad impedence mismatch).

Basically, you're gonna need either a hub with a 10BASE2 (thin coax) BNC connector (in addition to the 10BASE-T - that's right, 10 meg only) or a 10BASE2-to-10BASE-T transceiver (essentially a one-in-one-out hub / repeater).

You'll need one at each end, OR, your wife's system will need a NIC with a coax connector.

You'll need to find a BNC connector for the (hopefully) RG59 coax (Rat Shack might have 'em, otherwise a decent electronics place might have 'em). The coax will need a "T" connector and terminator at each end. The terminators should be 75 ohm, and one end should be grounded to the house electrical ground (NOT a water pipe, unless it's side-by-side with the ground from the panel).

One side of the "T" gets a terminater, the other side should be connected to the coax, and the "T" should be directly attached to the NIC, hub, or transceiver.

If the coax is longer than ~30 feet or so, you have less than 50% chance of it working reliably. Make sure there are no CATV splitters or amps in that run.

This may work, but it's a BAD way of doing it. It should be your LAST possible option. Wireless would probably work better. The phone-based Ethernet would probably work better.

I don't recommend this way but sometimes you have to go the ugly route. Be VERY careful to see that the grounding is properly done....or you could either smoke a system, or possibly give someone a shock. If you have a meter, check for potential (voltage)between the local ground and the shield of the coax; if you get any non-zero value to the left of the decimal, re-check your grounds.

Good Luck

Scott

 

[chiwawa626]

Well id say the best option would be thru the fone lines. A 10mb or 100mb network only requires 2 pairs, now im assuming your house is wired up with Cat3, which is good for upto 10megabits, knowing that ur dsl or cable isnt faster then 2 or so it should do fine. Cat3 has 4 pairs, a fone line uses 1 pair (2wires) so u can just use the extra pairs and still have a working fone line. Or just go wireless, it simplifies stuff but it will cost ya .... But...why cant u pull/fish the wire into there, could u explain, (i just pulled wire in about 50 rooms for a hotel...so just curious).

 

[heartsurgeon]

<< just use the extra pairs >>



your the man!
thanks!

by the way - which two wires of the cat5 are the "twisted" pair " that i need to hook up to?

as to why i don't think pulling new cable is possible, the router/switch is located in the basement (finished ceiling), wifey's office is on the second floor in a tower attached to the corner of the house.

there is a chase that leads from the basement to the main attic, but the connection between the main attic, and the tower's attic is miniscule, and the roof does not have a large pitch (think frank lloyd wright style roof). i was present during construction and i have pulled wires - i guess anything is possible, but i've got serious doubts about this one.

but hey!, the house is wired for multiple phone lines, with each indiividual line accessible in the basement next to the switch/router, so we may be in business!

 

[ScottMac]

"Phone wire" is unrated...meaning it's not even Cat 3. You almost certainly have "DIW" type cable for your phones. It's crap for data.
Just look at the jacketing of the cable: if it says "Rated Category 3" ..then it's rated. If there's no label that says "Category X," (and there won't be), then it's just the usual crap phone wire that 99.99999% of the installers put in.

Using the same cable for analog phone and regular data (the phone-net stuff is different) is not recommended, even for the highest quality highest Category-rated cable.

Much of the phone system infrastructure is above ground and subject to environmental noise, not the least of which is lightning.

Bad idea. Go wireless or with the PhoneNet stuff.

JM.02

Scott

 

[chiwawa626]

<< "Phone wire" is unrated...meaning it's not even Cat 3. You almost certainly have "DIW" type cable for your phones. It's crap for data.
Just look at the jacketing of the cable: if it says "Rated Category 3" ..then it's rated. If there's no label that says "Category X," (and there won't be), then it's just the usual crap phone wire that 99.99999% of the installers put in.

Using the same cable for analog phone and regular data (the phone-net stuff is different) is not recommended, even for the highest quality highest Category-rated cable.

Much of the phone system infrastructure is above ground and subject to environmental noise, not the least of which is lightning.

Bad idea. Go wireless or with the PhoneNet stuff.

JM.02

Scott >>




True, but usualy that phone wire will be good enough, its not like weir trying to run a gigaplex or something?...anyways, it wouldnt hurt to try, if it dosent work well just return the stuff (jacks) to homedepot. Well in category 5 wire for 10mb/100mb networks, only wires 1,2,3,6 are used for data the rest are empty, so if ur goin by standards im thinking thats prolly orangwhite, orange, whitegreen, green
(just search on google for cat5 wiring pairs or something)...it should work ok, ive done it before..... Worse comes to worse u spent 4 bux on a jack and plate at homedepot and it dosent work out, if thats the case just return the stuff...

 

[ScottMac]

I dunno. You're making some pretty broad assumptions about the phone wire.

If it's an older place, there might be some cloth coated three-wire in the wall (like in my Chicago apartment). There's some pretty crappy stuff that COULD be in there..there's stuff I've seen for phone wire that makes Silver Satin (horribly out-of-spec) look good.

You'd really go through the effort to return a USED plate/jack, which cost a couple bucks, purchased because you didn't know what you were doing? Have you ever complained about the cost of goods going up "for no good reason?"

Using split Category-rated UTP for multipurpose (especially high-speed data) is a bad thing. Using split PHONE WIRE for non-telephony multipurpose (especially high-speed data) is just plain stupid, and a person doing it deserves the headaches and frustration it's likely to bring.

It's not a religious issue with me, I'm just trying to point the person in the right direction. It's their house, it's their network, they can do what they want... but whan stuff doesn't work, you know they'll be back asking why.

It's a bad idea. A really bad idea. In light of other easily obtainable solutions, it shouldn't even be considered.

FWIW

Scott

 

[chiwawa626]

Well i just think that before u spend a couple hundred on wireless gear, try this and if it works great, if not, 4 bux gone down the drain.... best thing to do is just try it i mean it really could save u some $.

 

[heartsurgeon]

stay tuned - i'm going to do a little experimenting.
my home is 5 years old.
the distance between the router and the upstairs tower office is 200 feet minimum (straight line-the house is big)
i'm a little nervous about wireless being able to reliably connect over that indoor distance
i had the phones wired so each phone jack has its own set of wires leading to a patch panel in the utility room. happens to be next coax in from the street, and next to all the cat5 wires going to the rest of the house.

i'm going to try the phone wire idea just for the heck of it.
i'm going to get the electrician to get me a estimate for pulling a cable (if they can)
i've priced out the wireless solution ($224, if it works)

i'll post the outcome in about a week.

thanks everyone for your insights.
the experiment begins!

 

[ebaycj]

dude, here's an idea to make your wireless work.
no need to have the access point right next to your router.. just run cat5 into a closet or pantry on the first floor in the middle of the house, and set the access point up there. you should be able to access it from just about anywhere when its near the center of the first floor (preferably 6-7 feet high, but not too close to the ceiling.)


and did you think of this? find the basement end of the coax cable that runs to the office, then tie a couple spools of cat5 to it, pull it through from the top and everything will be cool, and you will have working 100baseT. we did this for two runs from our basement to our attic (college house, people live up there, dont ask )..

another idea we used was to run cable through the air ducts all the way up from the basement (poke little holes in the duct, run cable through holes, patch holes with duct tape, hence the name: duct tape), and then when you are as close as possible to the wall, poke a hole in the air duct, run the cable out through the hole in the air duct, and up into a jack in the wall (basically you don't see the cable at all, and it appears to be just a jack in the wall). works great, looks good too (unless you often look inside your air ducts), but is probably not the BEST way.. <EDIT> actually this process is best done from the top down, with gravity on your side. but it works just the same. </EDIT>

anyway. if it were me, and i were a heart surgeon with big $$, i would probably get an electrician to run at least four runs of cat5 up to that room, and maybe to other places in the house as well.

ebaycj