Technical Question

ShaneOC

Sometimes people don't listen

Even though I advised my friend to put CT100 cable throughout his new house he didn't listen. He said that he was going to network his house and it would be future proof. What he did was have two CAT5 cables to each room (terminated with RJ45 connectors) and all the cables go back to a hub in the utility room.

Now he is wondering if he can carry RF signals in order to view TV over the CAT5 network. I have no idea if this could be done but I would imagine not.

Anyone know if it is possible, and if so what would the quality be like?

watty

Group C/D UHF unlikey
Group A/B UHF poor
Band1, BandII and BandIII VHF possible
Satellite IF very hard, nearly impossible.

Details:

Yes, you can get special (different ) adaptors to run the following over CAT5 (mostly up to 100m):

(Stereo audio just needs a transformer to convert from coax/unblanced SCART/DIN/RCA to one twisted pair per channel)

1) Keyboard, mouse and HiRes VGA over one cable.

2) Baseband video over a pair in CAT 5, so RGB scart video would need 4 adaptors, 4 pairs = one CAT5, composite video one pair.

3) RF (RF balun like 300 Ohm ribbon to 75Ohm coax might work).

If he installed Sheilded CAT5 (hardly anyone does), then RF is less problematic. RF will probably work with a simple €6 ribbon cable / coax balun on one pair up to BANDIII. You'd need a more specialist adaptor for UHF RF (470MHz to 850MHz).

Forget about running Satellite IF (750MHz to 2200MHz !) over CAT 5 even if it is screened, the loss is too high. It will work over maybe 5m with a specialist Balun (ordinary ones like in (3) won't pass the DC power H/V switch, nor the 22KHz tone, they only do RF).

NEC has gear that works up to 500Mbit on phone lines (CAT3 basically, i.e. worse than CAT5), but this is not cheap and won't let you do RF video, just MPEG etc over IP

Companies for boxes that do mad stuff over CAT5
Blackbox (most countries), on www for mostly PC/Data
Canford in UK on www, for Audio/Video.

Niether are very cheap.

ShaneOC

He'll be rightly miffed

He should have listened when I told him. I have CT100 running from ever room in the house up to the attic. May never use all of it, but it is there.

watty

Never makes you popular saying "I told you so" even if it is fun for 30sec.

He could pull in a CT100 and CAT5 using one existing CAT5 as pull wire. If he starts on longest run he'll only waste one run of CAT5.

Shane, you REALLY don't want to see the cabling in my place.

4 x CT100 in pipe under back lawn also has 2 x ordinary RF, 1 x RG58 coax and 3 x CAT5 (Kitchen to Workshop, dishes on workshop roof)

Ran out of space/ wires, so garden wall has 1 x CAT5 + 1 x CT100. Also now LN400 coax (nearly like plumbing) along side it too, but going up outside of house to Chimney stack.

A gazillion CAT5 and Coax from kichen Shelf up through hot press on landing into attic for TV aerial, TV distribution to 3 bedrooms, 3 x CAT 5 for boys PC, 4 x CAT 5 for Server, Modem, WiFi base unit etc in attic, 3 x CAT main bedroom (PCs, Printer, Phone), 1 CAT 5 small bedroom.

Data / RF video hubs, Switches, one digibox, RF distribution amp all in shelf in the Kitchen where the Workshop cables and attic cables come to.

Cables through wall below the shelf for TV, S-VHS, Digibox and 2 x Analog Sat and 2 x network points in "living room".


I don't think it is at all future proof No optical cables laid.

Four Dishes with 8 LNBs on workshop roof with 144MHz 5/8 wave aerial and a 10 element 144 yagi.

House roof has a 21 element UHF yagi and 10ft colinear 144MHz aerial.

To be fitted:

1 x OMNI 12dB colinear as Public Wifi node
1 x "MMDS" style dish to link to office ADSL/Server at 22Mbits
1 x OMNI for 2.4GHz 11W ATV TX
1 x rotatable array for 1.3GHz ATV
Quad 21 element yaggi array for 430MHz to get Spur Hill Repeater

90cm dish for experimets on 2.4, 5.6 and 10Ghz (got 2, the other is for the other end )

Move 10 element Yagi to house roof after getting a rotator.



Anyone like to donate a 50ft mast?

robert muldoon

Originally posted by watty
Never makes you popular saying "I told you so" even if it is fun for 30sec.

He could pull in a CT100 and CAT5 using one existing CAT5 as pull wire. If he starts on longest run he'll only waste one run of CAT5.

Shane, you REALLY don't want to see the cabling in my place.

4 x CT100 in pipe under back lawn also has 2 x ordinary RF, 1 x RG58 coax and 3 x CAT5 (Kitchen to Workshop, dishes on workshop roof)

Ran out of space/ wires, so garden wall has 1 x CAT5 + 1 x CT100. Also now LN400 coax (nearly like plumbing) along side it too, but going up outside of house to Chimney stack.

A gazillion CAT5 and Coax from kichen Shelf up through hot press on landing into attic for TV aerial, TV distribution to 3 bedrooms, 3 x CAT 5 for boys PC, 4 x CAT 5 for Server, Modem, WiFi base unit etc in attic, 3 x CAT main bedroom (PCs, Printer, Phone), 1 CAT 5 small bedroom.

Data / RF video hubs, Switches, one digibox, RF distribution amp all in shelf in the Kitchen where the Workshop cables and attic cables come to.

Cables through wall below the shelf for TV, S-VHS, Digibox and 2 x Analog Sat and 2 x network points in "living room".


I don't think it is at all future proof No optical cables laid.

Four Dishes with 8 LNBs on workshop roof with 144MHz 5/8 wave aerial and a 10 element 144 yagi.

House roof has a 21 element UHF yagi and 10ft colinear 144MHz aerial.

To be fitted:

1 x OMNI 12dB colinear as Public Wifi node
1 x "MMDS" style dish to link to office ADSL/Server at 22Mbits
1 x OMNI for 2.4GHz 11W ATV TX
1 x rotatable array for 1.3GHz ATV
Quad 21 element yaggi array for 430MHz to get Spur Hill Repeater

90cm dish for experimets on 2.4, 5.6 and 10Ghz (got 2, the other is for the other end )

Move 10 element Yagi to house roof after getting a rotator.



Anyone like to donate a 50ft mast?

Watty, you must wired to Heaven!

carrolls

Yeah, It must be like the roof of Bush House in Watty's house.:D

watty

Originally posted by robert muldoon
Watty, you must wired to Heaven!

No, I deleted the Maharishi channel. Lots of BBC though. Except BBC Prime, I nearly got a Humax, viaccess and BBC Prime sub but got a PC satellite Card instead.