Re: Electrical Question

[wllmundrwd@netscape.net (William Underwood)]

-----Original Message-----
>From: J. Ray Young` [mailto:ray@ussonet.net]
>
>
>I have an electrical question for the group.  My daughter and son in law 
>are missionaries in Tanzania.  They are installing a satellite based 
>internet system.  They want to connect it to the houses of 2 other 
>missionary families with a LAN on cat5e wire.  The runs will be under 200 
>feet.
>
>The house with the satellite equipment is not on the same power 
>transformer from the utility company as the other two.
>
>They have measured between 7 and 8 volts between ground and neutral in all
>three houses.
>
>Does anyone see any problems with this setup?????   If so what are the
>solutions other than wireless networking.  They have already bought the
>hardware.

Well, you know, I had considered doing all that also... I've got about 
3000' of cable in 50-200' lengths (anybody want some cable? it cat5e!),
and I did have some of that rolled up cable burial pipe, but I got rid of 
it.  I was going to network my house with the nearest three neighbors on 
either side, but I decided against it, and instead went wireless.  Why? 

Well, I got some cheap Proxim wireless (HRF/HomeRF) cards off of eBay, 
which made it a whole lot easier than digging 400' of trenches, pulling 
cable through pipe, laying pipe into the trenches, and then covering up the 
pipe, reseeding the grass over the trenches, and all of that other crap, 
you know?  

But, I've got a point here, not just a story to bore you with.  If you're 
gonna bury the cable, you need to do the same thing I was going to do: 
Embed the cable in some kind of protective pipe.  Why?

All the stories I've heard (check google, HAM operators constantly bury 
cable, plus there are other wired neighborhood networks out there) indicate 
that moles just LOVE gnawing on cables...  Mayhap, Tanzanian moles don't 
like it, but I couldn't say.  

Now, they don't necessarily need to find some of that rolled cable burial 
pipe, or even 400' of PVC.  From what I've read, as long as the cable is 
externally sound, you can just use some of that corrugated black pipe that 
is made for getting rainwater from your downspout out to the street.

But, back to the money issue: I got all my cable for free, but had to pay 
$50 bucks for the pipe, trencher rental was $80/day, and I think I would 
have put in about 20 hours of work to get it all buried.  On top of that, I 
didn't have NICs, so you got to figure $5/cheap-$45/3com cards, times 6, 
and a cheap hub would be about $40.  So, I would've been looking at $50 + 
$80 + $30 + $40 + (uhmm.. well, I usually charge $40/hr for sidework, but 
$60 if it's network related, so we'll go with $50....) ($50*20) $1000, so 
$1200 for a wired neighborhood network.  Instead, I got a wireless gateway 
for $35, two wireless ISA nics for $10/each, and a wireless PCCard for 
$15.00 (thats for me!).  Counting shipping, I've paid less than $100 for a 
three house wireless network, and anticipate paying less than $500 once 
it's all completed, even with the fact that I can now include neighbors 
from across the street.  All that, with no digging! 

So, in my opinion, if they can afford a bit of a hit on their investment, I  
say resell the equipment they already have, and buy wireless. 

Hmmm.. If they decide to do that, and don't go with 802.11b (probably 
better, but more expensive right now...), the HomeRF stuff from Compaq, 
Intel, Motorola, and Proxim are all completely interoperable.

>
>Thanks
>J. Ray Young

Yes, definitely just my 2˘,
William

-- 
William Underwood
wllmundrwd@netscape.net



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