Hi Folks,
I had always laboured under the belief that when you
implement a network using coaxial ethernet cable, you
basically had to have a single linear cable with pick-off
at T-pieces along its length, and that branching coax
structures were not on.
In particular, if you needed, say, to connect a laptop
[C] to an ethernet between machines [A] and [B], and it
wasn't feasible to extend the cable beyond [A] or [B]
to reach [C] but the middle of the cable itself passed
not too far from [C], then I thought that the only solution
was to bring the cable in a long loop to [C] and connect
to a T-piece in the middle of the cable. I.e.
[A]--------- -------------[B]
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
\ /
T
|
[C]
However, thinking about it a bit and then trying it out,
I discover that you can in fact set up a branching coax
network. The trick is to use spare T-pieces to implement
the branching. Like this:
[A]----------T-------------[B]
=I [T-piece at 90 degrees]
|
|
[C]-----=I [T-piece on branch cable]
|
|
[more machines on branch if you like]
|
=I [terminated T-piece to close branch]
The trick is the first T-piece at 90 degrees, whose lateral
("male") insert is plugged into the "female" socket of the
T-piece doing its usual job on the main cable. The ("female")
end of the "branch" cable is then put onto the other "male"
insert of the first T-piece at 90 degrees. This piece of
trickery ensures valid connection (and indeed functions just
like the normal connection at the ethernet card).
And you will of course need a terminated T-piece at the far
end of the "branch" cable in the usual way.
No doubt this could be extended to a whole tree of coax,
though shortage of spare T-pieces (and spare machines to
hook onto them to test it) prevents me from testing it.
Apologies if it's not new to you, but since I hadn't heard of
it being done before I thought I'd share the idea.
Best wishes to all,
Ted.
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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk>
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Date: 26-Sep-04 Time: 16:25:41
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