networking assurances

[labrat]

ok can anyone see likely avenues ive missed

 

we are busy swapping the front room and back room over, so sky, tv, nas, xbox etc all moving backwards

 

the satellite connection is staying in the living room and the router is also staying there to keep line to master socket short

the nas with all the films on is also staying there

 

the satelite input is going on an extension cable through the walls and around the ceiling until it drops down into place

 

however its the networking thats giving me gyp

 

the first idea was to run networking cable from the sky router, through the walls to an 8 port switch (non wireless) then splitting off to various devices, this is still the end goal but isnt getting delivered for another while yet

 

so ive got an old router and im going to install dd-wrt on it and use it as a wireless bridge, once the other stuff comes it will be used as a wireless hotspot on the back as wifi signal is slightly poor there

 

then theres also networking cable going to most of the other rooms of the house to take advantage of the film, tv etc server (3Tb)

 

however i keep thinking ive missed something important and im not sure what, any ideas??

[dpick]

Hi don't know if this helps I have had sky and now virgin media with both the set-top box in front room and another set-top box in back bedroom (cable run of 50 feet)and anything using broadband using Powerline adapters running through the mains sockets I have 3 different computers all using Ethernet through Powerline adapters no problems with slow speeds etc.

 

dpick

[labrat]

yep looked at power line but doing it low cost (50m cable cost £1.84)

 

just been going over it again and theres a dsl connection in the back of the sky box i hadnt noticed just trying to find out from sky if thats essential or not

[adridude]

labrat: no that's not essential.. All that 'ethernet' connection is for is the new sky anytime plus and on demand features. The only thing which IS required is the phoneline remains connected.

 

In regards to the network setup.. I'd personally re-cable the house to have RJ45 outlets stationed at strategic points in the house (.e. the front and back rooms in your case), so you can simplly patch it from one room to the other with near to zero loss.

 

WDS and Powerlines are horridly lossy. Also powerlines are bad for popping ethernet ports on things People forget that in the 'older days' when power supplies weren't as protected as they were, you unplugged everything in lightning storms due to overhead cables. Well overhead cables are still about, but now instead of plugging the newly protected PSU's into the main, we now plug in unprotected ethernet ports into the mains The only thing usually protecting them is a cheap MNC transformer in the device, which usually aren't sufficient in a ESD situations

[labrat]

ta, was wondering about putting sockets in each room

 

just took stock of the networking stuff and it turns out ive got about 3 spare sockets in the front of the house

and somewhere between 5 and 10 sockets in the back of the house

 

going to be making a cuboard in the old chimney brest to run as a mini server room soon

[adridude]

Just make sure father Christmas doesn't flatten your server cabinet

[labrat]

does anyone know if a sky satelite dish can also receave freesat?

 

got lots of spare cable so may run sat dish to booster box then split out between the rooms and try to run freesat in all the bedrooms

[adridude]

Sky has 'freesay' as to put it built in.No the Euro channels like DW etc... but Freeview channels will work.

 

If you pull your card out you'll see when you fire it up

 

In regards to the freesat channels, the ACTUAL ones no... Not as far as I know, you'll need a tracker dish (i.e. one which moves) and a programmable receiver where you can get the H and V of it as well as where it points.

 

I might be wrong, but this is as far as I know from experience.

 

Fromwhat I see is they offer this: http://www.sky.com/shop/freesat/home/

 

BUt All that I can assume is that a new dish is installed pointed ina diff direction..

[locutus]

AFAIK you can get a "freesat" card from sky if you have a spare box.

 

Also maybe PM IdaInFife as she has her fingers in a lot of sky pies

[dpick]

It will pick up BBC freesat without any adjustment used to test my caravan's freesat box by taking out one of the sat leads from my sky box and just plug it into freesat box all worked no problem.

 

dpick

[adridude]

looking at the comments, you can pick up sky freesat itself without a card. I fyou don't need the foreighn channels like Deuchewella (or what ever its called) etc... You can go card free You'll get freeview PLUS a few thrown in courtesy of SKy

[labrat]

well the networkings all running now

 

due to bad signals on this side of the house i added a second wifi router to the mix

 

so theres now 1x sky router, 1x 8 port switch 1x netgear router

 

and the more amazing thing is it all worked first time

[adridude]

Excellent 'I love it when a plan comes together'.. *bites cigar*

[labrat]

first minor re-wire

 

one of the wifi networks wouldnt see any device on the rest of the network

 

turns out muppet here had connected it to the network by the port for the cable modem

 

turned off dhcp, changed network from 168.1.1 to 168.0.250 so it would see sky router

 

now all working

[adridude]

wtf? WHy the hell would they do that? I would personally complain and get a discount/cashback on that. WOrked with talk talk when they decided that their router wasn't Apple compliant lol

[labrat]

its my fault

 

had the dsl sky router

then a switch

then a cable router

 

it was me connected the cable router up wrong

[adridude]

Another way to have 2 separate networks which see each other is by using subnets i.e. the 255.255.255.0 needs changing to 255.255.0.0 would have picked up anything from 192.168.0.1 - 192.168.254.1