Running a network 1000 foot over ethernet

[Maui Custom Surveillance]

A couple months ago I had a rather challenging project, I needed to network a camera using an already installed ethernet CAT five running in an underground conduit 900 feet from his gate to his home. Since the category 5 was already run and was an extra telephone line, I thought it wouldn't be much of a challenge. I hooked up my testers to the wire, and there was continuity, but when I hooked the camera up to a router on the same wire, I got nothing. A little bit of research and I discovered the rule of 328 foot, that is, ethernet will only run 328 foot before it needs to be boosted by a switch. I was rather embarrassed by this, because I thought I knew something about networking, and have done large hotels, but it just so happened there were switches in between the cameras anyway so I never ran into the problem of the 328 foot. But in this instance, there was 900 feet of buried conduit, with only two junction boxes. I had already put in a proposal and it was accepted for a lousy $100, to network this camera and now I'm contemplating beating up the conduit every 200 foot to add a switch that somehow has to be powered which was a whole know the problem. Wireless was out of the question because of the foliage. I began wondering how the phone company managed to send a DSL signal the length of the 900 foot to the DSL modem, and discovered that there were indeed DSL modems available for just this kind of problem, but they were $400 each and there is no guarantee they could even make a 900 foot necessary.

I found a novel solution for my predicament, I just happen to have a couple of home plug adapters, home plug standard is good for 1000 foot. There are four twisted pairs of 24 gauge wire in a CAT 5, so I took two pairs and twisted them together on both ends and then cut an extension cord and half an attached each end of the extension cord to the category five wire making a 900 foot long extension cord. I then plugged one end of the 900 foot long extension cord into the wall socket in the garage, and on the other end on top of a 9 foot pole I had a electrical box I got at home depot with a Toshiba pan tilt zoom attached to it. With the female part of the extension cord now located at the top of this Pole inside the electrical box, I was able to fit in the box the DC power generator for the camera and the home plug adapter, and plug them both into the extension cord. This work very nicely, because it was a whole other issue how I was going to power the camera, and now my 900 foot long extension cord was not only powering the camera, but the home plug adapter was creating a network for the IP camera. On the other end all I had to do was plug the other adapter in the other electrical receptacle, then plug the ethernet connection into the adapter and run it up to my switch.

So there you have it, not only did I create a 900 foot network using category five wire, I also used the same wire to power the camera.

There was some question about whether or not this was legal? But with some investigation I discovered category five wire was legal for the amperage I was using, even though it was AC instead of DC. It
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Maui Custom Surveillance

[chuckstr89134]

Well Done - That's what I call thinking outside the box. I will remember this solution in case I ever need it. Thanks for sharing.

chuckstr

[Administrator]

Very Nice! haha

Just like chuckstr said, definitely thinking outside the box!
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[Todd S]

Ya, pretty trick setup. Pat yourself on the back. I may be stealing that idea some day.