Tag: wireless network

November 10, 2026 – This Will Never Do, My First Project

November 10, 2026 / / 0 Comments

The picture below is actually two projects. One I am actively working on and the second will start as soon as I finish the first one. I am motivated because I need to finish these two projects before I start working on my shop. I need to finish my shop so I can get the garage cleaned out. So, this is an important log jam in my frustration to finally moving in.

Honestly, if were completely up to me I would do things in the reverse order. I would finish the shop and then start doing projects. But, my wife and I think about things is two opposite ways. There is currently a handyman and interior decorator in the mix so I also need to get my part done.

It may not be abundantly clear from the picture what the projects are. Project two is a wine bottle shelf to the left of wine fridge which also includes finishing the trim and a floating shelf, like a mini bar table. In order to get there, I need to clear the way. That means moving the internet so that it is not sitting on the floor in front of everything.

This is the nerve center of the house. Being that we both work from home, internet is absolutely critical to our lives. I am always amazed at how something so critical gets second fiddle in most households. The router is put wherever there happens to be a jack (typically the easiest place to punch a hole through the wall) and that is where the story ends. . I guess I shouldn’t necessarily be surprise since most people don’t have the tools or the knowledge to do something about it. I would think at the very least people would want a safe, organized and logical place to install the internet nerve center. I professional terms, it is called a ‘Demarc‘.

I am sure based on what I have gone through that this is where the previous owners had their internet. How am I so sure? It is the only place it works. I know they worked from home because they left the desk that that had the computer. I just don’t remember seeing a router when we toured. But then again, I missed the fact that there was no furnace, so I guess that is fair. I think that you get what is wrong, I would like to spend more time on what needs to happen. Here are the requirements.

  1. The demarc needs to be out of the way, I dont want to have to decorate around it.
  2. It needs to be flexible. We are starting with the mesh network that we have been using. I do not expect to have a wired back haul like I did at the old house. I do expect to install the outdoor unit somewhere which requires Power of Ethernet (PoE). Most devices will use wireless but I want Cat6 capability if desired.
  3. My low voltage area will also have a space for a door bell transformer. I am already tired of changing the battery in the Ring doorbell, sometimes after 2 weeks.
  4. I am installing the original Spectrum wireless router again. I want the ability to see what the WAN is doing with the onboard diagnostics which I cannot see with the TPLink Deco system.
  5. I want the ability to reboot the system from a central location.

Installing the demarc in the basement was one of the best things that I did. I spent untold amount of hours running cables and modifying as things evolved. Our primary TV location moved at least four times in 20 plus years. Although we never used it, each location was wired for surround sound. What is old is new again and some locations were used more than once. The advantage was that I could go to the basement and pop a new cable on the main floor in a few hours.

I wish that this was one of those posts that I could show beginning and ending. Instead slow and steady progress is the name of the game. I was waiting for weeks for the electricians to finish power in the garage and the furnace to get installed. Then I had to get up the desire to crawl under the house. Once I cut the internet cable for a splice, I was under the gun to get it running again. That day I had visions of significantly more progress. But I was able to re-plan when things didn’t go quite the way I had expected.

I have my board on the wall, I built the shelf to set the wireless router on. I have the hole in the drywall so I can cut out the low voltage location, I have my supplies in order. It is a matter of mounting hardware on the board, building cables and connecting things together. Because it is in the garage, this is something I can do after work and now in the dark.

End Your Programming Routine: One thing that I am learning is that I am getting old an my eyesight is getting worse. I had to crawl under the house multiple times because my cable splice had bits of shielding touching the copper conductor (The fine wire mesh under the plastic skin of the cable). When I finally tested the line, it was registering ‘short’. I literally could not see it in the low light and confined space. That took several hours to resolve. Live and learn; as soon as you think something is going to take twenty minutes and two hours later it is finally resolved. Look for a follow-up with the finished product.

November 1, 2023 – Bluetooth… Who Knew?

November 1, 2023 /

I am in the midst of a network transition. I am going to talk about that next week. This old PC that I use day after day has a wireless card that I installed when it was new (we are talking 2012, how about that). I never use wireless because everything that I have that I can reach a wired internet connection is not on wireless.

This comes from a long standing reliability belief with wireless. The microwave interrupted it, the signal was spotty in being connected and not. The wireless n protocol on my old router was in draft form and only worked with devices from the same company. I just believe in bypassing all of that futzing and plug it in.

I was looking at Linux supported wireless network cards because I was was wondering why the wireless did not work on that particular computer. That is when I came to the realization that Bluetooth capability came with the wireless card. And, if I added a new wireless card, then I could broadcast from my computer to the stereo system without having a 20′ RCA cable.

You know that I think cable is superior. But then the problem is how to switch between the native audio output and the secondary output. I have tried it and it is kind of messy because one is labelled headphones and the other is not. It doesn’t always work like it is supposed to and then things get jumbled up with various programs taking precedent over output choice.

I made the leap to update the wireless card. I rationalized it to myself as another bolt on to manage the network that I have as well. Based on my success, I will also add one to my Linux machine. At $30, it is a pretty inexpensive add on for that flexibility and capability. That would also give me another operating system to help with troubleshooting.

I have disabled wireless administration to the router. It is one of the security measures that I have in place. That way, only machines physically plugged into my network have the capability of making changes. Wired will remain my primary connection, but it also gives me some additional troubleshooting capacity for faulty switches as well. There are plenty of devices that are only wired to the switches like TVs and X-box.

It has been quite a while since I was in the hardware game. I needed to educate myself as to what the system requirements actually were. I knew from the TV tuner foray that I had an extra PCIe slot. But I certainly didn’t know what a PCIe -1X versus a PCIe-16x slot was. Nor did I know if I had a spare USB connector on the motherboard. It turns out that I did and so the installation was pretty easy for a Windows machine and plug and play installation. I also needed to manually install an optional OS upgrade for Bluetooth to make it work. Once I figured that out, I was off and running.

Speaking of Bluetooth and USB, the card I chose had Bluetooth 4.2 standard. There are options out there with Bluetooth 5.X and you may wonder what the difference is. Bluetooth 5 is better and faster with more range, but you do need a USB 3 connection on your motherboard. Defining all of that today is too technical but if you are in this position, seek research on the internet as to what ports and connections you have before ordering. I will say, having the the best versus none, go with what you can get. It also costs more for that extra bandwidth and range which is a big turn-off for me and techno junk.

Doing some advanced reading, I can’t say that the Linux installation will be as smooth. But that is OK. I need to continue to challenge myself in that operating system if I am to ever learn it. I finally got the software installed SDR/scanner. It took quite a while because I chose to watch baseball instead of working at it. It can be done, I am confident in that fact.

End Your Programming Routine: If you have some technology over ten years old, it may benefit you to update hardware if it makes sense. This was less about adding wireless network then getting Bluetooth. Honestly, I have tried both wired and wireless and things were pretty much the same except that I saw one hiccup streaming a song on wireless and several with the Bluetooth stream itself. This will continue to keep me wired but maybe in my lifetime it will get there.