Subj : Re: PoE Window Passthroug To : Barry Martin From : Ky Moffet Date : Fri Nov 28 2025 07:00:00 BARRY MARTIN wrote: > Hi Ky! > > > > > > Not really ChitChat but as this is where we are congregating.... > > > > KM> Cuz we're all lost. > > > > But I was following Mike! > > > KM> Where's he going?? > > > I don't know but so far looking interesting! > > KM> Well, now we're lost! > > Nah: we're on an 'alternative route to our destination'! > KM> And possibly to an alternative destination! > > "Are we there yet?!" Where is "there" ?? [Much jeering from the peanut gallery, given I have a habit of tossing my characters out in the middle of "where the heck are we??" and leaving them to fend for themselves.] > KM> Yeah, a lot of this stuff is sheer junk anymore. There's so much > KM> counterfeit and poor copies that a known source is necessity. The > KM> real test is did you get a good connection? > > Right; and sometimes even with me as the consumer shopping from a good > source the source gets duped by a bad supplier. Yeah. Frex, you gotta watch the "sold and shipped by". On Walmart's site, if it's not by Walmart, it's either junk, stolen goods, or can't be returned. On Amazon, all that plus often used sold as new. So if it's anything significant, either by Amazon or by a name brand store, and you've gotta watch that what it tries to sell you actually comes from that store! > As for my project: ready to go but being on hold: raining, then a couple > of days where very windy (had gusts to 50 MPH), today is Thanksgiving > and off to participation of a ritual of dissection and consumption of what > almost became the nation bird; tomorrow (Friday) maybe; weekend we're > predicted to get up to four inches of snow. Ah, you got our used storm that blew on through a couple days ago. We just got a dusting of snow last night. Up along the Hi-Line got totally smackered. > KM> Wait, is this a plug-on-each-end type thing? not just a sleeve?? > > The plug-in-on-both-ends. Ah. To minimize the hole? > KM> The antenna, power brick, and router are all sealed units > KM> designed to be out in the weather for whole-house wifi (wired > KM> ethernet was a sad afterthought). I thought having the latter two > KM> outdoors was needlessly risky, so they are inside. Which > KM> necessitated a much longer ethernet cable but still needed a > KM> weatherproof plug. (A regular plug works, but is not > KM> weatherproof.) > > Again me not knowing details I would think they would prefer Ethernet > over WiFi just because it is at least 2x faster (100 Mbps vs 54) and Get with the century, Barry! Nowadays wifi is faster than ethernet. https://homenetworkadmin.com/wireless-b-vs-g-vs-n-vs-ac-difference/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11#Generations > solid/stable -- no varying signal strength (like I have here!). OTOH But that is sometimes a problem. And wifi is subject to blockage by mass or metal. (My desert house, with chicken-wire-plaster inside and out, was such a Faraday cage that I had to go outside to use the cell phone.) > the input is a wireless signal (satellite), so wireless signal in, > wireless signal out out makes sense. There's a missing detail in the > satellite signal is in a much different band. Yeah, unrelated. And the app whines until you point the antenna where it wants to point, and it sees what it wants to see. However, I can't complain too much, because I'm supposedly paying for 60M nonpriority, and I've been getting around 300M and best case 475M. It's an amazing thing to see 1.4GB of Fedora updates come across in 27 seconds. Most web servers are capped around 100M, but apparently Fedora Update is not. > I probably would have designed to have an Ethernet output, with the > waterproof design (which is probably why they went with the sealed > -inside WiFi -- and I'm guessing the power supply is hard-wired) with an > optional WiFi into the Ethernet port. I think you just designed nonsense The router is fairly ordinary, except that it provides PoE to the antenna (hence the router's power brick is bigger than some routers), and only has two ethernet ports. Which are fussy little pricks that don't like some cables.I got 'em to behave with the cable of their choice, and now one goes direct to Silver and the other to a switch, from which daisy-chains the other switch. It's ugly, but given the Fedora box at the very arse end of the chain gets the fastest speeds, it must work. Wifi speed is constrained by what chip the device has. The old Lenovo laptop (and maybe Pony, which is a little newer) has ac so it gobbles up all the bandwidth it sees. The other laptops only have g or n so they are slow unless I plug in a cable. Or a newer wifi dongle. Fortunately networking these days is smart enough to use the fastest one it sees. The Lenovo laptop (and no other) can just barely see wifi in the other house -- sufficient to play music, not enough to watch video. Since the other house now Has Its Uses, I'd like to get it over there for when I am. > KM> Anyway the antenna mount and port are kinda all together on the > KM> bottom of the antenna, so once the antenna is mounted it's tough > KM> or impossible to get at the port, depending on which mount you > KM> got (Starlink's own sucks, you need a third party mount). > > "But it's real easy to do in our climate-controlled showroom!" There you have it!! > > Which what?! Presuming 'multi-conductor cable': instead of the > > usual two or three wires (like for doorbell wiring) this has several -- > > I think my cable had eight. > KM> I thought ethernet cable always had eight. Phone is usually four. Only two used for standard phone, but all four if you're on a party line. I remember the bafflement when the phone guy came to hook me up, it didn't work, and after much thrashing around realized my owned equipment (rather, Ma Bell said that's so old we don't want it back) had been on a party line and needed to be rewired. > > Yup! The good news is I could run an Ethernet line from the Computer > > Room (also on the second floor) through the Storage Area and the > > adjacent wall of the Master Bedroom. The hardest part would be in the > > Storage Area because of, well, the storage! > KM> For what do you need ethernet in there? got someone chained in > KM> the basement we need to know about? :P > > Shhh! Though he is a the life of the part at Halloween! Well, maybe > 'life' isn't the accurate term but that is the phrase! "This place is dead!" > > There's something called 'mesh' which from initial glances seemed more > > for businesses or a huge house (mansion-sized). > KM> Yeah, mesh, repeaters, not sure where if any the difference. > > OK, that was pretty much my thinking. For what I needed they seemed to > do the same thing, just with a bit of marketing thrown in. Different type of speaking-to-router, I think. > > KM> I asked TP-Link (I have four of their 8-port switches, and > KM> previous good experience with their tech support) and they > KM> recommended this: > KM> https://www.tp-link.com/us/deco-mesh-wifi/product-family/deco-x50- > KM> outdoor/ > > Well they have two PoE ports on the bottom and this device also hangs > outside! What's StarLink's problem?! Design by people who have never strung network cable. > The WiFi 6 protocol you probably won't use - yet. For that kind of > device I'd spend a few extra dollars now so it doesn't become the > bottleneck in the future. Some new devices use wifi 6. None of mine are near that new. > > > > .. WiFi Password `2444666668888888'. I get asked and say `12345678'! > > KM> > > "2444666668888888" is made up of one two, three four's, five six's.... > KM> Ah! > > Sometimes the mid gets stuck! In the middle! > > KM> Forgot my password. > > Set it to 'incorrect'. Type in what you think your password is, the > > computer will respond "your password is incorrect": problem solved! > KM> LOL, I need to use that one. > > I have a 2" ring binder of passwords and some connection instructions. > Also on the hard drive but if the computer misbehaves... (I know: if > the computer is mesbehaving what do I need a password for? Try on > another computer!) I have the wifi password taped to the desk. > .. Math Joke! > How do you make seven even? > You take off the "s". 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