Recently I posted about using cable modems to pipe my home network through a buried coax cable, and got great answers explaining why that wouldn’t work, at least not like I wanted. Too bad; I like the security of hardwired networking and my house is already wired with twisted pair. I wanted to network the barn 150’ away so I could put a satellite internet hookup out there (it’s my only broadband option and only the barn has a view of the southern sky).
So I started to go the wireless bridge route instead.
But HEY! Why can’t I send the wireless access point signal through the buried CATV cable I already have?
I’m getting two Linksys WAP11 “wireless access points” that can also work as a wireless bridge. They do have jacks for the antennas to plug into, and you can also buy remote antennas whose cables plug into those jacks. Obviously, if I run cable from one to the other, I’m piping that same signal directly.
There are two complications:
- My buried CATV cable is 75 ohm, whereas the antenna connections are probably 50 ohm, so I need a transformer to match impedances.
- These devices are made to transmit much more power than they receive, and may not like being cabled together because they expect lots of attenuation. I probably need an attenuator in this line.
The CATV line itself will have some attenuation, but I am hoping not as much as an open air path.
I bet my transformers might be simple resistor networks rather than inductively coupled coils. A resistor network can match impedances, just not very efficiently - but in my case I probably want to add attenuation anyway, so maybe resistor networks will work.
Any idea whether this would work? Or how to decide how much attentuation to shoot for? I might get the attenuators right by trial and error, starting with too much and then decreasing the attenuation until it works.