I attended a small networked home conference this summer, and there were these guys from the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA), giving a glowing presentation about how they could distribute 100 Mbit/s two-way video and data over any in-home coaxial plant build in the last fifty years, through splitters and the lot. But when asked if it would be cheaper than running cat5 wire, they had to admit it wasn't if you had to to put in new cabling. Well, Europe ain't the US, and I don't think they accounted for the allmighty 'kroonsteen' http://www.taogroep.com/inc/popup.asp?img=../imgdb/productrent/ks/ks_265.jpg (strip to be cut to size using a potatopeeling knive). In highly cabled countries like Holland there is hardly any in-home coaxial network deployment, okay if you wanted cable tv on your second bedroom tv set, you drilled a hole in the ceiling or the wall, got a cheap piece of (unshielded) coax, some 'kroonsteentjes' to tap the original CATV cable and you were set. Folks (me included 25 years ago in the old house when we still had cable) have been doing it this way since the 70's. Okay the more sophisticated people have started to use a 'male http://www.antennekabel.nl/foto-connectors/20-RHKOSWI3.jpg and female http://www.antennekabel.nl/foto-connectors/20-RHKOKWI3.jpg head' (links are to more expensive versions) to connect two pieces of cable and perhaps a splitter, but that's it. And indeed if you didn't have a strip of 'kroonsteentjes' at hand, you just twisted the cores and braiding and added a lot of tape. Now I would like to see those MOCA guys get a 99% sucessrate over our two-room Eurostyle networks, LOL. d. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Schubin" <tvmark@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 10:10 PM Subject: [opendtv] Re: Why outdoor antennas don't always work well Can't help adding comments. In the early 1970s, I worked for a company installing in-room movie systems in hotels. I was assigned to survey the master-antenna systems in the hotels to see how usable they were. In one hotel, I took the cover off a box I thought would have contained a splitter to find five coaxes all twisted together. The center conductors were all twisted together as were the braids, and then the braids and center conductors were twisted together. The channel amps were pumping 84 dBmv into that. Better still was a motel where I went into a room and turned on a TV to see how the pictures looked. They were noisy and had some ghosts, but I'd seem worse. So I unscrewed the wall plate to see what kind of splitter or tap they were using. When I took off the plate, I found blank wall behind it. I tried several other rooms and found the same. I then had to explain to the motel manager that we couldn't put movies on his master-antenna system because he didn't have a master antenna system. TTFN, Mark Donald Koeleman wrote: >Yup they do! Kroonsteentje, the universal coaxialconnector: >http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/040BNCTpiece.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.