On 06/22/16, Nightfox said the following...

I use a pair of powerline ethernet adapters to connect my upstairs PCs (including my BBS PC) to my router, which is downstairs. Although the

<SNIP>

Aside from moving my BBS PC downstairs to connect directly to the
router, or wiring my house for ethernet, I'm wondering if there's a way
to get a more reliable connection to my BBS PC. I'm wondering if wi-fi would be more reliable..

Nightfox

The advice you've gotten is generally good. More two cents is late on the
seen I see ;) WiFi can work, wired always does. Here's what I had to say
before reading some of the many hidden replies (not linked like mine).

They are unreliable in general and tend to get worse and worse over time. I
had tried that, finally just wired down to the basement. Much more reliable. WiFi is generally out, the signal doesn't generally get to a basement. Great upstairs to several floors (not if in the basement). It's the grounding, the basement walls and floor are basically ground so short out the signal. That
can be good at times for things like HAM radio, but always bad for WiFi.
There are radio relays (like a dual access point) that will send it down
there, but costly. Still a relay near the system your trying to get to on the floor above it will work fine. Top floor is always best for working the yard, first floor for covering inside the house (from the center).
Lightning will kill the powerline Ethernet in time ;(
There maybe things you can do bridging the circuit breakers on the two lines with caps (like other powerline stuff), it's a high frequency carrier your trying to get across the breakers and they are inductor based so shunt high frequencies. Picofarad caps with high voltage breakdown is best from breaker
to breaker in the box (with tubing thick enough to stop any arcs). Neon bulbs (to ground) are pretty good at shunting lightning as well ;) They aren't just for doorbells anymore (LEDs are taking over and offer no protection) ;)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A39 2018/04/21 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Mystic AlphaTest bcw142.zapto.org:2323 (21:1/145.2)

On 08-24-18 19:22, bcw142 wrote to Nightfox <=-

The advice you've gotten is generally good. More two cents is late on
the seen I see ;) WiFi can work, wired always does. Here's what I had
to say before reading some of the many hidden replies (not linked like mine).

Better late than never. :)

They are unreliable in general and tend to get worse and worse over
time. I had tried that, finally just wired down to the basement. Much
more reliable. WiFi is generally out, the signal doesn't generally get

Even without a basement, I prefer wired for a network backbone. Wifi is subject to all sorts of propagation oddities indoors. Radio waves misbehave in strange ways, once the wavelength becomes short enough that everyday things like houses, walls and fixtures become obstacles. The signals bounce off them, and behave in complex ways, leading to all sorts of dead spots, unreliable connections and the like towards the edge of the coverage area, and further in, variable data rates. It works both ways, because the MIMO technologies of newer wifi standards actually exploit this phenomenon to carry more data.

I don't like wifi repeaters, because they take time to retransmit the signal, which slows the overall throughput for everyone on the network. Whenever I setup a network, I start with good old Cat 5/6, run it between all the points where there's fixed systems (router, desktops, BBSs, wifi APs, etc). Next, I deploy wifi to cover the area(s) I need, so my mobile decives like phones, tablets and laptops have network access. Powerline adapters can work, provided both points are on the same circuit. At our previous house, this was possible and they worked as well as wired Ethernet (with caveats - see below). But here, it seems the two endpoints I needed are on different circuits, and I only got 3Mbps throughput. I replaced the powerline adapters with a cable run through the centre of the house and everything works sweet. :)

A couple of notes:

Caveat on powerline adapters - some switchmode supplies can put enough crud on the line to kill the network connection. A friend's laptop's charger did this, which is how I discovered the issue. The majority of switchmode devices are OK, but there's always a chance.

Wifi extending - if I want to extend the coverage of a wifi network, one way I can do this is have an AP in client bridge mode on the main network, wire that to my other network, and have an AP on a different channel to service the extended area. Or if I'm just tapping into the wifi network (which I am currently doing for a local non profit legitimately - with permission from the host network next door), I put the second AP on a different SSID as well, and use that for the devices that belong on that network.


... A system event? Wow! Can I get tickets?
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I started using UniFI AP AC units at home, the one in the shop is set to
"mesh" with the one in the house to bridge the LAN in the garage to the
house, so far they've been working great. Two UniFi POE 8port switches, two
AP units, one USG gateway.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A39 2018/04/21 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Vista BBS - Vallejo, CA USA (21:1/142)

On 08-26-18 22:43, it wrote to Vk3jed <=-

I started using UniFI AP AC units at home, the one in the shop is set
to "mesh" with the one in the house to bridge the LAN in the garage to
the house, so far they've been working great. Two UniFi POE 8port switches, two AP units, one USG gateway.

OK, not familiar with that hardware.


... Tagline stolen while sipping coffee.
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