Cat 5 / Cat 6 across lawn in soil ?

I've recently done some burying of CAT5 in a lawn, and I think putting it in hosepipe is probably worthwhile, to protect it from mechanical stress during burial and reduce the amount of squashing/bending by soil/stones that it experiences once buried.

Simon

I would put it in something waterproof, I would go for the blue mains water pipe, its cheep and tough.

Rick

Which is going to cause enormous confusion to anyone who digs it up...

Isn't the pipe for data cables green? That's what the cable TV people use.

The blue stuff is easy to get hold of, so is the green, if there is some laying at the end of your street, but its not always the case.

Rick

I have no idea what's right and wrong. However wouldn't some form of metal conduit be appropriate here?

If lightning strikes within 100 yds or so then the cabling is going to pick up the jolt, possibly taking the equipment out both ends. Whereas with a metal conduit then presumably it could soak any charge to earth.

Andrew

I recently needed to do a similar thing and ran a length of 50mm waste pipe with slow bends between the house and the shed. Fittings were solvent welded and left for a day for any traces of solvent to disappear.

I then arranged a cable fish through the pipe by tying a piece of rag to a length of string and sucking it through with a vacuum cleaner. A double length of polypropylene cord was pulled through by attaching it to the string and then one length used to pull through a selection of cables inclusing CAT5, phone, etc. but not power (that is separately buried SWA).

This leaves one length of cord in the pipe for pulling future cables through if needed or in the event of failure.

I used a similar technique between house and garage which is rather further.

Since I felt that digging trenches is a pain in the bum, and I could never be sure that I wouldn't want to add or replace cables, for the cost of the pipe (which is pretty cheap anyway), this made good sense.

.andy

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If lightning strikes anywhere within 100yds or so pretty much all your equipment is toast. If it strikes anywhere close enough to introduce significant ground potential gradients (often a km or more) then putting the cable in a metal conduit may help, but if not properly designed can also make things worse. Practically, it isn't going to make much difference.

You should assume all underground ducting will fill with water. Condensate will do it eventually.

Thanks all -

As I have both waterpipe and waste pipe lying around I will take Andy Hall's suggestion and use up the waste pipe - I may well want to pull a phone cable through so that seems like a good idea. Its just a short straight run anyway.

I think lightning striking close by will toast our house innards with the EMP, with the amount of cabling other than mains we have around the house acting as "aerials", but nothing has ever failed yet.

Nick

If this is to carry a signal for a PC or similar then don't rule out the possibility of using a wireless arrangement. Probably a bit more costly seeing as you've got the cable already, but much easier than digging trenches etc.

Wireless also isn't susceptible to lightning in the vicinity (though your equipment might still be smouldering aftera close lightning shave).

A possible benefit with wireless is that you could work in the garden during the summer months.

Andrew

Any all your neighbours can see all your data and use your internet connection, assuming they have got the IQ of a goat, which is all thats needed to break the standard enceyption on this, even if you set it up in the first place.

Rick

Are you suggesting that WPA AES has been broken already? Do you have a link?

Lee

I agree, there are standards for the colours of underground services. Or indeed above ground, some berk had run the rising main through some waste pipe here... This pipe was in the way, and not serving any obvious purpoes but did head of in the direction of a drain, hack saw, hisssss.....

Just pull through several lengths of that spare Cat6, you can use it for network, phone, baseband video, all maner of things. Pull them all together, once you get three or four cables in a duct in can get remarkably difficult to pull another through, especially of there are any bends.

Not to mention spoofing the mac and ip filter (I've seen a chimp do this but not a goat as yet) ;-)

T i m

In principle it could be. See

.andy

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I think people are thinking of WEP here. WPA2 (derived from 802.11i) is about as secure as it gets.

Oh FFS here we go again, it's urban legend time.

It could be if used correctly.

See

Most people will end up using PSK and probably with short common dictionary words like their dog's name, so remain vulnerable to fairly simply mounted attacks.

.andy

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