[kwlug-disc] To WIFI or not to WIFI

Thu Oct 6 17:09:31 EDT 2022

I've used Powerline ethernet extenders to get from one place to another. It
was earlier in the technology when I did so and it was a little sketchy.
About as reliable as 802.11b. There were newer ones after that including
300Mbps versions for running video over. You might want to see if that's
there.

Running cable in an existing structure can be quite easy, or it can be a
lot of work. It helps to think about how houses are framed and finished to
know where spaces are to run cables. Interior walls are perfect, exterior
walls have vapour barrier and insulation. Older homes can have bracing in
walls, and split-level homes can have floor sheeting halfway up a wall. If
there's an unfinished room under a wall or floor you can simply drill
through. I have a 4ft drill bit just for cabling. I cut an outlet height
square hole, use the drill to go through the bottom plate and floor sheet
and I'm into the ceiling or a wall below. Make sure you measure to make
sure you're not popping into a pipe or wire.

I've also run cable through ducts to get from the basement to the second
floor. If you can identify the right duct, cut a large working hole in the
main rectangular duct and use an electrical fish tape to push up or down
the round duct. Then use "Foil Tape" (not duct tape) to tape the plate back
in, using a larger piece of sheet metal is better, but do what you can.

I don't recall doing it but most homes have a gap between the floor and
drywall. In carpeted rooms, you can tuck the cable under the baseboard.
Running it under the carpet isn't a great idea, but I've done it in
low-traffic areas to cross a door opening. If your floor isn't carpet there
usually still is a gap behind baseboards. It would mean popping them off
and putting them back up. It sounds easy, but new homes have them caulked
and you can peel paint from the wall if you don't run a knife along the
edge, caulked or not.

Closets are also great places to run cable. People don't usually care if a
cable runs along a corner in a closet and you can put it into a corner that
isn't seen, like beside the opening. There you'd be drilling through a
floor and ceiling, trying to line it up between floors.

Cable installers will avoid ruining finishes and cutting holes that need
patching, but I'm pretty good at patching and usually have the leftover
paint around. I might make an access hole and patch it that day, ready for
the paint the next day.

You may also be okay with exposed wire. Ideally I try to hide it all in
walls and put up nice faceplates wth jacks. You may not mind running cable
along a baseboard, visibly, or down the corner of a wall, or along the
ceiling in the corner. Get white Eithernet cable, or something that matches
you walls, or paint it.

Running outside the building is an option too, but you'd want shielded
cable, harder to source and more expensive. If you know someone in the
country who's getting rid of wireless Internet service, their antenna might
have shielded Ethernet connecting it. Salvaging that might be handy. Run it
through window frames. Tuck it under vinyl siding or in the grout lines of
your brick.

If you want to get really experimental you can run Ethernet over phone
wire. It'll be noisy and maybe only 10Mbps. Ethernet needs 2 pair (4 wires)
ideally twisted and phone cable isn't twisted, so you can only use that for
short runs.

Keep in mind that all these use frequencies somewhere in the Mhz ranges and
you'll be exposed to that as well.

On Thu, Oct 6, 2022 at 4:06 PM Doug Moen <doug at moens.org> wrote:

> I know somebody who got brain cancer from a RIM cell phone, and who
> received hush money from RIM.
>
> Whether cell phone radio wave frequencies are "safe" is not a yes or no
> question, in the sense that either the frequency is ionizing or non
> ionizing. What matters is intensity and duration. In the case I mention
> above, the design of the phone and its antenna, the frequency and duration
> of use, and the way it was held, were all relevant factors.
>
> Drinking water is not "safe" in an absolute sense: an overdose will kill
> you. Magnetic fields are not "safe": a high enough intensity will kill you.
> Black pepper and cloves are known carcinogens (I still use them). There was
> a case last year of someone dying from an overdose of licorice candy (which
> I occasionally eat).
>
> Some people are more sensitive to environmental stressors than others. If
> your immune system is compromised, for example, then minor cellular damage
> that would be cleaned up and repaired in a healthy person could turn into
> cancer. This is just one way you could be sensitive to environmental
> stressors, there are many others.
>
> So don't be making absolute statements about the safety of something and
> calling it "science".
>
> On Thu, Oct 6, 2022, at 1:51 PM, Steve Izma wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 06, 2022 at 12:26:19PM -0400, Khalid Baheyeldin wrote:
> >> Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] To WIFI or not to WIFI
> >>
> >> On Thu, Oct 6, 2022 at 10:52 AM Federer Fanatic <nafdef at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> > Hi, There are various hypothesized issues regarding exposure
> >> > to wifi
> >>
> >> There is no science behind any of those claims.
> >
> > The great thing about science and its doctrines is that there are
> > so many to choose from.
> >
> > The problem is that most of the choices are expensive, in that
> > published peer-reviewed science mostly comes out of institutions
> > whose funding is geared towards commercialization of research. I
> > have spent nearly fifty years in scholarly publishing (mostly
> > social science) and I know what kind of research doesn't get
> > sufficient funds for making it through the process. It's usually
> > the counter-intuitive ideals that challenge the peers who hold
> > the reigns of acceptable publishing.
> >
> > In respect to electro-magnetic radiation, even the capitalists
> > and militarists are needing to consider a revision of past
> > assumptions:
> > <
> https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2020/09/14/cockpit-electromagnetic-fields-are-harming-pilots-the-us-military-fears
> >
> >
> > Microbiological research has shown that cells of all organisms
> > use some sort of electro-magnetic radiation for communication
> > (among other processes, such as chemical signalling and mRNA).
> > <https://deheynlab.ucsd.edu/research/em-communication/> It's
> > likely that cells learn to adapt to interference from external
> > EMR, but obviously such a process depends on many factors, many
> > of which won't help a lot of people exposed to them.
> >
> > The problem, as shown by the concern with pilots' cockpits, is
> > that the accumulation of electro-magnetic energy is such
> > situations is easy to measure, but the effect of smaller amounts
> > on particular cells, still living within a human body, is very
> > hard to measure. Also the kind of effects that need to be
> > measured on a celluar level isn't well defined. It's easy to
> > argue that observable short-term damage can give strong clues to
> > causation, but detecting the connection to long-term damage is
> > much more expensive research -- and in whose interest would it be
> > undertaken? Think about how long it took to scientifically
> > connect cigarette smoking to cancer.
> >
> > I worry that a statement like "there's no science" assumes that
> > the only legitimate science is that coming out of well-funded
> > institutions. There is a great deal of marginalized research that
> > raises doubts and questions about the dominant theories, and when
> > the major communications corporations and most governments
> > denounce such research efforts and ridicule questions about
> > things like 5G, we would do well to wonder what's behind this
> > apparent unity of scientific and political thinking.
> >
> > Anyway, that's one of the reasons I quote from Stephen Jay Gould,
> > below.
> >
> >       -- Steve
> >
> > --
> > Steve Izma
> > -
> > Home: 35 Locust St., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada  N2H 1W6
> > E-mail: sizma at golden.net  phone: 519-745-1313
> > cell (text only; not frequently checked): 519-998-2684
> >
> > ==
> > The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best – and
> > therefore never scrutinize or question.
> >     -- Stephen Jay Gould, *Full House: The Spread of Excellence
> >        from Plato to Darwin*, 1996
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > kwlug-disc mailing list
> > kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
> > https://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> kwlug-disc mailing list
> kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
> https://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>

-- 
John Van Ostrand
At large on sabbatical
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://kwlug.org/pipermail/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org/attachments/20221006/64089d17/attachment.htm>