Day 391 of self-isolation - Yet more networking

 Yet more networking

First, I fixed the house wifi system, and got both of the Google Homes working. Really there wasn't anything wrong. I think with all the messing about I did, something lost track of something. I didn't really do anything to fix it, and it was fixed. When this happened in a data revocery, we used to say "The postman fixed it".

Next, a field trial of the Buffalo Bridge. I put one half of the bridge in the server room, and the other half in my office. The results were very disappointing. Initially I got almost nothing. Then I moved the two Buffalos so they were closer together, and I got 3 mbps, which is very poor. Then I made the two as close together as I could, and I got 9 mbps - also disappointing, but workable.

But overnight, I had a flash of inspiration. Instead of running a cable from the server room to the cupboard under the stairs, I could run a cable from the server room to my office which is a shorter run, and won't need to go through the front door. In my office, I plugged it into a gigabit switch, and ran a short cable from that switch to the port on my office wall that connects to the 24-way in the cupboard under the stairs.

I tested it, and I got 90 mbps, which is as good as I could hope for; my internet connection is 100 mbps. I also tested it by copying a file from my office to the server room, and I got 320 megabits/second. That's because I was using gigabit ethernet end to end!

The only downside is that I have to keep my office window a fraction open, so the cable can come in. But now there's no cable over the flower bed, or coming through the front door into the cupboard under the stairs. It's still a bodge, but it's a very non-messy bodge. And re-threading a new cable to replace the one that doesn't work from the server room to the cupboard under the stairs, would be a big job.

While I was at it, I realised why my Siemens wifi access point wasn't working- the power supply plug was loose in it's socket. Fixing that, means that I have a spare, working wifi access point.

Now I want to make another bridge, using two raspberry pies and wifi dongles that I already have, just to see how it compares with the Buffalo Bridge.