At my long-term parking location I need to run a 300 foot Ethernet cable for my internet connection. I will be using Cat6 unshielded full copper underground cable. Question.1. Since only 1/2 of the wires (4 of the 8) are used, would I gain any advantage by parallel connecting the unused wired with the used one? For example the Green and Orange as one and the blue and brown as the second. The thought is that this would cut the resistance (drop) in half.2. I am going to be using underground (non gel) cable - I could not find gel filled Cat6 cable. Is there any advantage in putting it in 1/2 plastic conduit?

As you probably know, there is a specific twist to CAT6 cable to keep out external interfearence as well as crosstalk. Since at 300' you are already at the pushing the best engineering practices length without a repeater, Its possible that you 'might' make the situation worse by grabbing the wrong parallel pairs. If lucky, you might fix the attenuation, but now you start running into packet collisions again possibly made worse by playing with the twist. If this were me I think I would invest in a couple of 5.8GHz microwave units if you have line of sight . Also, if the router has WiFi built-in, certinally the cheaper route is to look at external gain antennas at the coach to see if you can pick it up direct.

I solved that problem here by using a WIRELESS WIFI Modem/Router setup...My ROUTER here covers my whole house and back yard area rather well... All of this wireless WIFI item can be secured as far as keeping others from using it...CAT5 -CAT6 cables unlike RG cables can be run for very long distances without much degrading of the signals.

RoyB wrote:---snip---CAT5 -CAT6 cables unlike RG cables can be run for very long distances without much degrading of the signals.Not true.. And its actually worseGoogle ''max length of Ethernet cable".While coax loses signal the longer the run, so does ethernet. And when it hits its theroetical limit, collisions take over and nothing works.

cat 6 at 300 feet will be faster then anything he can do wirelessly(cost effective), also gigabit uses all 4 pairs.if you have animals, put it in conduit. the electrical under my deck was eaten twice when the last guy owned the house. everything went in this time in EMT.if you bury deep enough you will be fine, i have some electrical 3 feet down that is not protect and is original to the house 72'good luck

As mentioned previously you're stretching the limits of the CAT6 cable (328') and doubling up the conductors most likely make matters worse. CAT6 cable has a different twist rate between the pairs and shielding between them to minimize the interference and increase the data rate. Doubling up will definitely defeat the design of the cable. With the expense of the cable and labor to bury it, a wireless connection is obviously the way to go. There are many, many options available for this specific purpose that provide adequate security. Also, this is for his Internet connection. In this instance speed is not an issue. You won't get gigabit Internet speeds. Most likely 100Mbps at best.

300 feet of Underground Cat6 ??? | Good Sam Community

TenOC
Nomad
Apr 12, 2015
SCVJeff wrote:
I guess we'll never know why the OP doesn't even acknowledge the use of RF on this run. Oh well..

I am sorry, I really do not know what you are talking about with "RF".

If you are talking about Wifi, I have tried it with an omnidirectional antenna at one end with poor results. It is difficult (not impossible) to put an antenna at the other end.

A simple TEMPORARY CAT5 indoor cable laid on the ground gave much better results. Now it is time to put the cable underground.
SCVJeff
Explorer
Apr 12, 2015
I guess we'll never know why the OP doesn't even acknowledge the use of RF on this run. Oh well..
jhilley
Explorer
Apr 12, 2015
Matt_Colie wrote:
Simple Advice here from another dinosaur.

READ WHAT JHILLY WROTE.
Buy cable. Good Cable.
Put it in pipe. I am not sure why he recommends 1", I have used smaller, I will bet that there is a story there.

Matt

The tubing comes in a coil, it is difficult to pull through any thing less than 1", especially at 300'. You can usually suck a poly pull string through the tubing with a shop vac. If you can't do it with the string itself, use a little foam "mouse" usually available at home improvement centers.

This video shows how to make a mouse out of a piece of plastic.

Improvising a Conduit Mouse

I usually just make a wad out of the string with knots and that does the job. Foam ear plugs also work.
Matt_Colie
Explorer II
Apr 12, 2015
Simple Advice here from another dinosaur.

READ WHAT JHILLY WROTE.
Buy cable. Good Cable.
Put it in pipe. I am not sure why he recommends 1", I have used smaller, I will bet that there is a story there.

Matt
jhilley
Explorer
Apr 12, 2015
Gene&Ginny wrote:
TenOC wrote:
...Question,
(1) Would I get any protection from lighting if I ran a bare wire (grounded at each end) in the conduit beside the CAT5e cable? I am thinking about using some wire that was original used to run an electrical fence. It is probably in the 20 gauge range and I think it is aluminum.
Probably will not give any protection

(2) Would this "ground" wire close to the CAT5e cable interfere with the signal?
That wire would have little or no effect. We used to run bundles of Cat5 together in cable racks all the time. Adjacent wires were never a problem.

It would not provide any protection, but would not interfere. You really don't have to worry about lightning in an underground installation. If you do have a lightning problem it will come in over power or overhead telephone, not your buried Ethernet.
DarthMuffin
Explorer
Apr 12, 2015
TenOC wrote:
At my long-term parking location I need to run a 300 foot Ethernet cable for my internet connection. I will be using Cat6 unshielded full copper underground cable. Question.

1. Since only 1/2 of the wires (4 of the 8) are used, would I gain any advantage by parallel connecting the unused wired with the used one? For example the Green and Orange as one and the blue and brown as the second. The thought is that this would cut the resistance (drop) in half.

2. I am going to be using underground (non gel) cable - I could not find gel filled Cat6 cable. Is there any advantage in putting it in 1/2 plastic conduit?

To answer your questions...

1. No, don't do that. The pairs are twisted at different rates. If you use part of one and part of another the two runs will be different lengths, causing problems. Even worse, if you used say orange and orange/white together you'd totally lose the benefit of the twisted pair.

2. Get direct burial rated stuff and it should work fine. Ethernet is rated for 300', so you're pushing it but within spec. Actually, CAT6 is a pain to work with and as of yet there's no communication spec that requires CAT6. It will all work over CAT5E, but the CAT6 may future-proof you. As for the conduit, it will give protection against critters and a little against shovels, and if you put in a pull string then you've got a way to run additional cable should you need it.
Gene_Ginny
Explorer
Apr 12, 2015
TenOC wrote:
...Question,
(1) Would I get any protection from lighting if I ran a bare wire (grounded at each end) in the conduit beside the CAT5e cable? I am thinking about using some wire that was original used to run an electrical fence. It is probably in the 20 gauge range and I think it is aluminum.
Probably will not give any protection

(2) Would this "ground" wire close to the CAT5e cable interfere with the signal?
That wire would have little or no effect. We used to run bundles of Cat5 together in cable racks all the time. Adjacent wires were never a problem.
TenOC
Nomad
Apr 12, 2015
Thanks for all the input. I will be using CAT5e gel filled underground cable. I will also put it in 1/2 PVC conduit. There is lots of room for the CAT5 without ends connectors. This way if I need to pull a replacement cable for any reason, I will not need to re-dig.

Question,
(1) Would I get any protection from lighting if I ran a bare wire (grounded at each end) in the conduit beside the CAT5e cable? I am thinking about using some wire that was original used to run an electrical fence. It is probably in the 20 gauge range and I think it is aluminum.

(2) Would this "ground" wire close to the CAT5e cable interfere with the signal?
SCVJeff
Explorer
Apr 11, 2015
I'm still curious why this can't be done with RF ?
Gdetrailer
Explorer III
Apr 11, 2015
joebedford wrote:
Gene&Ginny wrote:
Gdetrailer wrote:
...This should say it all..

THICKNET

That link SAYS IT IS OBSOLETE......
Yes, that device IS obsolete.

There is a whole new generation of coax devices that convert Ethernet packets to RF over the coax using a different frequency band for each direction to maintain full duplex (send receive at the same time) operation. You can get a pair of devices for just about $100.

Thank you. A least you also understand that just because it's coax it doesn't mean 10base5.

STILL OBSOLETE.

AND I would never consider BURYING RG-8 UNDERGROUND.

And YES, I HAVE LOTS OF EXPERIENCE WITH RG-8 with RF AND DATA.

I STILL CANNOT RECOMMEND IT AS A MEANS FOR A HOMEOWNER TO GET DATA FROM POINT A TO POINT B. THERE ARE CHEAPER AND EASIER WAYS FOR A DIY DATA LINE (not to mention easy to obtain).

For the OP of this thread, it is just THREE HUNDRED FEET of twisted pair which is well within the specs of 328 ft.

I have personally used just under 350 ft of twisted pair at 1 gigabit speeds with no degradation of network speeds pushing 12-15 gig files all day long.

Even for business purposes there ARE other methods which are PREFERRED over the archaic coax..

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