Structured Wiring Projects

As you may have gathered I'm a bit of a wiring nut. I've mentioned some of my wiring plans in my HT build thread but I thought this might be more relevant in the context of its own thread. I've finally got my network up and running with a few devices.


We have an antenna in the attic running to the amplified coax distribution blocks up top and out to each room in the house. We don't have a cable subscription but the system could be used in that way also. I get all local channels but PBS. Hoping a 2nd amplifier will get us a useable signal.

We have Comcast internet coming into an Arris modem, through an Asus router and out to a 48 port netgear switch. From the switch I have a TP Link wifi access point (not pictured) centrally located in the house which seems to have enough range to handle all wifi duties. All stationary devices will be hard wired back to the switch.

The shelf will have a Pioneer network receiver which can connect to Airplay devices and will serve the front porch and rear patio speakers individually.

Still lots of cat6 cables to terminate and a good bit of tidying up to do but making good progress. I also plan to mount my Mac Mini and a NAS to act as a Plex server for all of my BD and DVD rips.

I've also run cat6 to the corners of the house in case I ever want to setup security cameras.

At this point I don't have any home automation or security system planned but have considered looking into it.

Anybody body else go to extremes with their wiring or have a panel to show off?

Overkill, yeah, but I decided I'd rather have too many than wish I'd added more. Had to take a break from it today but it was nice to spend our first Sunday afternoon watching tv in the new living room.

@Todd Anderson it's crossed my mind several times to start my own HT installation business. Who knows, maybe someday I'll offer my services for hire. Bit of a drive to DC but I could certainly make exceptions! I have family in MD, might be a good excuse to come visit.

Wayne A. Pflughaupt said:

If you have wi-fi, what’s all the Cat 5 for?

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Click to expand...

All stationary devices are hard wired. There are quite a few spares run for future expansion as well. Wifi is only for mobile phones and laptops, etc that don't have an Ethernet port.

Well I've run into a bit of a hurdle with my HDTV antenna. I installed my antenna up in the attic before the 2nd floor was finished, meaning it would be impossible to access it later. I tested it on a TV connected in the basement to make sure my aim was ok and signal was strong enough. All seemed a-ok and I figured I'd use an amplfied splitter to distribute it thoughout the house. I connected our living room TV Saturday night via the splitter as planned and all local channels came through, with one being slightly weak (enough to glitch regularly). Turned it on last night and got nothing on any channel. I tinkered with it today and added a 2nd TV to the mix in another room with similar results. I got a picture on a couple channels but very poor quality. I tried with and without the splitter, with and without signal amplifier, etc. at both locations. I'm thinking either the antenna/location is sensitive enough to environmental conditions that a difference in weather between saturday and sunday/today caused it to work vs. not work (OR) the signal loss/gain resulting from the combination length of cable runs and signal booster may be causing some channels to be overloaded while others are ok or marginal. I'd question the location of the antenna but i've had it work well on other occasions. What seems odd is that it seemed to work either nearly perfectly, or almost not at all. Got frustrated enough that I quit for the day and ate a donut.

Yeah... still scratching my head. On a positive note, the one channel that still came in clearly was the one my wife wanted to watch that evening, so at least for the time being I'm not getting any complaints. I'm going to tinker with it some more and see if it's a matter of reception or something within the signal chain. I'm dealing with some pretty long coax runs, which may be some of the issue. We shall see.

No real progress on the rest of the network since we're only really using wifi and one TV, all of which are functional. I'll eventually get my Mac mini up and running again with Plex server and maybe expand my network shared storage.