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From: doug@psy.uwa.oz.au (Doug Robb)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: how to connect thin wire segements to thick wire backbone
Summary: need to connect thin wire segments to thick wire backbone
Keywords: ethernet thick and thin wire connections
Message-ID: <1991May13.085357.4785@uniwa.uwa.oz>
Date: 13 May 91 08:53:57 GMT
Sender: news@uniwa.uwa.oz (USENET News System)
Distribution: comp
Organization: University of Western Australia
Lines: 40
Nntp-Posting-Host: wapsy.psy.uwa.oz.au


A friend of mine works in a building that has two segments
of thin wire ether-net on each floor (there are 3 floors)
and a thick wire ethernet running up the riser between
floors. Each thin wire segment runs back to the riser on
each floor. What he would like to know is what needs to be done
to make this cabling functional and the likely cost. 

              (thin)                   (thin)
floor 1 -------------------1 ||    --------------2
                             || T
floor 2 -------------------1 || H  --------------2
                             || I
floor 3 -------------------1 || C  --------------2
                             || K

Can anybody add anything to my suggestions below?

1.  terminate each end of the thick wire (cost?)

2.  terminate the ends of each thin wire segment with bnc connectors
     (cost = 6 x a few dollars )

3.  for each thin wire tap into the thick wire backbone you
    would need a transceiver. Cost ( 6 x $300 to $400 dollars?)

4.  Now the bit I'm not sure of. On each floor one could run
   a drop cable to a multiport repeater (eg dempr) and simply
   plug the two segments into the repeater. But the only demprs
   I've seen have eight ports (to run up to 8 segments) so this 
    would seem to be an over kill especially when multiport repeaters
	are about $A4,000 each last time we got one. Are there multiport
    repeaters for 2 or 4 segments? What do they cost?

    Or am I barking up the wrong tree altogether, is there 
	a better way to connect each thin wire segment to the
    thick wire?  Do I need any more hardware? 

Thanks,
doug@psy.uwa.oz.au