From: John Tserkezis 
Reply-To: Fidonet AVtech Echo 

Bob Lawrence wrote:

> JT> In theory, cable length should not be an issue (aside perhaps
> JT> from degraded signal strength by the time you get to the end of
> JT> that 300 metre stretch), although I've seen some cards have a
> JT> _minimum_ cable specification (about two metres if I recall).
> 
>  Minimum?

  I remember reading some specs on the old NE1000 cards, they did indeed have a 
minimum cable length.

>  No... that's the *ideal* situation. In reality, half is good
> enough, as long as it's terminated on *one* end.

  I've never _intentionally_ tried it with long cable runs.  My only experience 
with long runs (100m or so) was where I worked, and that was when the network 
fell over and we had to find the break.  I had never found the break at an end, 
so never found out if any cards still work (at either end) of a 100m+ length cable.

  It was some dickhead salesperson in the middle of the run that says "oh yeah, 
I've been meaning to tell you about that ages ago" right after I spent half the 
bloody day finding it.
  Though, from memory, those long runs may not have always _absolutely_ brought 
that segment down, but sometimes effectively slowed things down to a useless 
crawl.  Meaning at least some of the cards (can't remember where) worked in a 
partial manner.

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