Wireless Intercom - Retrofit solutions

The other day I had a request to install an intercom system in a house with two levels, and it had
not been pre-wired for it. So I had to do a little digging.

I found a Wireless Intercom, with flush mount wall units that gave a nice professional appearance, from www.catchacall.com. they also have desk units that have a room monitoring built-in. they all run on batteries, so no wiring needed at all. However there is one weakness
If you have a small child, or toddler that you would like to monitor their room, you have to use a portable unit which means they can run off with it.

The device is clean and simple, and easily installed. However when I called their support line prior to the purchase, and asked if the wall units could be "monitored" I was told quite incorrectly that they could be. Apparently my english wasn't well understood. Because after
buying over $600.00 dollars of product I had not met my customers needs. and had to put out another $150.00 to make my company look good.

So great product but it does have limitations.

Cheers,
Meshak

Share your phone and network connection on one Cat5e

I recently had a call from a new home-owner who's 7,000 Sqft House was only wired with one cat5, and one coax in most locations, the most amazing part of it, was that his home office, only had one location with a cat5 cable ran to it.

To make matters worse, he wanted three computers hooked up to the network throughout the house, the Communications closet was in the basement, and the house has three stories. So wireless would have been an expensive proposition.

Fortunately just recently, Onq/Greyfox was able to help me out. They now have a Phone/Network Retro-fit Module, it allows you to split out a cat5 cable to support 1 network connection and two phone lines per module.

I was able to simply punch-down the cat5 cables in the comm closet, and use two keystone inserts, and a 2 hole keystone plate, to and split out the orange and green, to one insert, and the brown blue, to the other insert.

the Retro-fit module has switches on it, that allow you to select what "line" (in case you have more then 2 lines in the house) you want the brown pair to be, you can have the teenager line going to their computer, while the fax line can be sent to the office. And the main line is maintained on the blue pair.

If you want to get really tricky you don't need their module to accomplish all this, but it definitely cuts down on labor.

Cat5 Cable can save you from cabling disasters

Have you ever had a network cable go bad in a residence or business that is all but impossible to re-run, I have.. have you ever wondered just what you can do to resolve the issue while seeming like a magician to your customer.

say your green pair has a short or cut in it, but your blue, orange, and brown pair are still intact.

A simple rewire job on either end will solve the problem.

Punchdown the Cat5e Keystone jack with the brown pair where the green pair used to reside.

Back at the patch panel do the same.

If it's in a residence where they have put rj45 tips on the end of cable, simple re-tip it in the following configuration.

brown white/brown,orange white,blue,blue/white,orange,(do whatever with the green) doesn't matter.