K1TTT Technical Reference

A year or so ago there was an Ethernet thread on the reflector.
As I remember, folks thought it a good idea, but lack of 
software and price were issues.

I got a flyer from a company thats selling ISA Ethernet adapters
for $19.99. This seemed too low to be real (+/- $100 seems to be
the going rate) so I ordered one. It comes with drivers for
(among other OS's) Windows 3.11 and Windows 95. I pulled the 3COM
board ($110 last year) out of one of my PCs and put in
the AXEL SN2000, booted up each OS in turn, loaded the drivers,
and confirmed that my software (along with print and file sharing,
etc.) was still happy. It wasn't as easy to configure as the
3COM (you must use a DOS utility to set up an on board EPROM
and then set your drivers to match--the 3com was purely
automatic) and maybe there's a performance difference, but it
looks to me like a perfectly adequate networking card for
radio contesting networks. It only runs about 3 orders of
magnitude faster than our beloved COMM port nets.

The source (and I DO NOT HAVE ANY AFFILIATION WITH THIS
COMPANY--I just happen to have found out they exist) is:

DataCom Mall
http://www.datacom-mall.com 

part #81585 Ethernet combo card 10base/T-BNC  $19.95
1-800-898-DATA

I places my order on the WEB on Sunday evening and received
the part Tuesday.

For those not familiar with Ethernet, a couple of background
facts:
1. Ethernet's base signaling rate is 10MBbs-- 1000 times faster
than 9600baud.
2. Most offices in the world have multiple computers and this
is the way they are interconnected 99.99% of the time. (that is,
ham-style COMM port networking is not used in the business 
world).
3. Ham contesting software doesn't use Ethernet. My own
(free ware) software is an exception. Check out:
        http://people.delphi.com/w5xd/writelog.html
or call your friendly neighborhood ham contesting
software vendor and ask for Ethernet support.
4. The boards and my software aren't quite enough. You
need the interconnecting wires. You have choices. These
boards support BNC connections, which means you need
two 50 ohm terminators, two BNC T's (included with the
boards), and RG-58 between them. The other choice is
a twisted pair connection, but this requires a device
called a hub between them.

Some questions:
1. Does anyone know of a chat program for Windows 95? The
one for 3.11 doesn't work on '95 and I haven't found a new one.
2. The network in my shack is RG-58. I notice that 10baseT 
hubs are down to $50.00 or so. What's the right way to
wire a shack these days? I've never gotten RF into (or out of)
my RG-58 but (I'm ashamed to admit) my on-the-air time has
been too limited to say for sure that its interference-free.
3. I haven't priced serial boards with IRQ's above 8. Are
there boards at $20.00 like this one?

Replies to ME please, and, if there's interest, I'll
summarize.

73,
Wayne, W5XD
w5xd@delphi.com