A cautionary tale with ferrite cores

Bob-N4HY

Ferrite Beads on gigabit ethernet cables are sometimes a disaster.  Even though they are twisted pairs, the ferrite bead was still enough to distort the pulses and cause regular failures.  Since I removed the core, I have not had a single failure in two days.

73s
Bob N4HY

Steve G1XOW

Bob, you may be right, but this is not my experience so far.

I have a 10M long CAT7 (flat) Ethernet cable with FT240-31 at each end, both have 10 turns, leaving about 6 metres I guess laying on the floor.

My radio is directly connected to the PC (no switch, no router), and is powered-up 24/7 for the past 10 months. SSDR has never reported a single dropped packet and the network shows as perfect.

Cheers,

Tim - W4TME

Back in the day when I was installing Ethernet networks in telco COs worldwide, the only time there were ferrite beads on Ethernet cables was when we were using shielded twisted pair.  These were custom made cables, with the shield bond broken at one end to prevent ground loops and the ferrite core molded into the cable jacket.  The mix was unknown (I asked).

DaveC

Tim,

 just look at specs and data sheet. What is the Ethernet spec as far as data rate?

EA4GLI

Thanks Bob for pointing this out.... I think I had a couple of ferrite cores on an ethernet cable at some point but removed them... never realizing that it could have been affecting performance in a detrimental way.

Tim - W4TME

The issue is not the frequency that the Ethernet cable was operating at, but the stray RF frequencies the engineers wanted to attenuate getting into the telco switches.

Randy

I am using shielded cables without a ferrite core with no problem.  Before I used a Cat 5 cable I made with a ferrite core an no problem either.  Remember when you wind the UTP around a core, do not do it tightly because it will cause a stagger in the pairs which can induce crosstalk.

DaveC

Not what was asking, Sorry. what is the minimum Ethernet bit rate you can use with a 6x00 radio?
10mb, 100mb ?

Jay Nation

Dave

I'm not official!

But 100mb, ought to work ok. 
I've been using my Maestro for a few weeks and haven't noticed the data rate ever exceeding 3mb. 
Even with 2 active slices and the display refresh rate maxed and display averaging minimized.
I described it as "ought" because 802.11n, and ac, both increase the data rates, and also are improvements on the older 802.11g standard.
I don't have any 10mb/10BASE-T equipment left to try 10mb with.

If anyone's tried it with 10mb/10BASE-T, I'd also like to know how well it worked.

73, Jay - NO5J

Tim - W4TME

You can run SmartSDR over 10 Mb, but you don't have a lot of headroom for streaming lots of other data, like DAXIQ, DAX and REMOTE audio.   Especially if you are running in half duplex mode.  I recommend that 100 Mb Ethernet be the minimum used.  The radio will auto-negotiate to GigE speeds and using that provides a LOT of additional headroom.

DaveC

Thanks Tim good to know. I appreciate all you do for us hacks TNX

Bob-N4HY

Well it appears YMMV. Maybe I have a cheap short run of cable. At 1 Gbps, I was a numbskull for not thinking. I took it off and replace the cable with high quality shielded cat5 and I now have a Faraday cage instead of a ferro magnetic shield. Doh! I know better.

Patrick

Tim, right on, I was going to comment about shielding also. One added precaution is to rout the Ethernet as far as possible from RF sources and cables.

DaveC

Jay/N05J

Thanks for input!

k3Tim

another data point - noticed today an army of ants marching along the ethernet cable - no effect on the signal integrity.. 

k3Tim

Tim - W4TME

They probably were not wearing tiny little steel toed boots either :-D

Wayne VK4ACN

Tim Just be wary of ants in the shack. I had random black ants wandering on desk for months. Got tired of them so i traced them. They were going into back of Ftdx5000. So i opened it up and was a nest. Thousands of them and eggs. Took it outside lightly sprayed with Baygon. Under a metal shield i removed there were heaps more. Fortunately they hadnt done damage to the transceiver. So track them 73 Wayne Ps at least they were black ants and not white ants (termites)

Jim Youngquist

We have a 140 ft tower, with a switch at the bottom and internet radios at the top.  in the middle is a low power FM repeater.  all the cables go up the center of the tower and are about 25 ft away from the fm antenna.  of the 13 shielded cat6 cables, 7 of them start out at 1G speeds and then fall off to 100M after a short while.  the other 6 stick and stay at 1G.  some techs have said it is the fm interference and that ferrite cores would resolve the problem.  opinions?

K1UO Larry

Hi Tim,  I never ran into you here in Maine but years ago I asked the same question to the Bell Labs Engineers as to what the mix was on the rfi/emi cores.   I suspect it was material designed for the very high end of the radio spectrum where many of the variousTelco systems carrier and radio operated.

KD0RC

When it comes to RFI, there is no telling...  Ferrites are a pretty cheap way to try and see.  If they don't work, you are not out much - a few bucks and a tower climb.
73,
Len, KD0RC

Stan VA7NF

At these frequencies DO NOT wrap the cable around the ferrite - The capacitance between the windings introduces problems.  Use several small unwrapped beads.  This applies to 50Mhz and above, including coax, even if double shielded