Shielded Ethernet Switch Recommendation

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but just wanted to mention that you should be careful with shielded ethernet cables. Ethernet is ground-isolated by design, which in our case is a good thing. Adding a shield, if it is connected at both ends, may give you a ground loop, which may create new problems at best, or be dangerous at worst.

I found that fiber is pretty cheap for small runs. You can isolate your ham gear from the rest of your network for under $100, including a pair of media converters, the necessary transceivers, and a length of fiber. That's the route I went, and it is of course immune to RF, ground loops, and surges.

Mike - What fiber to ethernet converters did you end up using in your setup? Thanks

I sold some surplus fiber gear a while ago after setting up my network. I did not think it necessary to have fiber gear that was all current technology (insert high price) and as such I looked for older commercial-grade equipment that was being swapped out by large companies and picked up several HP Procurve 2524 switches and some TrendNet TFC-1000MFC fiber converters. These use the older style SC type fiber connections. I successfully and easily set up fiber networking to the Flex equipment using either two of the TrendNet converters (one on each end) or the HP switch on one end and TrendNet converter on the other end.

The upside is you get very good commercial-grade equipment and the cost is very low. I did the entire setup for less than $75 including 100 feet of fiber cable. I just did a quick look on eBay and some of this exact equipment is still listed with prices for the converters around $20 and the HP switch for around $40. I see on Amazon that SC to SC fiber cable is about $50.

One thing I would mention if doing this now. At least a year or two has passed since I originally did the conversion and more modern gear for reasonable budget prices might have come out on the surplus market so you might benefit from doing some window shopping on eBay.

I am surprised that using the TP-Link power line devices didn't create noise on your HF frequencies. They certainly did here. So much so that I had to remove them and come up with another solution.

In case it's useful, I went with a pair of these: https://amazon.com/gp/product/B003CFATL0/ and https://amazon.com/gp/product/B003CFATYW/. That isolated the ham network segment nicely.

FWIW, even copper ethernet is supposed to be ground-isolated, though some manufacturers do not seem to know that. Sticking with reputable brands is key. I still would want surge protection, which I get for free with fiber, but I think ground loops shouldn't be an issue even with copper (unless you are using shielded cable, in which case you do need to design carefully and connect the shield only at one end).

@frc2302 Thank you for those pointers. Really, much appreciated.

I've gone ahead and ordered some of those TP-Link RJ45 to SFP converters that you suggested. I chose to go BiDi simplex single mode fiber, though (I bought these Ubiquity SFPs https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072FHMZHZ/).

We also agree on our choice of GBE switches. Long ago I standardized on HP ProCurve switches for both office and home use. When they no longer made those, I went on a long, error prone, sort of random-walk of the available switches. I finally arrived at the Netgear ProSAFE line of switches, and have now standardized on those (which are surprisingly good quality for the money).

For the benefit of anybody else who might be considering doing a fiber run to isolate their shack: After spending waaay too much time looking into this, I came to the conclusion that you really want to use armored LSZH fiber because it's far too easy to damage most non-armored cables (as you're pulling it through a wall, or even running it around you basement).

Again, @frc2302, thanks for your pointers.

Yeah, for ME, conduit isn't worth the effort for 30m runs in my basement (especially given that having conduit now creates the problem of actually pulling (or blowing) the fiber through the conduit). I found some awesome armored, pre-terminated, single mode armored cable on Amazon that's apparently made with ClearCurve LBL: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BP1Z6D8P -- Shockingly inexpensive, and definitely good stuff.

Oh, man. I feel sheepish.

A year after buying that Netgear switch, which runs on 9v, and the buck converter to go with it, I discovered that the SMC 8505T runs directly on 12v, and I already have two of them in my junk box. $20 on eBay if anyone else wants one!

(I'm not the seller. I'm keeping mine.)

Peter - in general, I share your paranoia; however, the SMC switch above is old and "dumb" (unmanaged, no connectivity of its own), so I doubt it's an exfil threat.