I dropped in on my mate Stuart today and noticed an old Cisco Catalyst 1900 switch in his study. The he showed me what he was really using it for – a signal booster for his DVB-T digital TV signal. It seemed to work a treat with the magnetic aerial stuck on the side!
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5 Comments
Hi Mark, I’m intrigued by this, and not being a networking guru I’m wondering how this works?
Cheers,
Jim
Hi Mark, I’m intruiged by this, not being a networking guru, I’m wondering how this is working… Is the switch just treating the TV signal as it would an ethernet signal & boosting it?
Cheers,
Jim
Hi Jim,
I’m not really a networks or electronics guru myself but I figure that the small magnetic aerial was effectively being extended by the big metal box full of electronics that it had been stuck on the side of. The switch was actually just sitting there doing nothing – the TV signal itself wasn’t cabled through it and I don’t even think the power was on but it made a huge difference from the point of view of increasing the signal strength!
Mark
Thanks for the reply Mark… I see now, the aerial is just on the side!!! So the switch was acting as an aerial as well….
Absolutely – sorry I wasn’t clearer in my original description.