Bizarre use for old networking hardware

This content is 17 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

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!

5 thoughts on “Bizarre use for old networking hardware

  1. Hi Mark, I’m intrigued by this, and not being a networking guru I’m wondering how this works?

    Cheers,
    Jim

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. 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….

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.