[RFI] Xfinity X1 service

[Roger (K8RI)]

Sorry I didn't answer this sooner.

You have to ask them as I don't see it listed either.  I even receive 
adds for packages with "starting at"  60 some Mbs.  We have the basic 
high speed internet plus the "Internet Ultra 100 upgrade".  The upgrade 
costs more than the 60 Mbs package.

I received a phone call saying I was exceeding the "average" amount 
downloaded for my tier.  I had never seen a limit posted, so never paid 
attention. They mentioned several packages with higher speeds and no 
limits.  I said I'd be happy to purchase a higher speed package with no 
limits  One was a 100 Mbs. They have higher speed commercial packages, 
but those get a bit pricey.  I don't remember the upload speed limit, 
but it is less than 100 Mbs.  It's enough to allow streaming video and 
gaming at the same time.

In this small den (converted small bedroom) I have rigs that cover 1.8 
through 440 MHz.  Only 220 MHz is missing. My HF  amp can run the legal 
limit, any mode, no time limit.  The shop is 28 X 40 feet and it's much 
more comfortable to operate out there.  Quieter too.  But there are 3 
130' runs of CAT-5 from the switch to the shop.  The rigs out there also 
hook to the computers with a setup similar to the den, only the amps 
don't have quite as much muscle.  They'd struggle to make 1500 PEP  and 
are more comfortable at 1KW and 1.2 KW.

No interaction between the CAT-5 Gigabit network, multi band wireless, 
and the two stations has been detected.   I do have 2 common mode chokes 
in the coax to the 75 meter, half wave, center fed, sloping fan dipole. 
One st the feed point and one where the coax reaches the tower.  I have 
taken no additional measures to prevent RFI.  OTOH I need to say that 
none of the computer parts, from the heavy steel cases to the large 
power supplies are typical of computer sold at big box stores.

Running with the station wiring is the RG6 to the cable modem, the CAT-5 
jumper to the router setting on the dummy load which sets on the line 
tuner. I use a Alpha Delta coax switch to select the antennas or the 
AIM.  This prevents running power into the AIM. There are two serial 
cables from the main rig to the com ports. (If you build them, many 
motherboards have com ports resident)  In addition there are 2 full size 
steel tower cases (Weigh 30# empty) with state of the art computers 
running 4.1 and 4.7 GHz on 8 core CPUs.  One with 16 GB and one with 32 
GB of DDR3 RAM plus two 4 bay servers on CAT-5
In addition to the HF transceiver (FT5000MP) being directly connected to 
the computers, they are physically close at 3 to 5 feet.

If I set the 2-meter HT directly on top of the one computer, it will 
occasionally break the squelch, but even lifting the HT an inch and the 
computer can not be heard.  The spectrum analyzer has to make close 
contact to the steel case to detect any signals which are very weak. (IE 
a foot or so, of wire within about an inch of the case)

HOWEVER lightening got into the CAT-5 network last summer. (I don't 
think it was a direct hit) IIRC It took out the router, 8 port switch 3 
NICs and one motherboard. No immediate damage to the rigs although I had 
a duoband 144/440 Diamond antenna fail around that time.  As solid state 
components can be "hurt" and not immediately fail, I'm not sure if I 
have seen the last of it.

The computers in the shop are going wireless to get rid of those three 
130' long, CAT-5 lightening catchers.

73

Roger  (K8RI)

On 6/27/2015 11:11 PM, Alan NV8A wrote:
> Roger:
>
> We have Charter -- with a plan that "guarantees" 18Mbps down and often 
> far exceeds it, but still offers only 4Mbps up and usually exceeds it 
> by just a smidgen. I see Charter advertising only 66Mbps down and 
> 4Mbps up for their "Business" service. How do you have a 100Mbps 
> download service with Charter, and what is your upload speed?
>
> (Our son's Internet service in VK3 is 100Mbps up *and* down.)
>
> 73
>
> Alan NV8A
>
>
> On 06/27/2015 10:19 PM, Roger (K8RI) wrote:
>> I know it's a different cable co, but I have 100 Mbps with Charter and
>> it actually delivers that and more..."sometimes"!  Emphasis on the
>> "sometimes"  <:-))
>>
>> As was mentioned earlier, the speed varies with load.  I've seen 103
>> Mbps downloads in the wee hours. I've also had problems viewing
>> streaming video from the Wx Channel in the evening and that is no where
>> near the 103 Mbps.  I have a subscription to a great weather service
>> (Weather Tap), which was really nice for storm chasing with NEXRAD RADAR
>> as near as possible to real time displays. (it takes several minutes to
>> build the images from multiple returns so "real time" is not possible)
>> but in the last year, the load had increased at various nodes to the
>> point of that service becoming useless.  Use tracert (service name or
>> IP) to see all the hops the signal takes and the time at each hop from
>> you to the service.
>>
>> For example open the command prompt window and simply type in "tracert
>> ARRL.com" (without the quotes) Leave a space after tracert.   I get 16
>> hops with 3 timed out. It starts with "Tracing route to arrl.com
>> [184.106.62.251] over a maximum of 30 hops". Most are less than 25 ms,
>> but there were also 25, 24, and 27 ms hops.  Do this at 7:00 PM and
>> again before you go to bed unless that is around 9:00.  Try to do this
>> every 3 or 4 hours around the clock, mid week and week ends. You should
>> see some major differences between between the time when kids get home
>> from school, prime time, late hours and early morning. As was said
>> before, there will be bottlenecks somewhere.  It can be your service,
>> IP, or some other node, or nodes.
>>
>> When I first went to the 100Mbs it was great, but it also shares the
>> same cable with all the other subscribers of many speeds and many are
>> now opting for the 100 Mbs service with no download limit.  I have never
>> seen providers with Gbps offerings.  Gbps = Giga bits per second, or
>> 1000 Mbps  (1 Gbps = 1000 Megabytes per second)
>>
>> Please note the lower case b (Mbs) means bits while the upper case B
>> (MBs) means bytes.  These are often displayed as (Mbps) and (MBps). One
>> byte = 8 bits.
>>
>> 73
>>
>> Roger  (K8RI)
>
>
>


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