Strange Question

[Richard Harris]

Hi,
Ive seen something somewhere that you can send data through your AC outlets
in your house from one to another. Is this possible and how does it work.
Seems very strange.

Thanks.

 

[Larry Brasfield]

Hi, Hi.

Ive seen something somewhere that you can send data through your AC outlets
in your house from one to another. Is this possible and how does it work.
Seems very strange.

I've worked on a system that sends data through 4 miles
of cable, along with AC power. A phase-shift modulated
carrier, at a frequency much higher than the AC power
frequency and its harmonics is used. The tradeoff is
between loss, which goes up with frequency, and noise
from other circuits, which show up at lower frequency.

 

[Joel Kolstad]

Hi,
Ive seen something somewhere that you can send data through your AC
outlets
in your house from one to another. Is this possible and how does it work.
Seems very strange.

Nah, it's just that you're only used to 'seeing' 60Hz show up on your power
lines. Think about DSL phone lines... there's some signals (low frequency)
used both to carrier voice and power the phone, and there's other signals
(high frequencies) that carry the DSL data signals.

Signaling over power lines is very similar. The very popular X-10 series of
products places 100kHz 'bursts' on the line to transfer data. There's
also... what are they called... 'power line networking' products that take a
large frequency range, and, combined with fancy signaling methods, get you
upwards of 10Mbps of digital data over the phone lines.

Of course, power lines are _optimized_ to carry power at 60Hz... and lots of
it. But fundamentally a transmission line is a transmission line, and many
different signals can be carried on it simultaneously.

 

[Bill Carson]

Hi,
Ive seen something somewhere that you can send data through your AC outlets
in your house from one to another. Is this possible and how does it work.
Seems very strange.

Yes, it is quite feasible and is being used in some cases as an alternative
to
standard network wiring. For instance:

See the powerline products at this site:
http://www.efficient.com/subscriber_networks/homenetworking.shtml

See the initiative at this site:
http://www.homeplug.com/en/index.asp

or just plug: powerline network into Google and read till the cows come
home.

HTH

B.C.