[ih] Fwd: Packet Radio Info (lossiness of Ethernet)

[Alexander Schreiber]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2026 at 05:52:27PM -0600, Craig Partridge via Internet-history wrote:
> My favorite Ethernet coax disaster was a friend who managed a network, I
> believe at Northeastern, where they had much higher packet loss.  After a
> few days they discovered a section of coax (with unrepaired tap holes) had
> been reused to extend the coax through a janitor's closet -- and the
> cleaning product fumes had caused wonderful copper+[something] crystals to
> form in the coax.

During university, I was part of the group that ran the dormitory networks.
That was quite a learning experience. The fun things we saw with coax
Ethernet (10Base-2) e.g.:
 - New student moves into their room, gets handed a short coax connector
   cable to wire their machine into the network, shortly after, that
   segment fails. Analyzer claims the segment (which was slightly over
   the length limit before) is now way beyond the length limit. WAT?
   Visit that students room: Instead of the short connector cable, they
   had used a IIRC 50m roll (why they even had that was unclear) of
   coax for that purpose. That was unplugged and replaced with the short
   connector cable, segment works again.
 - Suddenly, one coax segment becomes intermittently unreliable. We
   eventually discover one student using the coax cable in their room
   as a clothes line. The resulting variable mechanical load made
   for ... variably well working connectors. After some educational
   talking to, that problem disappeared.a
 - Removing the terminator when you leave for semester holidays (because
   "obviously" it's yours (no, it's not) so you take it home with you)
   will not improve your popularity with your fellow segment dwellers.

Lots of shenanigans ...

Kind regards,
           Alex.
-- 
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
 looks like work."                                      -- Thomas A. Edison