"Martin Pentreath" wrote in message
om...
I'm in the awkward process of trying to get cat5 cable through my
victorian terrace (seems funny to be laying this stuff alongside
long-defunct gaslight piping)...

Me too. :-)

At the moment I have some points where the cat5 cable emerges into the
same double patress box as mains electricity...

Personally I wouldn't do this, for safety reasons.

...On a similar note there are places where the cable run through a void
will be very difficult unless I run it for a short distance alongside
a mains cable...

I would even avoid this. I've had to reroute one such cable because of hum
(floorboards up again!).

The problem is, UK phone extensions use three wires and are therefore not
fully "balanced", which makes them susceptible to crosstalk. You can solve
this by running only two wires and fitting a "PBX master" at the end to
generate the third, but this adds extra capacitance which can affect
performance (and be detected at the exchange). Having said all that, such
effects are slight and you won't notice any problems in the majority of
installations.

Finally at the moment I have cat5 cables festooned around the cellar.
I have an itching urge to clip them to the overhead joists but I know
this is a no-no and I should be using trays. Will it really make that
much difference if I clip them ever-so-gently?

Not as long as you avoid compressing the cable. Also remember to avoid sharp
bends.

My final tip is to pull plenty of cables now so you won't have to do the job
again (even if you don't provide sockets for them all). I've pulled three
CAT5 (one for phone, one for ethernet, one spare) and TV coax to each room
in the house that might get used as a "study" and de-squeaked floorboards
while I was at it. Oh, and don't put the pattresses too close together - I
bought some brass TV and phone faceplates and found they were bigger than
the normal plastic ones and wouldn't fit!

--
Phil McKerracher
www.mckerracher.org