Hi all,
This is my new little project, to determine if a home made lead can help improve ADSL performance on marginal lines.
We have all seen the RJ11 leads bundled with routers, they tend to be 2 core or 4 core flat leads, anything from 1 to 2 metres long. Unfortunately this type of lead isn't really ideal for ADSL, or at least is no help on long, marginal lines.
In the past I tried a belkin hi-speed shielded lead, but this was very springy, cumbersome etc and made cable management very difficult. In more recent times with the Home Hub, I swapped out a shortened flat lead for a twisted pair one and the sync speed was improved by around 200-300k when it resynced.
Until now I have used a shortened flat lead, where I cut off a BT connector and crimped on an RJ-45 lead. Since the router was right beside the NTE5 faceplate this seemed like a plan.
Now I have received a new RJ11/RJ12 crimp tool and some connectors so plan to do a few custom leads.
For my first trial I have taken a piece of CW1308 twisted pair cable, about 40cm in length, pulled out the wires and just slipped the blue pair back into the sheath.
(you could wire it 4 core with RJ-11 connectors or 6 core with RJ-12 connectors but I am not sure on wiring configurations for RJ connectors, especially when you compare both ends)
Then I crimped some connectors onto the blue pair. Mimicking other leads I have seen I swapped the pair over at one end of the cable.
I have proved the lead works fine using a phone but have yet to try get the DSL down it (everyone being online and that).
Cable was proved using PSTN socket > RJ-11 adapter > RJ-11 lead > RJ coupler > US to UK phone adapter > phone
Hopefully will see a sync increase. Using Linksys WAG354G at the moment, it works again now.
Just need to wait til the folks are offline.
Be interesting to see if it does work. It is such an easy thing to do, took about two minutes. You have to wonder why manufacturers dont supply twisted cables. This one is very flexible, very almost like flat cable with only a single pair inside the sheath.
*EDIT*
- It seems regular 6 core twisted pair cable doesn't actually fit into the RJ11 or RJ12 connectors. The cable is two fat.
4 pair twisted does fit.
- the use of a butt phone reveals that actually swapping the pair at one connector reverses the polarity whereas if the connectors are wired identically at each end there are kept straight
- on swapping the leads over the sync rate remains the same however downstream margin has increased by 1dB. I expect on a longer lead there might be a more noticable difference.