5000' ethernet?

[David Kelly]

Not directly FreeBSD related, but how much of a chance is there that two
machines could communicate directly over 5,000 feet of cat5 with no
special hardware?

IIRC the classic ethernet problem limiting the distance between the
farthest points on a network had to do with timing and collisions. If
these two NICs are configured full duplex then it seems one would have
no idea how far away the other was due to timing issues.

100baseT uses lower power drivers than 10baseT, so perhaps 10baseT would
work better.

In any case, have boxes of cat5 on order so as to find out myself.

Are there any particular range extenders you have used and would
recommend for making this task a sure thing on the first try? Perhaps I
should put an inexpensive ethernet switch at each junction to serve as a
regenerative repeater?

-- 
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly at HiWAAY.net
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Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.