Networking wireless microphones

[hyperbuddha]

Back to school, back to CB.

I have 12 Audio technica 5000 series mics.

I am looking at putting them all on the same network so that I can manage their status from a computer.

The question I have is will a switch work for this task.

I dont have a hub with enough ports and I need a solution. Any recommendations?

 

[FMEng]

Any hub or switch will work. You just have to manually assign private, fixed IP addresses to the computer and the receivers, along with an appropriate subnet.

 

[Chris15]

Yeah a switch will work fine. The interfaces on the receivers appear to be only 10 Base T so there will be no real performance gain in going to a switch.
You may also look into linking receivers via their link ports as a means of reducing the number of ethernet connections needed.

 

[epimetheus]

In this day and age, hub should be stricken from our vocabulary. There is no reason you should not be using a switch for any new networking install. An ultra tight budget might be the only excuse, and that's only assuming you already have a hub. Can you even buy new hubs?

 

[fredthe]

In this day and age, hub should be stricken from our vocabulary.

I have to disagree with this as a blanket statement, as there are times when a hub can be useful, and a switch won't work.

However, for the casual user, switches are just a modern version of hubs, and can usually be freely used even when the (old) documentation calls for hubs.

-Fred

 

[Chris15]

I have to disagree with this as a blanket statement, as there are times when a hub can be useful, and a switch won't work.

However, for the casual user, switches are just a modern version of hubs, and can usually be freely used even when the (old) documentation calls for hubs.

-Fred

Beyond certain instances in dealing with layer 1 ethernet protocols, for the most part a managed switch has the ability to provide the functiuonality of a hub as needed through port mirroring, no?

 

[epimetheus]

I have to disagree with this as a blanket statement, as there are times when a hub can be useful, and a switch won't work.

However, for the casual user, switches are just a modern version of hubs, and can usually be freely used even when the (old) documentation calls for hubs.

-Fred

Could you explain further, perhaps an example of a situation where a hub would be appropriate over a switch? I'm no IT expert, but as I understand it, an advantage of a hub would be that it does no processing, therefore there is no delay in transmitting information to all connected devices. I'm truly curious here as up until now it has been my understanding that hubs are essentially a history lesson.

 

[fredthe]

Beyond certain instances in dealing with layer 1 ethernet protocols, for the most part a managed switch has the ability to provide the functiuonality of a hub as needed through port mirroring, no?

Yes, if it is a managed switch. However, not all switches are managed.

The specific example I was thinking of is troubleshooting/packet capture of traffic between two devices. It's quick to insert a hub between them, and use a 3rd port for monitoring. A switch either won't do this at all, or requires specific configuration. (I keep a couple of old hubs around for just this purpose.)

-Fred

 

[BillESC]

As long as the switch is DHCP, it will work fine

 

[Chris15]

Not sure I'm seeing how DHCP plays into the switch. A switch that's a DHCP client is generally a managed switch, one that's a DHCP server is more likely to be a router. In any case, static IPs and a bog standard switch should work...

 

[g15]

There's really no such thing as a "DHCP Switch". Some Cisco hardware will let you run a DHCP server on a switch but that's about it. Unless you have an overwhelming desire/need to blast traffic over your network then go with a switch. It'll do exactly what you want.

As long as you are using a managed switch, there is no reason to use a hub. For anyone who doesn't know, here's the difference: with a hub, you send data in, and it sends that same data out over ALL the other ports. It's similar to a DMX splitter. With a switch however, the data is directed to the correct port. When one device wants to "talk" to another, the switch looks up what port that device is on and directs the traffic accordingly. Because of this, collisions are reduced when using switches. However, having been in a situation where a managed devices was out of the question, I have used unmanaged switches and a hub to emulate port spanning. But overall it's not really that practical.

For anyone who got lost there, think of it like this. A hub is like a clear com system. One person talk and everyone else hears it, even if that person wasn't really talking to them. A switch is like a telephone switchboard operator. It makes a temporary connection with the other end, and then breaks that connection when it's done.

A situation where you MIGHT want a hub over a switch is when you want to monitor traffic across a network, when using a program such as Wireshark or if you are deploying a web filtering solution.

Sorry that this post is like all over the place. It's late and I'm just spewing thoughts everywhere. Maybe I'll edit this in the morning when I'm not delirious...

-Danny