The Civil Engineering version of this is SWER electrical distribution. Single-Wire, Earth-Return. And it’s as crazy in implementation as it sounds now. -Ben Cannon CEO 6x7 Networks & 6x7 Telecom, LLC ben@6by7.net <mailto:ben@6by7.net>
On Jan 25, 2020, at 8:24 AM, Allen McKinley Kitchen (gmail) <allenmckinleykitchen@gmail.com> wrote:
On Jan 25, 2020, at 08:52, Paul Nash <paul@nashnetworks.ca> wrote:
So, I grew up in South Africa, and one of the more fascinating / cooler things I saw was a modem which would get you ~50bps (bps, not Kbps) over a single strand of barbed wire -- you'd hammer a largish nail into the ground, and clip one alligator[0] clip onto that, and another alligator clip onto the barbed wire. Repeat the process on the other side (up to ~5km away), plug the modems in, and bits would flow... I only saw these used a few times, but always thought they were cool….
Do you remember anything about the actual type of modem? Or where you deployed them?
Decades ago, I cobbled together a 20mA current loop interface that may have been an early version of this .. ran a set of Baudot machines (pre-ASCII, upper case & figs only) mostly just to have fun with a set of old ASR 32 teletypes. I used a couple of 500’ spools of zip cord lying on the ground from end to end. Never mind backhoes - it was lawn-mower vulnerable. (However, being flat on the ground seemingly made it less vulnerable to lightning strikes.)
Of course, this was hardly critical infrastructure!
Blessings..
Allen