One of the enhancements to the building that we decided to perform as part of the restroom renovation project was to install four additional network drops. The Sanctuary building was never originally hard-wired for networking, having been constructed in the 1986-1987 time frame. We added a basic wired Internet connection from the Multi-Ministries Building in 2014, but this was only to the west end of the Sanctuary and west wall of the Youth Room. Our plan is to add two hard-wired network drops in the Nursery, one in the Narthex and one on the east wall of the Youth Room.
The additional network wiring apparently began late in the day of May 12, 2021. We noticed that the 2014 network drop at the west end of the Youth Room was cut at the wall jack and used as a pull-string up the west wall of the Youth Room into the attic. The way we found out about this was that the Youth Room computer suddenly went offline. Later we found two boxes of Cat 6 network cable in the Nursery. The network crew had gotten in ahead of the drywall crew to get their preparations in order.
On May 13,2021, Paul, the ITee Guy, was onsite again to continue the installation. We briefly reviewed drop locations for the 4 new lines and a line routing issue in the Nursery which may involve a wall or ceiling cut, which was authorized. We can easily patch the wall and ceiling. They are going to be repainted anyway! Paul stayed on the job until early evening and finished installing all four of the additional network drops. Once the walls are installed, he can come back and finish with the faceplates.
On May 26, the installer enlarged the small cable holes made by the drywallers into a rectangular shape and installed metal anchor frames for the five new wall jack plates. This was just in time before the drywall tape & float crew came in.
On June 4, the drywall guy finished off the NW corner of the Sanctuary filling in the doorway to the Storage Room and installing a drywall panel with holes for the duplex electrical outlet, network and A/V cables to the Sound Booth and network wall jack and faceplate.
On June 23, the drywall had been finished and painted, so Neil Howard, our LAN Administrator, installed a wooden panel for mounting the network equipment (switch and fiber box) in the Sanctuary. The painter obliged our request by painting the wooden panel to match the NW corner wall, more Accessible Beige. He took the opportunity to run a loopback test on the switch to make sure the two fiber ports were communicating on the switch itself. We are still diagnosing an “open” in the fiber line between the buildings. The two copper Cat 5e lines between the buildings are working fine. The equipment will be mounted on the panel tomorrow after the paint has dried.
On June 24, Neil Howard installed the network equipment and wiring in the NW corner of the Sanctuary. A fiber box, 10-port switch and power supply were attached to the wooden panel and connected up to the incoming fiber and Cat5e network cable. Our Netgear Nighthawk R7000 wireless access point (WAP) was installed on top of the speaker in the RH corner shelf and connected to the switch. The only remaining work is to install and paint some surface mount plastic channel to hide the power and network wires going up the wall to the WAP and provide a 36″ x 5″ curtain rod and 40″ long curtain (by Jane Howard) to hide the installation from view during worship services.
On June 25, Paul the network sub from Qual-Con, was again onsite to finish the faceplates, testing and labeling of the additional network drops he had installed back in May. He did a nice job. Now we have four additional network drops in the Sanctuary building. This is working out well in the Youth Room since Suzette is moving her office there. Now she has a place to plug in her computer!
On June 29, Neil Howard finished the wiring in the NW corner of the Sanctuary. After installing the surface mount channel to hide the wires, he first painted the channel the color of the Youth Room. Oops! The second coat was the correct color, Accessible Beige. Looks lots better now.
Although technically it was part of a completely separate networking project, we finally got the single pair fiber optic connection between the Sanctuary Building and the MMB established today. Art, from Cable Comm Inc., came by to troubleshoot. He determined that Neil had the patch cable ends reversed. Plugging them in the correct way immediately lighted up the fiber connection between the two buildings. We tested the Sanctuary bandwidth at 234 Mbps, the full bandwidth we have from Spectrum, and something that we have never been able to obtain in the Nave since the lines were first installed 2014. Yea!
On July 9, Neil and Jane Howard installed a small curtain (referenced above) to hide the NW Sanctuary corner equipment from view during worship services.
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