Technical Support Help

L-com's Technical Support (customerservice@L-com.com)

I've worked in L-com's Tech Support for a few years now and we've seen a lot of the same questions asked over and over. For that reason, we're creating a "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) section of our web site! We're adding questions as they come to us, but please help us out by letting us know your favorite questions about connectivity, signal technology, or L-com itself.

We will keep putting questions up and, soon, modify our site search so you can easily search those questions for answers. That's not to say we don't want you to call us anymore! There's no way we can put down every single question someone might ask, and, truth be told, we really like working with our customers to help them find the answers to their questions.

Did you know we have dedicated tech support reps connected to a phone queue all day long? They answer questions quickly, and if they don't know the answer right off the bat, they'll research and get back to you, usually within a day. You can also email directly to tech support at support@L-com.com, and get a response within 24 hours!

So, with our FAQ and Technical Resources online, and our live tech support resources offline, you can get all the answers you need to make an informed decision.

Surface Mount Boxes and Wall Plates

How Do You Create Modular Ports for Your Users to Plug Into? (customerservice@L-com.com)

Undoubtedly, one of the most important technological advances of our time is the modular network. Networked together, machines throughout an office, a building, a whole country, or all over the world can all communicate. In order to make a network user friendly, it's a good idea to provide easily accessible ports or jacks where your users' machines are.

Traditionally, there are two main ways of mounting modular jacks: in a wall or in a box mounted on a surface. By far, wall plates and face plates are the most popular way to go. With them, the jacks are flush with the wall, out of the way, but still easy to get to. But in some cases there are either no walls close by, or the walls cannot have anything running inside them. In those cases, surface mount boxes provide a perfect solution.

Boxes and face plates often come separate from the jack itself, allowing you to mix and match the correct jack with the correct mounting medium. Make sure you get a plate with the proper hole size already in it so you can easily mount the jack. The most common hole size is called Keystone, and though it is not standardized it is roughly the same from company to company.

Coaxial cable

What is Coaxial Cable? (customerservice@L-com.com)

Coaxial or Coax cable is so named because the signal inside the cable runs on two (co-) axies: the center conductor and the shield. This is a relatively old cabling technology that was originally developed for military use. Coax cables were found to be so durable and efficient at carrying all sorts of signal types from data, video, audio, and more, that the standard soon became commercialized. Today, coax remains a very popular cable assembly type for cable TV, antennas, high-end audio/video equipment, and security equipment.

Though there are a few standards of coax cable available on the market, L-com only really carries the "RG" styles. RG stands for radio guide, and each cable type is generally called by RG followed by a number indicating the standard number of the cable. That is sometimes followed by a letter to indicate a sub-standard, and then the letter "U" to indicate that the standard is universal. But all this doesn't help you figure out what kind of cable you need!

With coax, the application generally dictates the kind of cable. Video cables nearly always use 75 Ohm styles of cable. Data and antennas usually use 50 Ohm styles. The different styles may have different flexibilities, diameters, attenuation, jacket types, and other factors that make one cable the ideal fit.

If you have an application but don't know what cable you need, try giving us a call or emailing directly to our tech support group at support@L-com.com. You may also find our Coaxial Cabling Tutorial helpful, available free on our web site.