The Lance J. Technoweb

I added an HDHomerun (HDHR) over-the-air (OTA) streaming box to my home network, bringing over-the-air broadcast TV to my computers, phones and tablets.  The HDHR is a big upgrade from my previous setup: using a simple "window mount" antenna directly connected to my TV. A TV-attached antenna is good for watching some TV for free, but the HDHR offers so much more flexibility. Figure 0: HDHomeRun on my basement wall   My original OTA TV setup was haphazard at best. It was finicky, ugly, and hard for other people at home to use. I would actually tape my antenna to a window whenever I wanted to watch OTA TV. Plus, it only worked on my TV and not with my other devices. I wanted a cleaner and more modern OTA setup. After looking at possibilities, I developed two goals: (1) bring my OTA TV into the modern Internet-connected era, and (2) set it up in a reliable and pretty way so that other family members wouldn't have to fool around with the antenna or anything else.  With that,...

My new (to me) house has an old wired alarm system.  The alarm isn't completely ancient, but it is about 20 years old.  It definitely isn't modern.  It uses an analog phone line to report alarms, has wires running everywhere, and certainly is not internet connected.  The keypads look like they are from the early 2000s. This is not what I want.  So I immediately said to myself: I need to rip this old alarm system out and modernize! A Slow Deconstruction Instead of just blindly ripping things out, I wisely decided to take my time.  After all, its good to have a plan before blowing things up. Since the house needs a lot of re-work, I decided that I can slowly remove the bits that are in my way. At some point, I'll have enough of an understanding to replace the whole system. The alarm system has 3 keypads, several motion sensors, and a whole bunch of other sensors on doors and windows.  They are all of the "wired" variety, and there is a lot of wirin...