On Feb 9, 9:52, Adrien Farkas wrote: connected 'simplex', Oh, I see. Yes, hard to describe concisely, I suppose they're a sort of "dual simplex" ;-) stuff The fibre in my house and workshop is 50/125 FDDI stuff recovered from work. We don't use FDDI any more so I liberated several 10-metre and 20-metre patch cables, cut off the MICs, and re-terminated them with STs. The tools and materials I needed to do that cost about ?100 from TechOptics (luckily, I could borrow a microscope, so I didn't have to buy that) and it's not hard to do. TechOptics don't have prices on their website but they're much cheaper than most catalogues, and quite helpful on the phone. http://www.techoptics.com It took two evenings to reterminate 4 cables, both ends. One evening to strip, wait an hour to let them rest, then crimp and epoxy the STs; the second evening to cleave and polish the ends. I kept a few shorter cables that are ST-to-MIC and acquired a few ST-to-SC cables when I got my ATM kit. Even most of my FDDI kit uses ST or SC connectors; the only thing I have with MIC connectors (other than adaptors for SGI FDDI cards) is an ATM-to-FDDI bridge. I've not done it myself, but someone I know has done a lot of splicing with gel-filled splices, which are quite cheap (though you really need a splice box as well). You can get them from TechOptics too. However, if you already have most of the cables you need, and just want a few couplers, just buy the couplers. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York