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[Robert Lunceford]

The A&H QU series has a shielded network cable port as does the Airport Express router.
Any advantage or disadvantage to using shielded Cat5 cable between the QU and the Airport Express?

[Tim McCulloch]

The A&H QU series has a shielded network cable port as does the Airport Express router.
Any advantage or disadvantage to using shielded Cat5 cable between the QU and the Airport Express?

The devices in question should be shield-agnostic.  In fact, all networkable devices should be.

[Russell Ault]

The A&H QU series has a shielded network cable port as does the Airport Express router.
Any advantage or disadvantage to using shielded Cat5 cable between the QU and the Airport Express?

The biggest disadvantages of shielded cable are cost, rigidity, fragility, and weight, and for most Ethernet applications the advantages are pretty nominal. IIRC, Ubiquiti encourages shielded cable for their APs because it offers increased protection against lightning-strike damage, but if that's something you're worried about then I'm guessing you're going to have bigger challenges than your AP.

That all said, given that at least one end of the cable run is properly grounded, you aren't going to make things worse by using shielded Ethernet cable (if you're reusing stuff you have lying around, for example), but for most applications I wouldn't suggest going out of your way to do so.

-Russ

[Russell Ault]

The devices in question should be shield-agnostic.  In fact, all networkable devices should be.

The only caveat to this I can think of is that if neither device grounds the connector shell then the shield will float, which has the potential to can cause all sorts of issues.

-Russ

[Caleb Dueck]

In fact, all networkable devices should be.

All IP networked traffic that goes through a switch, yes.  Technically digital sound boards and stage boxes are 'networkable' and many of those protocols specify shielded cable.  Commented for future searches, I know you know this. 

[Russell Ault]

All IP networked traffic that goes through a switch, yes.  Technically digital sound boards and stage boxes are 'networkable' and many of those protocols specify shielded cable.  Commented for future searches, I know you know this.

I mean, technically, most of the console-to-stagebox protocols that specify shielded cable are merely point-to-point connections and not actually "networkable", and for most (all?) of the exceptions (e.g. Yamaha's Dante connections) shielded cable is really more of a suggestion than a requirement.

-Russ

[Scott Helmke]

On the other side of the question there's radiation of network noise from unshielded cables.  Yes, that's RF, though it tends to be pretty localized. If you're interested in using VHF for wireless frequencies then you'll definitely want to think about it.

[Thomas Le]

I use unshielded from my SQ5 to my Edgerouter X SFP, haven't seen any issues.

[Steve-White]

On the other side of the question there's radiation of network noise from unshielded cables.  Yes, that's RF, though it tends to be pretty localized. If you're interested in using VHF for wireless frequencies then you'll definitely want to think about it.

This is reason enough for me to run shielded ethernet cables on everything regardless of RF frequency band used as a best practice.

[Scott Holtzman]

This is reason enough for me to run shielded ethernet cables on everything regardless of RF frequency band used as a best practice.

Twisted pair has a remarkably high CMRR.  I can't imagine that Cat5e and later has appreciable emissions that could induce from one STP to another.

[ProSoundWeb Community]