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Nearly every radio station uses Layer 2 Ethernet switches as part of their systems. Usually, they're just plug and play; but what about that occasion when there appears to be something wrong with an Ethernet connection? How do you go from having a hunch to really figuring out what the problem is?
In these examples I'll refer to Cisco switches, but clearly the same issues can manifest themselves no matter what brand of managed switch you are using.
To see what we want to see with a managed switch, we're going to refer to the console input, which is a serial connection for Cisco, made via an RJ-45 on the unit itself labeled "console." The easiest way to accomplish this is via the serial-to-RJ45 cable that came with the unit. On your computer, configure hyper-terminal (or Putty with Windows 7) for 9600 baud, 8-n-l. (Alternatively if this switch already has an IP address,...