Homeowner Forum / Home Automation / November 2005

I finally got my Elk Meter and realized that I had virtually no signal
in my living room/den circuit, with a substantial amount of noise. I
finally traced it to a brand new Radio Shack branded lamp module. I
replaced it with a Radio Shack branded appliance module, and now the

I am new to the group. I've reda a lot of helpful material here, so
thanks to everyone already.
I am wiring up a brand new house, and would like to install controls
into all the electrical circuitry so that I can do the following:

The X10 setup I have now can send RF commands to another X10
transceiver in the house.  They recommend this if parts of your house
don't respond; something about dual phase yadda.
Anyway, is there any way to have the X10 send out codes to control

I'd like to connect my computer to external speakers, so I can enjoy
MP3s in some other rooms in the house. My house is wired for audio,
which means I have ceiling speakers with volume control or audio
outlets (for banana plugs) on the walls available in some rooms.

All,
I have 2 RC-80B Stats connected to an HAI Omni-Pro II controller. Both
thermostats have worked correctly since installation in June '05. However,
one of my thermostats no longer reports current room temperature to the

Is it possible to use dimmable CF bulbs with Insteon wall switch 2476D.  The
bulbs I am considering are:
http://www.nolico.com/saveenergy/dimmable_lamps.htm#Items
I have tried Philips dimmable CF bulbs with X10 lamp module and that works fine.

I am having a problem with OnQ switches not being a consistent color.
Has anyone else had this problem.  As example the color spec is Ivory
but I can take two switches out of the box and they are not the same
Ivory color.

I am looking for a neat soultion to send and recieve x10 commands on my
computer
(windows machine but might move to linux at some point). I would like
to code

Has anyone made their own X10 Powerbar? Say a bunch of X10 receptacles in a
gang box? Any better ideas to make it more attractive? I'm sorta surprised
that one doesn't exist, perhaps with a filter built in?

Toggling the RTS and DTR control lines of the CM17A per X10's
documentation results in my particular unit issuing 5 repetitions
of the RF signal (as determined by looking at the raw output of
an MR26A or W800RF32A receiver).

Sheesh. Why are things always so hard? I'm using MBasic and have had
lights flashing all through the house for the last few days with the
XOUT command but I'm stumped when it comes to the Extended commands. I
have one lousy Leviton 6381 I need to dim and I've made gazillions of

I don't know much about these things but have been lookin for some
cheaper bulbs on ebay and other online stores.  I see there are some
with 24 degrees, 36 degrees, etc some with and without covers.  What
does that mean and what should i be looking at getting?  Is there

I didn't think to try this when I was testing the Insteon starter kit.
Page 35 of the Insteon whitepaper (released after I returned the starter kit
to Martin Custer at AutomatedOutlet.com) implies that Insteon receivers can
'hear' an Insteon signal even if there is an X-10 signal ...

If I haven't decided on my whole-house audio or video system, can I
reasonably design the structured wiring?  By that I mean, should I simply
run Cat5 or 6 to every room, along with a return Cat5 line and decide later
on whether to have a Niles, Russound setup, or something like ...

Sorry if this has been asked before.  I have googled the group and read
some interesting threads and learned about some interesting products
(omni, et al), but I couldn't find a post that talked about everything
I need.  Plus, some of the posts were from 1995 so I was concerned