Intermittent Controller Problem

[Bob Musil]

I am having an intermittent issue with 1 of my controllers, and there are a couple of possible reasons. Hopefully i can get advice from someone with more hardware experience than me (which means just about anybody).

I have 4 controllers, all 4 or 5 year old 1602Ws and connected via ELLs. 2 of them are mounted to the house, and 2 are in the yard. Both yard controllers and one of the house controllers are working fine. The 4th controller is only making a network connection intermittently. As luck would have it, I know of 2 possible problems.

First, the faulty unit does not have line-of-site to the sending unit connected to the show PC. It is on the opposite side of the house. However, it does have a good line to one of the yard controllers, and is closer to the good controller than the good controller is to the PC unit. My assumption is that the controller ELLs should function as both receivers and repeaters. Is this correct?

The second problem is in the network receptacles on the controller itself. Both receptacles are a little loose on the board. I was testing this controller in the house, and I had to apply tension to the network cable in order to establish the connection. With tension applied, I got a consistent connection to the rest of the network. As a result, the cable is duct-taped to the protective panel inside the controller, with tension between the tape and the receptacle. It is possible that the tension is not enough for a good connection, but I wouldn't think that this would be an intermittent problem.

I apologize for writing a novel, but I wanted to provide as much information as possible. If anybody can enlighten me as to any possible solutions, I would be very grateful.

Bob