Well, I was going to write a turorial on this, but (do to my own laziness) someone beat me to it.
I stumbled across this excellent tutorial today on using the Airport Express to extend your existing Airport Extreme wireless network.
Extend your AirPort Network with AirPort Express
There is also a decent tutorial over at ARStechnica that explains how to do the same thing using a Linksys WRT54G wireless router.
October 18 2004, 10:50 AM EDT, by
Comments:
MacconverT
10/18/04, 2:40 PM EDT
The Airport Extreme base station has really disgusting range. If you are lucky enough to have a newer more expensive (way overpriced) version with the external antenna slot you are lucky. If not, the best way is to pick up a Linksys Wrt54g wireless router.
The range is phenominal and with the updated firmware from sveasoft you can link with and bridge with airports (both express and extreme). You can also boost safely the power output.
My setup is DSL-MODEM >> LINKSYS-WRT54G >> AIRPORTEXTREME (which acts as a bridge using WDS. Security is accomplished with MAC filtering.
Each router is in a different room so where ever I am the signal is strong due to bridging.
Do a search on my site for links regarding this issue.
ZackMac
10/23/04, 12:01 PM EDT
MacconverT: I don't know what you are talking about, I get great range with my Aiport Extreme Base Station... no external antenna! It literally covers almost my entire 3 acres of property, indoors and out.
Maybe the one you used was defective?
I wouldn't by Linksys junk even if my middle name was pants!
macconvert
10/23/04, 9:47 PM EDT
Stop sniffing what ever yo are sniffing. Check oput any review of the ange and you'll only find the word shi#.
The wrt54g has great reviews because you can update the firmware as it runs a version of Linux. This opens up the preverbial Pandora's box of things you can now do.
So, settle down, check that your fly isn't down, and get back to reality.
Jonahan
10/25/04, 2:38 PM EDT
I have no experience with an AE base station, and haven't heard any other reports positive or negative, but our original Airport worked just wonderfully.
Picked up a LinkSys G router (not sure if it's the same model macconvert mentioned) and it works just as well. Not sure about overall range, but it works everywhere in the house (and in the garage) which are the only places it needs to.
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Well, I was going to write a turorial on this, but (do to my own laziness) someone beat me to it.