[geeks] Airport Express

[Lionel Peterson]

> From: sammy ominsky <s at avoidant.org>
> Date: 2004/07/15 Thu PM 02:25:37 GMT
> To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
> Subject: Re: [geeks] Airport Express
> 
> On Jul 15, 2004, at 09:21, Lionel Peterson wrote:

> > Tried any upgrade antennas? External amplifiers?
> 
> No. Unfortunately, they're not readily available here and I don't have 
> the patience to order stuff off the 'net and wait.

CompUSA carries several external 802.11b/g antennas - is there not a CompUSA near you? Most are from Hawking and Buffalo, but there may be others as well...

> > When you get the Airport Express, set it to channel 1, that way none 
> > of your
> > APs (or your neighbor) *should* interfere with each other...
> 
> My understanding was that if there's a WLAN already in place, the AE 
> will pick it up, join it, and configure itself as an additional AP. 
> That's exactly what I want. I just hope it doesn't do the same thing 
> the card in my powerbook does, and reset regularly.

It *should* pick an unused channel, as having two APs on the same channel in range of each other is a bad thing. 

> > Of course, this assume you have a cat 5 connection in the room with the
> > Airport Express.
> 
> No, no. See above re: how it joins a network.

Well you are right, but it may not work as you hope, based on the following (from the item description):

"AirPort Express can extend the range only of an AirPort Extreme or AirPort Express wireless network."

Since you (like I) have a Linksys network already, it will not extend the range/act like a bridge of your existing wireless network. I was unaware of the range extension capability until you mentioned it, but a quick check turned up the above info...

>