Why I thought I needed an AirPort Express
Decided today to buy a Apple AirPort Express. I wanted it in order to achieve two goals. First, to hook into the stereo in my den to stream music with iTunes. Second, to solve the perplexing problem I have been having with my wireless network. Actually, I think the second goal the more important of the two. Ever since I got DSL and set up a wireless network, I have been having trouble using it. I believe it is the layout and construction of my condominium which makes it troublesome.
Here’s how it goes. My desktop computer (Win95-233 MHz PII!), dsl modem, and wireless router reside in my office, a back room on the upper floor of the condo. The furnace sits to its front and side, basically centered on the second floor, acting as a big metal sink soaking up the wireless signal. Another aspect of the building is that it uses the cement board in floor to dampen sound, but it also dampens the wireless signal to the bottom floor. I am limited to 50% signal strength outside of my office. Not much of a signal coming downstairs, and a washed out signal in my bedroom at the front of the second floor.
I bought the AirPort Express to alleviate some of these problems. I wanted to set it up to increase the range of my signal. So I placed it in my den/music room to take advantage of line of site to my bedroom and to have some signal spill down the stairs. It took me 2 hours to get it set up correctly. At first, I set it up as a client to the wireless network. That was not what I wanted. I searched the internet and found this which helped, but was confusing. When I was setting the AirPort Express up to use WDS, I was searching using my wireless network which caused me to continually fail the configuration updating. One tip: if you try to do this, when updating the configuration of the AirPort Express select it as the network you are updating. Once I got that correct and it was extending my range, I had problem connecting to the internet. This had to do with using a bad MAC address. I am still confused about what the right MAC address is. I saw on my router configuration 2 different MAC addresses. I don’t know why the one I am using works, because it isn’t one of the two. Has it worked?
Achieving my goals has not happened. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I haven’t tested it enough, but I still receive sucky signal strength in my bedroom and down stairs. Rats!
