wireless: range extender?

[VJ]

Hello,

Simple question: my brother is using squeezeboxes to distribute music through the house. However, one of them is too far from the server (wireless), causing the squeezebox to re-buffer (which often occurs in interrupted music).

Can we solve this with a range extender, like this thing:
Linksys WRE54G
or won't this work due to additional delays?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks!


Jörg

[Fat Tone]

Try googling for pringles and wifi

My mate extended his wifi network to his garden observatory by using the pringles can pointing through a bedroom window and using an old 60cm satellite dish in the observatory. It made a huge difference.

[VJ]

Yes, but this is purely indoors...
It is an old house (built in the 1930s), server is on the 2nd floor near the front of the house; receiver with issues is on the ground floor near the back of the house. So all in all it is not suprising it doesn't work properly... The pringles trick (I know of it) might work, but I don't think my brother is the pringles-fix type...

Easiest would be if such an extender could work...

Jörg

[UtwigMU]

If that is Linksys access point and he has Linksys router, it's best, since you can just configure access point to extend wireless from router at IP x.x.x.x. I have similar commercial deployment with two Linksys access points (basement, attic), works without problems.

Just don't forget which IP you give to access point.

[degrub]

Tried that extender once - it just vacuumed up all of the bandwidth - very low throughput.
i have heard that various versions of the open source firmware replacement for the wireless g series routers allows you to tune the strength of the tranmitter....

The router repeater above does work. Don't know about relay delay though. Probably could work with the QOS parameters to minimize.

Has he moved the problem receiver around some ? - sometimes you can get a reflection that will give adequate signal strength.

[VJ]

He has a Linksys router (both N and G, N is currently not used).
UtwigMU:
I also have a Linksys router, but it has no options to extend a wireless network. Or must that be a true access point rather than a router?

degrub:
Thanks on the range-extender feedback!


Jörg

[degrub]

If he can get the receivers up on N, then go that route. Solved all my distance / bandwidth issues when i did. Just stay within brand name.

The other thing to watch out for is if he has any appliances (microwave) or portable phones operating on the the 2.4 ghz band. i used to get interruptions with G from those. Mostly the phone.

i think the Linksys k_base has instructions on how to set above up.

[VJ]

Going N is not an option: the squeezeboxes only allow up to G...

For the router-repeater option, must the routers be connected via cable?
(if so, than this option also goes out the window... )

You say that that extender "vacuumed up all the bandwith"... Could you elaborate on that?


Jörg

[degrub]

ehh, tried it a couple years ago - if i remember correctly, we got about .5 - 1 mbit/sec when i should have been getting around 5 - 10 or so. What i remember is that the extender used two channels and did a full duplex connection to the main router. Knocked off other machines on the main wireless router. Returned it. Tried another one. same issue. i think it took all the bandwidth available.

What we ended up with was the second router forwarding packets and got multiple (3 machines ) on the far end with reasonable speeds. We were not trying to stream music, so whatever delays were introduced we did not notice them.

Maybe they have fixed the issue since then ?

no cable between the routers, just air and a few walls.

You also might be able to set up a second N/G router, run N between the two with QOS minimum bandwidth and then let the G boxes access from the second router. i have not done this myself. i think you could put the main router in N only mode, the second in N + G and get it to work.

[VJ]

Tried another one. same issue. i think it took all the bandwidth available.

Found similar stories on the internet... In those cases, it worked fine for a few hours before doing this...

no cable between the routers, just air and a few walls.

You also might be able to set up a second N/G router, run N between the two with QOS minimum bandwidth and then let the G boxes access from the second router. i have not done this myself. i think you could put the main router in N only mode, the second in N + G and get it to work.

Interesting...

But the whole point of adding that second router would be to cover a larger area... By switching of the G portion of the original router, the G-network coverage would be the same, no?

I like the idea of adding a second N-router, and interconnect them via N. I'll check to what extend the software of my brother's router has options for this (and then verify which new routers also have these options); I know for a fact that my G router cannot be used to extend the range of a wireless network...


Jörg

[Claymonkey]

I've had a lot of luck with Linksys WRT54G's using DD-WRT and their repeater bridge function.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeater_Bridge

Only the router being used as the repeater has to run DD-WRT and the originator can be anything from another Linksys to a dlink or netgear. I've used it where the repeater's wireless is a different name (ie homenet_2 versus homenet) or where it's repeater is the same name (and same password) so the user doesn't notice switching.

[Claymonkey]

DD-WRT works best on older 54g's... versions 1-4. Linksys has been repeatedly switching the chips to cut costs since then. The community has made it work in round about ways since then I was able to help my Dad with a version 8 model. If you can swing the extra $$ ($70 versus $50) get the WRT54GL version of the router since that one uses the same *nix kernel and chip as the version 4.