Airport Express Range is too short

Welcome to the discussions!

"My Airport Express works great when I'm within 30 feet of it. I have it upstairs and as soon as I go downstairs, approx 50-60 feet away, the connection is lost. It should be able to reach that shouldn't it?"

Wireless performance really begins to fall off rapidly at about the 30-35' range, even if you have line of sight between devices. The signal strength indicator on the Airort icon at the top of your screen is really not a good indicator of what is actually going on.

Try a few quick experiments to verify this in your situation by holding down the "option" key while you click on the fan shaped Airport icon at the top of your screen. Look for the Transmit Rate number with your laptop near the Express, then half way, etc. to see how it changes.

Any way to position the Express at roughly a mid way point between the areas that you normally use with your computer? If this is not possible, you might consider adding another Express to "extend" the wireless network.

Download iStumbler, www.istumbler.net so you can look at the signal strength and noise on your network at various points from the radio source.

It's possible that another network in your area is operating on the same channel or a close adjacent channel to yours. If so, you will be able to identify this providing that the other network(s) are not "hidden", which is an option now available on almost all new routers.

In a laboratory environment you will get 150 feet of range. In your house the building materials reflect and block RF energy. Therefore the range you experience is going to be something less and it is very difficult to predict the range that you will get without trying it. Sometimes you can change the materials in your house or reposition items to increase the performance of your wireless network.

Also other wireless networks and wireless devices operating at 2.4 GHz will negatively affect the performance of your wireless network. Often you can get around this by changing the AirPort Express (AX) to work on a different channel.

I had the same problem so I'm trying to use my Airport Express 1/2 way bewteen a regular wireless router and my iBook. When I try to reconfigure my Airport to "Join Network", it sees the network and everything seems fine in the Airport Utility. However, at the final step of the configuration process, when it is restarting the Airport, it hangs on "Waiting for airport to restart..." forever. Then a message comes up that says:

"Airport Utility was unable to find your Apple wireless device after restarting. The settings for this Apple Wireless device have been successfully updated, but there was a problem rejoining the wireless network or finding the Apple wireless device. You may need to select your network from the Airport network and try again."

I've tried restoring to default at least four times and putting the three devices all different distances from each other, including all in the same room or thirty feet apart. I always get the same error, even though the devices "see" each other and the network just fine during the initial phase of the Utility setup.

Any ideas?

Your post did not indicate what type of router you were using.

The Express will only work with other Apple base stations. Are you using a Time Capsule, AirPort Extreme, or another Express as your main router?

If so, are both devices "n" capable?

To work correctly with other Apple base stations, your Express will need to be configured to either "extend a wireless network" or "participate in a WDS"

I'm using an 2wire Gateway router, but when I called to order the Express I specifically asked if it would work with this router and they said yes.

At the moment I'm online by being hardwired to my Express, and it being wirelessly connected to the Exwire network. But when I unplug the Express from my laptop, I can't get online and Airport Utility doesn't see it at all, even if it's sitting right next to it.

So apparently the Express reads the 2wire fine, but my laptop won't recognize the Express. The only time it recognizes the Express is if I restore to default, which I've done several times but with the same end result that after I set it up it doesn't see it any more.

Would this still indicate a problem with the Exwire router?

Thanks for any help!!

I apologize; I reread your post and I think what you're saying is that "Join a Wireless Network" is inherently different from "Extend a Wireless Network". Perhaps when I was setting it up I "joined" as opposed to "extending".

I'm sure that I described my scenario (that the primary router is too far away for me to get a signal) to the Apple salesman and he said I could extend using the Express and the 2wire router. But I guess you're saying that was misinformation.

It's odd, given that I'm online with the main router 75' away, the Express seeing it and me hardwired into the Express...

Unfortunately, it appears that there was a misunderstanding between the salesperson and you regarding the capabilities of the Express with your 2Wire.

The Express can only be used to extend the wireless network created by another Apple base station. It cannot extend the wireless network created by the 2Wire.

If you have the Express connected to the 2Wire via ethernet and keep it connected that way, you could configure the Express to create a separate "n" wireless network. So, you would have 2 networks...one created by the 2Wire and another created by the Express.

Thank you for that suggestion; I tried that yesterday but the range of the Express was too short to reach where I need to use the laptop. I work in a separate building that's 75' from the base station. When I hardwired the Express to the 2wire, the system worked until I walked outside and got about 50-60' away from the Express. I guess what it is is that the two routers (2wire & Express) can see each other 75' apart but my laptop airport isn't strong enough for that.

It's frustrating that it's literally a game of 15'! I guess I have to suck it up and spend more money on another Apple router so the two can talk to each other long distance.

Thanks though!

Not sure if this will work....Take a look at ethernet powerline adapters. This could effectively connect your 2Wire to the Express as if they were connected directly using an ethernet cable.

The big question would be whether the two buildings are on the same AC circuit. I've seen adapters from Linksys, Netgear and D-Link.

I'm currently working with a "non-brand" pair from DirecTV and they seem to be remarkable so far. Much better than wireless for DirectTV on demand service.

I just wanted to say THANK YOU for the help; the Netgear XETB1001 adapter kit works well. I bought it at Best Buy in case I had to return it. To reiterate for those who may be looking for a similar solution, I needed wifi connectivity in a separate building (the garage), about 75' away from the main house with the DSL internet connection. The range on the 2wire wireless router in the main building was too short, and then when I tried to use my Airport Express from out here, I had to hang it out the window and hardwire it to my laptop.

By using the ethernet powerline adapters, I've been able to create a new wireless network in the garage, even though the garage has its own circuit breaker box. It seems that as long as the two breaker boxes are on the same electrical meter, the powerline adapters can work. They were, however picky about which outlet I was plugged into. They didn't like the first outlets I chose and I changed to other outlets across the room and then they were happy.

The connection isn't absolutely flawless--sometimes the signal drops momentarily, but I do listen to internet radio for hours on end while also doing work on the internet.

Thanks again!

You are most welcome! Glad you found a solution.