Trouble extending my WiFi network with older Airport Express

Question

Trouble extending my WiFi network with older Airport Express

Hi,

As the question states, I have an older Airport Express which I have dug out to try and extend my WiFi network in a new house.

I am on Virgin Media (fibre optic) in the UK and get a good WiFi service but one room in the house (which I have just turned into a cinema/media suite) has no reception.

I have successfully managed to 'create a new network' via the Airport Express and the signal strength is 100% but for some reason if I try to reconfigure the device to extend the existing network I get no improvement at all from the (zero) signal I was receiving before.

Am I doing something wrong? Or is there an additional step I am missing?

I could live with having a secondary network but what I would really like to achieve is Home Sharing from my main computer, so that I can access my photos, movies and music etc. from iTunes on the big screen. If the computer exists on another network my iPad, iPhone and AppleTV can't see/use the media from that room.

Many thanks in advance,

Colin

Mac mini Server (Mid 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9), 8GB RAM

Posted on Oct 31, 2013 5:06 PM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

238,997 points

Oct 31, 2013 5:11 PM in response to Colin Willsher

Hi Colin,

One thing of note, is if the one you're trying to extend is 802.11n, depending how old the old one is, may only do 802.11b/g.

Another is that 802.11n doesn't do walls, floors, or ceilings near as well as 802.11b/g.

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Answer 2

Oct 31, 2013 5:20 PM in response to BDAqua

Thanks.

Might need to look that up. But in any case, why should the Express be capable of creating a network (obviously linked to the existing WiFi signal) but not extend the range of the signal on the existing network? It doesn't appear to make sense (at least to me!).

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

238,997 points

Nov 1, 2013 10:26 AM in response to Colin Willsher

Are these the steps you used?

To create a wireless extended network, you must place any extended Wi-Fi base stations within range of the primary Wi-Fi base station.

Start with the device that will be configured as the primary Wi-Fi base station. Then configure your extended Wi-Fi base stations, ensuring that each is within direct range of the primary Wi-Fi base station.The physical location of extended Wi-Fi base stations will vary according to the building environment and may require some experimentation.

If you have configured your Wi-Fi base stations in the past, it may be helpful to do a factory default reset of each Wi-Fi base station that will be part of the wireless extended network before you begin.

Configuring the primary Wi-Fi base station

Power on all 802.11n Wi-Fi base stations and allow them time to appear in the AirPort Menu Extra.
Open AirPort Utility (On a Mac, choose Go > Applications from your desktop, click the Utilities folder, then open AirPort Utility. In Microsoft Windows, choose Start > All Programs > AirPort to start AirPort Utility).
Select the primary Wi-Fi base station in the Base Station Chooser, then click Continue. Note: If you see a message appear that indicates that the Wi-Fi base station has been reset, click Cancel to continue.
Click Manual Setup. Enter the base station password if necessary.
Click AirPort in the toolbar.
Click Wireless.
Choose “Create a wireless network” from the Wireless Mode menu.
Select the “Allow this network to be extended” checkbox.
Enter a Wireless Network Name.
Optional: By default, Wireless Security is set to None so that no password will be required to join the network. We recommend you click on the Wireless Security menu, select WPA2 Personal, and create a password between 8 and 63 characters long.
From the Radio Channel Selection menu, select Automatic.
Click Update.
The next window may indicate that there are some problems. Resolve the problems, then click Update.

You are now ready to add extended Wi-Fi base stations to your network.

Configuring an extended Wi-Fi base station

Place any extended Wi-Fi base stations within range of the primary Wi-Fi base station
Ensure that all 802.11n Wi-Fi base stations are powered on and allow them time to appear in the AirPort Menu Extra
Open AirPort Utility (On a Mac, choose Go > Applications from your desktop, click the Utilities folder, then open AirPort Utility. In Microsoft Windows, choose Start > All Programs > AirPort to start AirPort Utility).
Select the Extended Wi-Fi base station in the Base Station Chooser, then click Continue. Note: If you see a message appear that indicates that the Wi-Fi base station has been reset, click Cancel to continue.
Click Manual Setup. Enter the base station password if necessary.
Click AirPort in the toolbar.
Click Wireless.
Choose “Extend a wireless network” from the Wireless Mode menu.
Choose the network you want to extend from the Network Name menu.
Enter the network and device password if necessary, then click Update.
The next window may indicate that there are some problems. Resolve the problems, then click Update.

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Answer 4

Nov 2, 2013 9:28 AM in response to BDAqua

Thanks for all your effort. Having found a few more discussions on this it seems that I can't extend the network unless it is connecting to an Airport Basestation. I already have some Powerline adapters which work well for extending the wired (ethernet) connection, so I have just bought a further one which re-broadcasts wireless signals (£30) which I'm hoping will do the trick.

I'll use the Express to setup an additional sub-network for my guest room instead.

Thanks all.

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