Old Airport, newer MacsS 10.9
In 2004 or 2005, we purchased a round Airport Extreme base station for our small office (also a residence). This unit is still in use to this day. In the last several years, we added a (first generation, or thereabouts) Airport Express to another area, to extend the network's range and to add a network printer to a new location. For several years, the Apple hardware and software worked with very little problem. It was highly reliable.
Since the spring of 2013, we had to replace some of our Apple hardware (it was getting quite old) and so we bought refurbished gear. The new hardware runs MacOS 10.9 on Core i5 processors. We never thought about it until today; the newer computers come with Airport Admin software that is incompatible with the "old" Airports.
We have recently been experiencing interruptions in our internet service. Our DSL provider helped us replace our old DSL modem with a new one. But we still had occasional spontaneous blackouts. The problem was identified as the Airport Extreme base station; cut the power and power it back up and the problem went away.
For years, up until the DSL modem was recently replaced, we (usually) cut the power to the Airport Extreme and Express during late evening hours, when nobody needed the internet connection. The Airports were each plugged into surge strips, which made it easy to switch them back on in the morning.
The recent internet connection issue has us concerned. If we can't run Airport Admin on the new hardware, is there a way to run a diagnostic to figure out if the Airports are having problems?
OUR APPLE HARDWARE
late-2012 refurb iMac, core i5/MacOS 10.9
late-2013 refurb MacBook Pro Retina core i5/MacOS 10.9
late-2003 iMac G4 / MacOS 10.4.11 & 9.2
OUR WIRELESS SETUP:
Apple Airport Extreme, connected via Ethernet to DSL modem and USB inkjet
Apple Airport Express, satellite/relay, connected via Ethernet to workgroup printer
DSL MODEM
D-Link modem with WiFi antenna turned off
iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), late-2012 Core i5, 8GB RAM, 1 TB HD