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extending Airport Time Capsule's wireless range with AE

First, let me say thanks to Bob Timmons for trying to help me. I appreciate it. Here, however, I"m still kinda lost....

I have an Airport Time Capsule (802.11 ac) setup and working wirelessly and it works fine. However, I'd like to extend (maybe strengthen) the wireless range of it with the help of an Airport express (5th generation 802.11 n). If possible, could someone walk me through the process of doing so, if it's possible to do so


Feel free to assume I know little, because in this situation, I don't know much.


I have the Airport express plugged in and it does show up under Wifi as new airport Base station... so, I "m guessing that if I'm able to set up the Airport Extreme, rather than choose extend network, maybe Join XX network (the one I created with my Airport Time Capsule?)/


Do I do that on my Airport Extreme? or on my Airport Time Capsule?


thanks


I'm stumped for right now


John B

Airport Time capsule-OTHER, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3), also have Airport express 5th gen

Posted on Jun 11, 2015 4:37 PM

Reply
5 replies

Jun 11, 2015 4:43 PM in response to Johnb-one

If the AirPort Express...or...is it an AirPort Extreme shows up under New AirPort Base Station when you click on the WiFi icon.......

Click on AirPort Express or AirPort Extreme.....whichever the case might be.


User uploaded file


That will get the setup "wizard" running. It will take a minute to analyze the network, then show a screen that looks similar to this, except that you will see your Time Capsule and the AirPort Express (or Extreme)


User uploaded file


Type is short, simple name that you want to call the Express or Extreme. Do NOT use the suggested name there

Click Next, and the screen will change to look something like this:


User uploaded file


The "wizard" will set up everything for you. When you see the message of Setup Complete, click Done.


That's it, you are good to go.

Jun 12, 2015 7:47 AM in response to Bob Timmons

thanks for the help, Mr. Timmons. However, it got as far as gathering info about network... it recognized there was an Airport extreme there...reading settings on Airport extreme , then....an unexpected error occured, please try again later. I've moved the darn thing to the other side of the room and it makes no difference at all. Wizard doesn't work at all. Maybe there's a battery in it that's gone dead, or maybe I should try using an older version of Airport Utility. I've also tried using an app someone suggested for my iphone 4 s for setting it up, which was supposed to be better than the current version of Airport Utility (6.5.2)... Nope ..

apparently, this has a battery in it....I don't know if it's gone bad or not. I have a guide from ifixit on getting to it and changing it...doesn't look to be too hard


might do that later....guess I'm going to have to keep this case open for now


JB

Jun 12, 2015 9:42 AM in response to Johnb-one

it recognized there was an Airport extreme there...reading settings on Airport extreme , then....an unexpected error occured, please try again later. I've moved the darn thing to the other side of the room and it makes no difference at all. Wizard doesn't work at all.


And that unfortunately, is a result of the many operating system bugs in Yosemite that are running about in your Mac. Countless users have had this problem, which Apple has yet to fix. Try powering everything off and try again a few times. If that does not work, we'll have to change some settings on your Mac to try to work around the bugs.


Maybe there's a battery in it that's gone dead, or maybe I should try using an older version of Airport Utility. I've also tried using an app someone suggested for my iphone 4 s for setting it up, which was supposed to be better than the current version of Airport Utility (6.5.2)... Nope ..

apparently, this has a battery in it....I don't know if it's gone bad or not. I have a guide from ifixit on getting to it and changing it...doesn't look to be too hard

Extremely unlikely that a battery would be the culprit.....and opening up the AirPort Time Capsule will void the warranty on the product.


Do you have an iPhone or iPad handy that you could try? You need to have one with iOS 6 or higher installed on the device.

Jul 1, 2015 6:56 AM in response to Bob Timmons

thanks again, Bob T. I'm going to try this again, but.... now...I have 10.10.4 and I do have the airport app on my iPhone 4s. When I fired up my airport express and tried to extend the network it saw the airport extreme, and it also saw my cable modem's wireless, which it never did before, so now I know it's working. I'll try your suggestion and maybe get back to you later. just for the record, it wasn't a battery and i didn't need an older version of Airport Express...it was just getting that doggone update, and now I have it...



things are looking up


JB

Jul 1, 2015 7:24 PM in response to Bob Timmons

thanks to you, Bob Timmons. it was as easy as you said. I moved the airport extreme into the lving room and plugged it in. I used the airport app on my iphone which sorta found it, but not really. A thought occurred to me-if I'm trying to extend the Wifi, then shouldn't there be something on tthe Wifi settings on my iPhone ? Well, there was---scrolling down I found "configure Airport express as a Base station to extend the wireless network". Well, yeah, that'd nice. So, I did it and it worked like a charm. The light is green, my wifi is strong and extended and my long wait is finally over... I have good wifi in my living room


so thanks to you, to everyone here, and thanks to Apple for fixing what wasn't so good and making the whole process easier. Just think: I could have been trying to do all this with a D-Link router...which you have to open up a web browser to configure anything on it..


JB

extending Airport Time Capsule's wireless range with AE

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