Daisy chain airport express wireless

Only if the AirPort Express base stations you are referring to are the older 802.11g models. Newer 802.11n models CANNOT be daisy-chained to extend a wireless network.

Not sure what you are asking, but you can only wirelessly "extend" the signal one time on an Apple network, not two or more.....assuming that you are using "n" wireless products.

While you can have more than one extender, each device that extends the network must connect to the same "main" AirPort router.

Think of a wheel with spokes. The "main" AirPort is the "hub" and each extender is located at the end of a separate "spoke", which connects directly to the hub....not to another Express at the end of another spoke.

Bob,

understand the hub and spoke model, however, here is what is happening for me:

I want to use 1 Airport extreme and 2 airport express to extend my network from the main base into 2 directions of the apartment - kind of L-shaped, with the Extreme sitting at the junction and the expresses sitting at the outer ends of the L-shape.

I have set up the wireless network and initially both expresses are linked in parallel into the extreme - all is fine and I get reasonable speeds wherever I am.

However - and this is the mysterious part - after a while the expresses automatically daisy-chain themselves. in the graphics of the Aiport Utility they are not on same level anymore, but one express hanging on the other.

Consequently, as mentioned in other posts, the express at the end of the chain is not accepting connections anymore, this part of the L-shape is 'dead'.

Any idea how to prevent this auto-chaining?

thanks for your insights ....

regards

Juergen

PS: Expresses are both n models, airport extreme is the last generation of the flat ones (is that 2nd Gen?).

If one Express connects to another, it is because it thinks at that time that it is receiving a stronger signal from the Express than the Extreme. So, you will have to try to move one or both Expresses closer to the AirPort Extreme and try to keep the Expresses as far apart from each other as possible.

Sorry, but there is no way to tell an AirPort Express to connect to any given device.

You would have much better and more reliable performance if you could connect at least one Express back to the Extreme using a wired Ethernet connection.

Thanks Bob,

yes, have increased the distance between the two expresses with even another wall between them. That seems to do the trick and the base signal apparently is reliably more dominant than the one of the other express.

Maybe I should also take the hint and upgrade to the latest extreme base station, which should come around with stronger signal anyway...

using cable is not really an option... too far and complex to pull a cable through the rooms and/or walls.

Thought about power line ethernet .... reading mixed results for that in some forums, so maybe not the best idea

All good for now, being wirelessly dual-extended.

thanks a lot.

Juergen

Nice work. Wireless is tricky......about half science and half voodoo.

Maybe I should also take the hint and upgrade to the latest extreme base station, which should come around with stronger signal anyway...

Actually, the new Extreme does not really produce a stronger signal than the previous models, but it does produce a faster signal.

Thought about power line ethernet .... reading mixed results for that in some forums, so maybe not the best idea

Powerline is a possible solution. You won't know how well....or even if....powerline will work in your home, until you try it out in your home. For that reason, if you are considering powerline, it is a good idea to understand the store's return policy in advance......before you buy.

As an example, I loaned my neighbor a pair of adapters that I had used a few years ago before I pulled the Ethernet cabling through the house. The adapters worked well for my neighbor, so he bought a new pair......faster, the advertising claimed.....and more expensive. They barely worked at all in....connection drops, slow speeds......in the same locations as my older adapters.