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The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => Routers / COVR => DIR-655 => Topic started by: SUPERSKYAAA on January 27, 2010, 07:46:17 PM

Title: trying to use airport express to extend range of dlink bas station
Post by: SUPERSKYAAA on January 27, 2010, 07:46:17 PM

I live in an apartment with a DLINK 624 router, and I am able to get access to the router from one spot in  my apartment with my macbook pro.I bought an airport express and set it  up in my apartment  to access the dlink router, hoping to use it to extend the range through my whole apartment.  The express accesses the Dlink network ok, but I can't connect to the express from my mac notebook.  Do I need to make the DLINK a wds network, or something. I saw a post from last year where someone had successfully used the airport extreme to extend the range of a Dlink 655, so I decided to submit my problem here. 

The dlink 624 base is in community room and I can access it for free.  It is about 50 feet from my apartment, but I can only access it from my kitchen.  I was hoping to use the airport express from my kitchen as a range extender of repeater to cover my whole apartment.  Unfortunately,  I can't access or alter the settings on the community dlink router to make it wds if that is required.  I am able connect the airport express to it though, using the airport utility.

Thanks

Title: Re: trying to use airport express to extend range of dlink bas station
Post by: pender on January 28, 2010, 02:57:52 AM

Yes this is true, if you are using a non Apple product for your Access point you must set up WDS on your primary router.  Fortunately for you, the DI 624 supports WDS but I believe it only supports WEP in WDS mode which is 60% slower than a WPA AES network.  The APExpress will work without a WDS network but only if the AP is another Apple product like an Airport Express/Extreme or Time Capsule.

If you can afford it and don't like the WDS network, get a refurbished Netgear WNR834B router for $25-$35 and put DD-WRT on it to convert it to a non WDS repeater - it is single band 2.4ghx only for Dual band, get refurbished WNDR3300.  If you only want 802.11g, an Asus WL-520gu is a great cheap device that supports DD-WRT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122266&cm_re=wnr834b-_-33-122-266-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320023R&cm_re=wl_520gu-_-33-320-023R-_-Product
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeater_Bridge