My situation:
Cradlepoint MBR1000 as my router, connected to my Internet Provider (WISP). Wired Cat 5e from there throught the house. Because the house is rather long and the router is in one end, I installed a Linksys WRT54G as an Access Point in the den, to provide wireless for phones and tablets there. however, the old Linksys finally failed, so now my wireless access there is really poor.
I know very little about wireless networking, and had to find instructions on-line on how to configure the WRT54G as an Access point. Now that I need another one, I'd like a recommendation on what to get... another router that's easy to configure as an AP, or an actual AP device.
Another point... When I set up this configuration years ago, the neighborhood was fairly free of home networks, so I set the Cradlepoint on one channel and the Linksys on another one, fairly widely separated. Now, the neighborhood is really crowded, there really aren't any channels "clear", so I need to pick a weak channel that my Cradlepoint will overpower to get wireless to work. When I add an AP, should it be on still another channel, or do I put it on the same channel ad the Cradlepoint?
I "could" relocate the Cradlepoint to the den, and I think that would solve the wireless reception problem, but then I'd have the problem of getting the wired connections all re-routed.... I'd rather not deal with that since there's a lot of in-wall Cat 5e involved.