WAP54G setup as repeater

- T
- thoffman
  
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posted
17 years ago

Wed, Sep 20, 2006 12:50 PM

I have setup a WAP54G for a school environment where there are outside portable unit being used as classrooms. They outside units were not receiving enough of a signal so I purchased a WAP54G to be setup as a repeater to a WRT54GS.

I setup the WAP54G in repeater mode, using the MAC address from the WRT54GS, using the same channel as the WRT but a different SSID (according to Linksys directions, this is OK). Now, should I have the outside users connect to the WAP54G or the inside WRT54GS? When they connect to the WAP54G it does not give out and IP address. I assumed they weren't setup to go do. So, I set the users to connect to the inside WRT54GS which does not seem to help the signal strength?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

- R
- robert evdo hsdpa kim
  
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posted
17 years ago

Thu, Sep 21, 2006 4:38 PM

T,

problem with a repeater is that when it comes to wifi... the routers have to DOUBLE transmit data... if you are using an RF repeater... it simply makes a signal stronger but with data... ie wifi... you have double the processing and increased latency to deal with so... you're better off with a high power antenna and placing your router up higher.

BUT s> I have setup a WAP54G for a school environment where there are outside

- J
- Jeff Liebermann
  
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posted
17 years ago

Thu, Sep 21, 2006 5:02 PM

"thoffman" hath wroth:

Different SSID's are fine if you want to manually select between the two radios. I inherited a similar system using exactly the same hardware. It works.

They should connect to the WAP54G repeater as they allegedly cannot hear the WRT54GS router.

If they really can connect to the WRT54GS directly, then you don't need a repeater.

In theory, the repeater should pass the DHCP broadcasts to/from the WRT54G through the repeater. If your clients are not getting DHCP assigned IP's for their laptops, then something is not working or set wrong. The usual goof is to enable WPA which does NOT work in repeater mode. Another of my favorites is using the wrong MAC address for the main router. The MAC address of the wireless section is very different from that of the WAN port or ethernet switch ports. The instructions say to enter the LAN address, which is wrong. It's the WIRELESS MAC address that it wants (which is NOT the one on the serial number sticker).

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