Can I use an AP as a better client/receiver for my PC?

If you have some signal, a simple reflector on the router might make things very good.

EZ-12, printed on photo paper for thick stock, with aluminum foil glued to the sail, provides a substantial boost in signal. Make the tabs longer than the template drawing, for easier assembly.

Some, what model do you have?

You can put the little dongle in a coffee can for improved performance

Bob Alston's USB coffee can

"My Tin Cantenna"

Clarence Dold's two coffee can USB picture

If I were setting things up at home again, I wouldn't have bothered with a WiFi reflector to our "downstairs" PC; I'd have gone for Homeplug.

Chris

So you are saying that you had marginal reception and the reflector did not increase your reception? Did you aim it correctly? Or was it zero reception before and still not enough after. Or was it an interference problem?

Home plug is often a great solution, but a reflector is about $100 cheaper and CAN make the difference in a marginal (not impossible) setting.

Is this the better way to go above since the "radio" part is actually built into the antenna/can?

How many walls are you going through? What are the walls made from? Any metal in the walls (chicken wire, foil backed insulation)?

That's what happens when you buy an all-in-one unit. If the wireless part were seperate from the modem, it might have been possible to move just the wireless access point section. You can still do that by adding a 2nd wireless access point to your system. It would have the same SSID as your existing BT Home Hub but on a different RF channel (1, 6, or 11). CAT5 cable between the BT Home Hub and the wireless access point completes the connection.

I have no idea. You didn't bother supplying a model number. Different products have different features. If the unspecified model Netgear device has a client mode, it would be possible. Where it does anything useful depends more on the distance between it and the BT Home Hub and the number of walls you're trying to penetrate. I would try the reflector as others have suggested before doing anything complicated.

It was zero before, and it's satisfactory now. The downside is that it required a lot of fiddling (and juggling around of the AP's placement and its aerials) before I got anything like a solid signal. The upside is that I now have coverage over the whole house apart from a few spots (!) on the kitchen table.

Chris

Sounds like an endorsement for trying a reflector to me !

Cheers, Steve