Raylink wireless cards to an access point

Just a note. Raylink is frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS)

802.11 and not compatible with the more common direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) 802.11b/g. 2Mbits/sec maximum connection speed and about half that in thruput. This could be slower than your DSL.

You need an ethernet router. The access point will work with any

*ONE* of your two wireless cards at one time as the access point has no way to share a single IP address. You install the router between the DSL modem and the Raylink access point. There's not much you need to do on the W2K machines. The router will deliver NAT private LAN IP addresses, gateway, and DNS addresses to each of the W2K machines on 192.168.xxx.xxx.

My ISP assures me my Speedstream DSL modem is a router/modem, so I believe that if I set the 2 wireless cards to IP's in the family of the Access point IP 192.168.254.1, (i.e. 192.168.254.2 & 192.168.254.3) and assign all a common ESSID, I should be good to go. Am I correct in this assumption? Have been told by others to set both wireless to automatically get IP, but that does not seem to work. Thanks, frosty

Well, you didn't bother to mention what type of DSL modem/router you were using in the past message, and you still find it difficult to disclose the model number. Yes, it's important.

Mini-rant: If you want accurate answers, kindly supply:

1. What problem are you trying to solve.
2. What do you have to work with. End of mini-rant:

I can't tell from here. 192.168.254.1 is the default IP address used by Netopia/Cayman routers, not Speedstream. Depending upon model, Speedstream/Efficient/Siemens uses 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.254.254. I think you may have the wrong IP address, but I can't tell from here because you haven't bothered to supply the model number.

I suggest you determine why the DHCP server in your unspecified model router doesn't supply a DHCP assigned IP address. You can try to assign a static IP to one of the W2K machines for troubleshooting, but first figure out the correct IP address. Also, you should set the gateway IP address to the IP address of the router. Just to be complete, set the DNS addresses to that of the router (if it has a DNS cache) or to that of the ISP's DNS servers.

You might wanna try a little experiment. Download and install the DHCP query tool at the bottom of:

think (not sure) that it will work even if you don't have an IP address assigned to your computah as DHCP queries are broadcasts. I'm too lazy to try it without an IP right now, but it would be nifty if it worked for such problems.

Assumption, the mother of all screwups.

Incidentally, what's a W4 Raylink access point? I couldn't find any refernce to a W4 on their web pile.

I just tried and it works. I set my W2K machines IP address and gateway to a useless IP address (and lost connectivity). I then tried the above utility and it successfully disclosed the correct IP address of the DHCP server. This is gonna be handy.

The secret modem is a Speedstream 5200, which I have just discovered did not have the firmware upgrade to enable the router functions it has laying in latency. Upgrade has now been done. IP assigned by router/modem (the Speedstream 5200) to Ethernet card is indeed

192.168.254.1 with a default gatway and DHCP server of 192.168.254.254, in router functions on router/modem, under DHCP server heading in the secretive Speedstream 5200, it lists the table of IP's as 192.168.254.1 to 192.168.254.253, with the .254 as referenced above reserved for the gateway and DHCP server functions. Subnet masks are all listed as 255.255.255.0. If my logic is correct then I should be able to hook the access point to the DSL router/modem, reset the access point to the same settings now used on my ethernet card,(IP 192.168.254.1) , set my wireless cards to IP between 192.168.254.2-253 and it should be ready to haul internet The raylink W4 is a 802.11 access point built by Raytheon under the corporate name of Raylink, go to this site and it will give you the basics.

Ahah. That explains why DHCP wasn't working.

That sounds normal and correct.

Let the surfing begin. But first, a little housekeeping. I suggest you NOT set your ethernet port/card to a static IP address, as you apparently are suggesting, but to use DHCP from the router to assign the IP address. Same with the wireless.

Retch. Frequency hopping 802.11 2Mbits/sec maximum. I was dealing with those about 8(?) years ago and didn't have anything nice to say about them. Big problem with the access point is overheating and hangs on high sustained traffic. If you try to mix it with other FHSS devices such as those from Symbol or Breezecom, you'll find that Raylink clients only work at the slowest 1Mbit/sec speed. If DHCP doesn't work through the Raylink, look for a setting in the Raylink telnet config something like "pass broadcasts".

Incidentally, here's some horrible photos of what's inside the card:

haven't seen ceramic flip chips in about 10 years.