[Yose]

Hello,

I'm trying to determine the strength of a wireless network between a Main Basestation and Remote Basestation within a WDS Network.

Main Basestation = Airport Extreme w/ modem
Remote Basestation = Airport Express

Details:
Both Airports have the latest firmware.

The two network points are roughly 30"-40" away from each other, down a long hallway in my appartment.

I'm finding that I'm losing my connection between the two, and that my PB12", while it has full signal strength when close to the remote basestation, still gets crummy speeds and is dropping out of the network from time to time.

I have no wireless phone in my appartment, either.

So, repeating my question, is there a way to monitor the signal strength of the two basestations in relation to each other. Are there any tricks I should try to get them to work better?

[rjt1000]

Hi,

Here are some things you might consider to improve your wi-fi network performance:

1. Wireless phones (2.4 ghz band) and microwave ovens cause major disruption to wi-fi performance. In an apartment building you are affected by your neighbors use of these as well. You might try operating your network on a different channel (you can change this in the aiport administration utility.) Or moving the location of the base station / WDS remote away from likely sources of interference. (e.g. your neighbors microwaves)

2. The airport extreme base station with modem has an antenna port. An external antenna will boost performance. With your "long hall" setup, you might want a directional antenna you can point down the hall. You can investigate these at:
http://www.macwireless.com/html/prod...t_antennas.php
http://www.quickertek.com/antennas.php

3. The metal chasis laptops have notoriously poor wi-fi performance. There are external antennas, transceivers and usb wi-fi adapters available. See this thread for some discussion and my experience with one of the usb adapters:
http://forums.macnn.com/92/networking/295013/improving-wireless-performance-12-inch-aluminum/

4. If you have the airport express plugged directly into an outlet, you might get better performance if you use an extension cord to allow better placement (ideally line of sight with the airport extreme)

5. If you replaced the airport express with a second airport extreme base station, you could connect the two with ethernet cable. That would also eliminate the long hall problem.

Enjoy,

rjt1000