Airport Extreme and a Guest House.

Hey all!
I am moving into a guest house and the main house wi-fi coverage is very weak. I was wondering if I could use my Airport Extreme to wirelessly connect to the main house's wifi to boost and re broadcast my own network (ie, using the same name and setting of my current netowrk so I don't have to reconfig all of my devices). Or, do I have to buy the wifi repeater (Apple Espress) and have my Extreme in the main house to get a strong signal?
More info: The main house has Time Warner Cable for internet. The guest house is about 10 feet away form the main house. The Main house resident is using an inexpensive brand router. She only uses it to connect her iPhone in the house.
Thanks!

I was wondering if I could use my Airport Extreme to wirelessly connect to the main house's wifi to boost and re broadcast my own network
The AirPort Extreme could do this only if the main house was also using an Apple wireless router.
Or, do I have to buy the wifi repeater (Apple Espress) and have my Extreme in the main house to get a strong signal?
That might work. See the next question.
The guest house is about 10 feet away form the main house.
Distance is not really the issue that you need to be concerned about. The issue is obstructions in the signal path.
If there are too many walls or other obstructions in the signal path between the AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express, the wireless signal will be absorbed very quickly with the result being that little to no wireless signal will reach the AirPort Express....so there may not be enough signal quality for the AirPort Express to extend.
You can get an idea if this might work by testing using only your AirPort Extreme before you buy an AirPort Express. Hook up the AirPort Extreme in the main house and then see if you can get a wireless connection on your computer in the Guest house.
If you can, the AirPort Express will strengthen that signal effectively. If you cannot get a good signal using only the AirPort Extreme during your test, then adding an AirPort Express will not help.....since it can only extend the quality of signal that it receives.
If that is the case, you need to look at a wired Ethernet connection from the wireless router in the main house to the AirPort router in the Guest house. If you cannot run the Ethernet cable, a pair of Ethernet powerline adapters might work.....IF....the main house and Guest house are on the same master electrical circuit.
It would be a good idea to understand the store's return policy before you purchase any equipment. The reason for this is that you really will not know if things will work until you try.

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Dear All,
I am about to loose it. I have an Airport Extreme (7.4.2), most recent version (802.11n)connected to my cable modem. Attached is a 2TB HFS+ Formated HDD. I have a number of machines. My primary machine is a Dell XPS with Vista and MacDrive installed.
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Hi!
I've got the same problem as of Friday when I upgraded my Notebook from XP to Windows 7.
It does not recognize the HDD anymore, neither on the Windows7 Notebook nor on 2 different XP- PC's.
I disabled the password functionality and removed the HDD several times, no change.
When I look to the data volumes overview in the system settings, all internal HDD's and the CD partition of the Toshiba drive are shown. The HDD partition of the drive is shown as "non allocated".
Is there any workaround to get access to the data????
Best regards,
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Hello All,
Thank you ahead of time for your help! I have a couple of questions regarding the set up of my airport extreme and an external hard drive.
What I want to accomplish is using the airport extreme to ONLY share a hard drive for backup and sharing other files through out the house. My housemates already have the internet going through their router, so there is for the airport extreme. Can a macbook pro (13in intel) receive two wireless signals, one that is the internet and the other from my airport extreme (that shares my hard drive)? If so, how is this done?
Any assistance would be more that appreciated!!
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Hello njoza. Welcome to the Apple Discussions!
The simplest way to accomplish this would be to connect the 802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBSn) to the Internet router by Ethernet; reconfigure the AEBSn as a bridge, and disable its wireless radios.
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An hour or so ago, my network stopped working. My guest one works, but not my main 2.4 or 5 ghz network. I tried the Airport utility but it can't read the configuration file. HELP!!

Please power down the AirPort Extreme and your computer.
Temporarily, connect an ethernet cable from your computer to one of the LAN <-> ports on the AirPort Exptreme.
Power up the AirPort Extreme first, then your computer
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Message was edited by: Bob Timmons

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So heres the situation: I have 1 airport extreme in the house and another in the office separate from the house. The cable modem connects to the aiport express in the house through ehternet. An ethernet chord goes from the Aiport Extreme from in the house to the office in the back yard.
Decided to update my airport extremes with the new tall ones. Bought the normal one for the house and got the Airport Extreme Time capsule for the office.
But nothing works. Reseted the device, unpluged the modems power and cables and still nothing ... just blinks yellow
I feel like the NEW Aiport Extremes are not talking to the modem ... theres some diconnection between the airports and the modem.
So there both sitting on my desk until i can figure out what the problem is.
The modem is provided from Time Warner, Los Angeles area. Its maybe 1.5 to 2 years old
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The cable modem remembers your old AirPort Extreme and it will not associate with the new AirPort Extreme until it....the modem....is completely reset to the point where it has forgotten your old AirPort Extreme.
Power off the modem completely by pulling the power plug from the back of the device
Leave it off at least 30 minutes. longer will not hurt at all.
Power up the new AirPort Extreme for a few minutes
Hold in the reset button on the Extreme firmly for 10 seconds and release
Allow a full minute for the AirPort Extreme to restart
Now power off the AirPort Extreme
After the modem power down period is done, connect an Ethernet cable from the modem to the WAN "O" Port on the AirPort Extreme
Power up the modem and let it run for 10 minutes by itself
Power up the AirPort Extreme and let it run a few minutes
Now try to set up the AirPort Extreme using AirPort Utility
Post back on your progress and we will get the new Time Capsule set up next.

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Hello,
Thank you in advance for all your help and replies, I truly appreciate it.
I'm looking to purchase an 802.11n Airport Extreme and AirPort Express. I want to setup the Extreme next to my DSL modem and setup the Express in another room and have it extend the wireless network. The Express will also serve as an ethernet port from my DVR unit. I have read different posts that indicated that if I setup the Express to wirelessly connect to the Extreme, via WDS, or some other method, the wireless network will be downgraded to 802.11g. I currently have a 802.11g wireless network. I have one Buffalo Technology 802.11g wireless router and one Buffalo Technology 802.11g router (setup as an access point) and can do everything I need except connect a external HD via USB.
If at all possible, I would like the entire network (Extreme and Express) to use the same SSID and password. Have the Extreme perform the MAC filtering, provide DHCP address, and service a guest network.
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Again, thank you in advance.
--GMReed

When using the "extend" feature with the new 802.11n base stations, the extended wireless network operates in the 802.11n mode. I believe you may be referring to one of two things that may have led you to that conclusion: 1) When extending a network with the older static version of a WDS, the extended network operates in the 802.11g mode. This is true when either or both base stations are 802.11g models, and 2) Non-"n" wireless clients, connected to a "n" network, will bring the network down to the lowest bandwidth level of the oldest standard. Although connecting these types of clients does affect the overall bandwidth available to "n" clients, it does NOT bring the overall wireless network down to "g" or "b" level.
>If at all possible, I would like the entire network (Extreme and Express) to use the same SSID and password.
By default, both base stations must uses the same Network Name or SSID and wireless password to work properly.
>Have the Extreme perform the MAC filtering, provide DHCP address, and service a guest network.
For MAC filtering in an extended network, both base stations must be configured with the same MAC addresses for all clients that you want access to the extended network. The Extreme would provide DHCP service, but (unfortunately) you cannot extend the guest network.

Can time capsule connect to ethernet through airport extreme and then send wifi on a different band ?

Hope this makes sense.
At the moment, an Airport Extreme (n) is connected to a single wall outlet by ethernet and sends wifi signals at both 2,4 and 5 GHz.
I would like to add a Time Capsule (also n), position it immediately next to or above this Airport Extreme and connect to the AE with a very short ethernet cable (so not extending the Extreme's wifi signal since that could reduce the signal's strength by half).
This way both are connected to the internet by ethernet (the AE directly to the wall outlet, and the TC to the AE's ethernet out), hence both should be able to send wifi at full signal strength.
In order to achieve full wifi strength I would then set the Extreme to (only) send at 2,4 GHz and the Capsule to (only) send at 5 GHz.
Please note that the house has an open (loft style) floorplan, so there's no reason to position the AE and the TC at a distance from each other for wifi reach throughout the house.
Dear Bob, what do you think? I've been reading up but didn't find a directly related post.
Is this the right way to go about it?
KInd regards.

I would like to add a Time Capsule (also n), position it immediately next to or above this Airport Extreme
The position immediately above is poor.. and next to each other is even worse.. you are blocking the antennas from one side or the other..
Please use a patch lead of around 2M (6feet) min.. and place them that far apart.
very short ethernet cable (so not extending the Extreme's wifi signal since that could reduce the signal's strength by half).
Having the devices link wirelessly causes the speed to drop by half which is caused by double hop wireless.. it does not reduce signal actually.. but you can have interference issues.
In order to achieve full wifi strength I would then set the Extreme to (only) send at 2,4 GHz and the Capsule to (only) send at 5 GHz.
Please note that the house has an open (loft style) floorplan, so there's no reason to position the AE and the TC at a distance from each other for wifi reach throughout the house.
The gap between two radio transmitters is so they don't flood the receiver on the unit next to them.. It has nothing to do with the room. If I stick two transmitter/receivers next to each other they need some space. It is also to give full access to the antennas which are spaced around the sides on the older N models.
You also cannot turn off one band.. If they are dual band models.. ie Gen3 AE and later. Gen2 TC and later.. they are permanently dual band. You cannot do anything about it.
You can simply set the channels.. although auto should work.. there are 11 channels for 2.4ghz.. set one to channel 1 and the other to 11.
At 5ghz there are heaps of channels.. set one to 36 and the other to 149.. or whatever is available.
You are not going to achieve anything much doing this unless you have more clients than bandwidth.. ie both boxes can fully service internet to up to 10 clients.. maybe more if each band is used properly.. you will gain nothing using two routers next to each other.
Beaten by your preferred forum eggs spurt.. !!

Airport extreme and express not acting as i would expect

i have a virgin media super hub which won't transmit my wireless all around my house so i have set this to modem only mode and have connected it to a 4th gen extreme via a cable and connected 1 desktop pc to the extreme also via a cable. All works perfectly and i get the full 60mb broadband that i pay for and all wireless devices also connected to the extreme achieve this speed. Unfo although better it still isn't enough to transmit through the whole house.
To rectify this i have bought a new express and connected it all up which as expected was a doddle, the problem is that when i connect to the express i get a speed of between 2 and 12mb but never any more. When i spoke to the guy in store i was told that i would get the same speed from the express as i got at the extreme so is this not the case or have i got a setting wrong?

1. EOP (Ethernet over Power) Sometimes called Homeplug. When you don't know stuff.. google it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePlug
Get trained by little kids on youtube..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i72DM0dbGpc
They are readily available from any of the big computer stores.. in every brand under the sun. Including ones you have heard of and some probably not.. internally they are all about the same.
2. The old roaming instructions are the last apple produced.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4260
Here is my take on it.. with lots of screenshots.
Problems with Airport Extreme Ethernet roaming setup
Here is a joint effort from users here.
Setting Up Roaming - New AirPort Extremes and Utility
Main things to notice.. This is simple. Follow the instruction in my thread above.. and it works.. but I find the airport utility might need a bit of a kick now and then to get the right setup.
3. Make it easy on yourself. You are trying to do too many things at once.
Reset the express.
Plug it into the Extreme by a patch ethernet cable.
Do the setup.. as per..
Problems with Airport Extreme Ethernet roaming setup
Once you complete the setup.. take the express upstairs and plug it into the EOP adapter.
If it fails.. plug a computer by ethernet into the EOP adapter and see if you are connected.. you might be blaming the wrong thing.

Airport Extreme and a Guest House.

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