On 25 Nov 2006 06:38:35 -0800, "Brian McCabe" <briansmccabe@gmail.com>
wrote in <1164465515.557274.221580@j72g2000cwa.googlegroups .com>:

>I have a linksys wrt54g in my basement that sends a wireless signal to
>three machines in my house. One is just across the room, one is one
>floor up, and the third is my laptop. The machine across the room and
>the machine one floor up get their signal just fine, but the laptop
>gets rather poor signal when it is positioned on the small desk next to
>my bed on the top floor of my house. Moving the wrt54g isn't really an
>option due to the way things are set up in the basement, and I'd
>strongly prefer not to rearrange the furniture in my bedroom. So what I
>thought I might be able to do is to place some sort of device on the
>ground floor (physically connected to the machine on that floor, if
>neccesary) that receives the signal from the wrt54g and "forwards" it
>onto further points in the house. I think if my laptop were to be
>pulling its signal from that part of the house, it would be able to get
>the signal upstairs just fine. So, a few questions:

Have you tried angling the antenna on the WRT54G horizontally so it
better "illuminates" upwards? Have you considered using a higher gain
directional antenna? A repeater will cut your network throughput in
half.

>A) what device would perform this function? would another wrt54g do the
>trick?

Any Linksys device with WDS. Depending on model of your WRT54G, 3rd
party firmware can be a good option. See wikis below.

>B) The machine on the ground floor receives its signal via a linksys
>WUSB54G. Does this device have any capability of performing this task?
>My belief is that it doesn't, but I am not sure.

It doesn't.

>For the sake of consistency, I'd prefer whatever device I use to be a
>linksys device, but I'm not entirely opposed to looking at other
>manufacturers.

Stick with the same brand.

A better solution for extending wireless is to install a remote wireless
access point (same _unique_ SSID, different channel) connected by wire
(Ethernet, powerline networking, phoneline networking, coax networking)
to the original wireless access point.

See wikis below.

--
Best regards, FAQ for Wireless Internet: <http://Wireless.wikia.com>
John Navas FAQ for Wi-Fi: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi>
Wi-Fi How To: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_HowTo>
Fixes to Wi-Fi Problems: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_Fixes>