Help with enhancing my wireless network

Ciscodian

Hi all

I feel the need to get more experience with wirless related stuff. I have a netgear wireless adsl router which has one PC connected to it via ethernet port and have two wireless client PCs in other rooms in my house. Its running 802.11n with WPA2
The signal is good.

I want to experiment with what it would be like to install/configure a new wireless AP and have that act as a repeater or a way to establish roaming. So for example, if I wanted to buy a new Access point would I have to plug it into my ethernet port of my PC (initially for setup only) and then set it up in "repeater mode" and have it point to the MAC address of my main wireless adsl router? the new wireless AP would need to be on same channel as my current bit of kit and share same SSID?is that right? would i also need to configure my current wireless router in repeater mode also?
would i lose throughput by using a repeater? i heard that as the AP acts as a repeater it has to communicate with both the wireless router and the wireless hosts and because of this throughput is reduced but coverage is increased?

or alternatively if I wanted to have "roaming" enabled, would the new AP need to go on a different channel to my current wireless adsl router but still have same SSID? would it need to be plugged into the router's ethernet port or can i just set it up so that it gets plugged into a AC wall outlet in another room?

Any advice, tips, tricks on these scenarios would be very helpful for a newbie such as me. My way of thinking is that i'd probably look to buy some second hand wireless access points just to fiddle with to get more experience rather than i'd want to use it as a permanent fixture to my setup.

Roguetadhg

My only experience with a repeater is that it's fairly easy to setup, and use. As long as the hardware works. I went over to a buddy's house that he had a deal with his neighbor for use of their internet and the neighbor got to use the washer/dryer. Couldn't connect to the WAP via ethernet, swapped out with new hardware, plugged it in and worked like a charm.

Although, I'm more worried about connecting too many repeaters, repeating the noise as well. The signal strength may be there, but is the quality of signal there as well. I doubt it would matter too much just on the first repeater, but if it's more widely used - for example a MAN-sized design, I'd start to worry. Rather the worry is justified, I don't know.

Are you using WPA2-PSK, or with a Radius server?

Ciscodian

Am using WPA2-PSK

would this be any good for both roaming function and repeating signal?
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