[PB] airport range

[Jim Freeman]

I know this topic keeps coming around, but I'm going to bring it up 
again. I'm having trouble getting Airport coverage in my apartment.

I have a newish 12" PBG4 1.33 Ghz and my wife has a dual USB iBook. We 
have a DSL connection that we've been sharing until recently through an 
original gray ABS. The ABS is in my office in the front of the house 
and my wife works in the back of the house. Lately she has been 
complaining that she is out of range of the Airport network and can't 
get internet access consistently (one bar or no bars on the airport 
menu bar icon). The distance is less than 50', although there are some 
walls in between. The loss of range may have coincided with getting rid 
of my Pismo and getting my PBG4, I'm not sure, nor can I see why it 
would matter. But for at least a year in this house we had good 
coverage everywhere.

I bought an Airport Express device and have been trying various things. 
I tried placing it in her workspace to extend the range of my ABS, but 
that didn't work. I'm not sure if that was because it was also out of 
range of the network, or because the 802.11g AE won't extend an 802.11b 
network, or both. Then I disconnected my grey ABS and replaced it with 
the Airport Express. That's where I'm at now, but she still has only 
spotty internet access.

There isn't really a good centrally located spot to put a base station. 
I could run a new phone line and electrical outlet somewhere, but with 
our small children it would also have to be out of reach.

One option would be to buy another AirPort Express. Then I could hook 
it up in the living room to put music through the stereo, and hopefully 
extend the network a bit further. The one I have now allows for printer 
sharing.

Or I could give up on printer sharing and move the Airport Express into 
the living room, and using the old ABS to distribute internet access. 
But will an 802.11g extend the range of an 802.11b? I'm still unclear 
about that.

I would welcome any comments or suggestions.

Jim