Wireless Repeater Limited Connection

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RazerMamba

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Jun 8, 2014
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I have a stock Actiontec router from Verizon with the LAN IP of 192.168.1.1 and a Netgear N600 with DD-WRT. I want to make the Netgear a wireless repeater. I followed the repeater setup here:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wlan_Repeater

I was able to make the Netgear a wireless access point, but if I try to connect to it, it says limited internet connection. I've tried making the LAN IP of the Netgear 192.168.2.1 as well as 192.168.1.253. Same issue. I also tried making it a client bridge but have the same limited connection issue.

Under wireless security, I don't know what the default transmit key does so I leave it at option 1. All I do is set it to 64 bit wep, type in my passphrase (the one I use to log in to my Actiontec), generate and leave everything else alone if that makes any difference.

I set wireless network mode to BG-Mixed on the Netgear as my ActionTek says "Mixed accepts 802.11b and 802.11g connections", is that right?

Any ideas? Thanks.
 
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It is possible to do it with dd-wrt but I have never done it myself. You would have to search their forum for instructions. I know the key part was assigning the radios to different vlans. I have put the radios in different vlans before but I never tried to run one as a bridge at the same time. I would suspect it is not all that hard but if you have never done vlans, or bridging, or WDS it could be quite a bit of learning. I doubt you will be able to configure this via the menu system you will likely have to do it via the command line.
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RazerMamba

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1 and 2. If I change from WEP to WPA2, it shouldn't affect anything else except for the fact that I may have compatibility issues with older devices, correct?

3. Followed the steps and disabled the DHCP server via the radio button. LAN IP is 192.168.253, rebooted the router.

Edit: Okay, I currently have it set up as two different wireless access points/names and have it working as I want it to as a wireless bridge link.

My next question would be, how do I set it up so bandwidth isn't halved for wireless clients on the repeater? According to this, if I set my Netgear to client mode and make sure they're on different channels, I can do it:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeating_Mode_Comparisons
But I don't see a tutorial/name for it to search for.
Edit: reading into client mode, I'll probably run into port forwarding/other issues down the road.
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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You can't fix the 1/2 the speed issue on most routers. The problem is you sending the data 2 times on the same radio channels, this assuming no interference at all cuts the speed in half. It likely cuts it much more.

The only solution is to use 2 radios. Some people have used dd-wrt based routers to use say the 5g channel to talk to the main router and the 2.4g channel to talk to the users. If you run in bridge mode...ie the main router actually sees the mac of the end devices you will need to use WDS on the connection between the "repeater" and the main router. This is a limitation related to the encryption using the mac address as part of they keys. If you can not use WDS on the connection back to the main router then the "repeater" must act as a router and hide all the other mac behind it and as you state you get the port forward issue. There are discussions on how to do this with dd-wrt but I generally just do it the easy way and use 2 physical devices one for the bridge and one for the AP.

There are a number of outdoor repeaters that have factory option that allow you to use 1 radio as the backhaul to the main router and the other to talk to the clients. The only consumer model I know of that allows you to use 2.4g for backhaul and to talk to the clients is hawkingtech hw2r1, this device contains 2 2.4g radios rather than a 2.4g and a 5g.

No matter what you do you will always have the issue of either it must support WDS or you must in effect NAT the mac/IP addresses.

 
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RazerMamba

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If I want to use two radios as you said (5g to talk to the other router and 2.4g to talk to the users is completely fine), how would I go about setting that up? Is it simply just instead of setting my wl0 to my home router, I set it to the wl1 instead assuming it's the 5g radio? Only my "repeater" router is using dd-wrt, should still be fine right?

On another note, I've been messing around with WPA2 personal with AES on the repeater router only but it seems that makes the connection poor/my phone refuses to connect to it. My laptop also refuses to connect to it. Does my main router have to be WPA2 for it to work?
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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It is possible to do it with dd-wrt but I have never done it myself. You would have to search their forum for instructions. I know the key part was assigning the radios to different vlans. I have put the radios in different vlans before but I never tried to run one as a bridge at the same time. I would suspect it is not all that hard but if you have never done vlans, or bridging, or WDS it could be quite a bit of learning. I doubt you will be able to configure this via the menu system you will likely have to do it via the command line.
 
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