Setting up a wireless repeater: does the host AP need to be set up as a repeater too?

Question

I would like to repeat a signal from my Sky wireless router downstairs, on a Netgear DGN2000 wireless router/modem. I have set it to repeater mode, with the MAC address from the Sky box downstairs, but it doesn't seem to be making any difference.

I verified that the Netgear is in range of the Sky router by using a phone to check the Sky router's signal.

I can go and play around with the settings on the Sky router, but this question is more out of curiosity (and in the interests of saving time - no point playing around with the Sky box if that's not the problem). Personally I would have imagined that for the Netgear router to pick up and repeat the signal, I needn't change anything on the main AP, the Sky box.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

I've had great luck with a Linksys router loaded with dd-wrt. The wiki for the how-to is here: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeater

From my understanding, you have to assign the repeating device the same SSID and security mode as the repeated device and create a vlan with a new SSID that you'll connect to. That is, after you change the setting from Bridge or Router to Repeater. Again, I'm using DD-WRT on my Linksys router, so configs may be different if possible on your current software.