I had a situation where an existing modem/WiFi access point was in a relatively shielded corner of a house (a garage converted to an office… steel roof, and the rest of the house was set higher than the garage).

I tried a higher gain antenna, but that only gave a marginal improvement.

Using my phone’s WiFi I could see that once I walked through the door from the office, into the rest of the house, the signal would start dropping very quickly

I couldn’t see much point in going for a 802.11N modem/WiFi router, as the sheilding could still cause connectivity problems.

Based on my past success with setting an edimax BR6204WLG router as a client-mode hub, I decided to get an Edimax BR-6226N and test out its ability to work as a WIFi repeater.

I found that once its configured correctly, it does a great job as a repeater.

Before you start, you need to make sure you do the initial setup using an ethernet cable to configure the router (don’t use WiFi until configuration is complete)

The first step (as usual with Edimax), is to upgrade the firmware (I needed to upgrade from 1.14 to 1.19).

The second step is to change the router IP address and DHCP range to something compatible with the primary router.

For example, the primary router has an IP address of 192.168.8.121, and a DHCP range of 192.168.8.1 to 192.168.8.99

So I decide to setup the edimax with an IP address of 192.168.8.133, and a dhcp address range of 192.168.8.200 to 192.168.8.250

So, from the router home page, I go general setup-> LAN -> I then change the IP address and DHCP start/end IP addresses, then hit Apply -> Apply, then wait 30seconds.

Now set your browser to go to the new address you entered (eg 192.168.8.133)

Now back at the Edimax home page:

General setup-> Wireless -> Basic settings ->

Mode: Universal Repeater

ESSID: Repeater1 (or any other name you want to call the repeater. Don’t use the same name as the main router.

Channel Numer: pick the same numer as your main router (this is important… it must be the same!)

Use the “Site Survey” button to select your main router (remember to do all this while the 2 routers are close (eg in the same room).

Apply -> Apply -> wait 30 seconds.

Reconnect to the Edimax home page.

General setup -> Wireless -> Security Settings -> encryption: set it to allow acces to the main router (eg WPAPSK), as well as the appropriate password/key.

If you are not sure, check the main router.

Apply -> Apply -> wait 30 seconds.

Once everything is setup, make sure you turn off both routers, the laptop (or other WiFi device you will use to test this).

Now position the Edimax in its new location (make sure it can still connect to the main router, but make sure your computer gets a much stronger signal from the repeater, than from the main router).

Switch on the main router. Once it has started:

Switch on the repeater. Once it has started:

Switch on your laptop

Now use your laptop / smartphone / game console to connect to the Edimax (eg Repeater1)… use the password/key that you have for the main router (which should be the same the password you used in the Edimax).

Since you have 2 DHCP consoles running, you might find that you get the second set of IP addresses… this will prevent you from “seeing” the main router and the internet.

You should now fix this by disabling DHCP on the router: general setup-> LAN

Restart, and you should now have access to the main router network (which would usually mean the internet as well).