The wonderful world of wireless confusion

I recently ordered an Airport Extreme card to go in my iBook and an Airport Express unit. Unsurprisingly the extreme card has arrived significantly before the express unit. I installed the card and popped around a freinds house in order to test the gear. He has a Linksys 802.11G wireless router and a PCMCIA card in his dell (he got it from work... his first choice would obviously been apple!).

The problem is that while he can get reception from the garden 15 meters away (albeit poor quality) I can only get reception at under a meter from the router. We tried unplugging the router and then turning it back on and I have also tried it with "interference robustness" turned on and off.

My question is, does anyone know if this is likely to be the router or my extreme card? Am I likely to experience the same issue with the express unit, and has anyone else had similar issues?

I tried searching the board but all my querries return far to many invalid results to search through.

Cheers,

Dan

Am I right in saying that the cable that connects to the top of the airport card is the antena? If so I might have a go at removing and reinstalling the card tonight... I guess its possible that I did not push it in enough.

Gee said:

I had the same problem, and it was a simple matter of not pushing the AE card into the slot properly. Try reseating it, I'm sure it'll be fine.

Click to expand...

Reseating it worked a treat (handy hint for anyone installing the card: the ariel (sp?) wire clicks twice when inserted correctly, and you really have to push!). The securing bracket seems useless though, the card is so tight in there that its unlikely to just pop out..... famous last words!

Thanks to you all for your help!