Which base station am I connecting to?

[Davmeister]

I have a TC and an Airport Express acting as an extender. How do I know if I'm connecting to the TC or the Express? In Airport Utility, it tells me that the AE has only 1 client (I assume the TC), whereas the TC has about 6-7 clients, including the AE.

Thanks...

 

[wackymacky]

I have a TC and an Airport Express acting as an extender. How do I know if I'm connecting to the TC or the Express? In Airport Utility, it tells me that the AE has only 1 client (I assume the TC), whereas the TC has about 6-7 clients, including the AE.

Thanks...

Presumably you should be able to see the MAC addresses of the machines that are connected to the TC?

Just see if this matches your computers MAC address.

> System Preferences

Click on the Network icon,
Select Built-in Ethernet for Wired or Airport for Wireless
Click on the Advanced button

Click on the Ethernet tab

Your MAC address will be at the top of this window as your Ethernet ID . The MAC address is the 12 character address e.g. 00:14:67:F0:56:A4

 

[Nermal]

Alternatively, hold Option while clicking the AirPort icon in the menu bar to see the MAC address of the base that you're connected to.

 

[Davmeister]

Alternatively, hold Option while clicking the AirPort icon in the menu bar to see the MAC address of the base that you're connected to.

Ah this is the easiest and best way to find it out, thanks. Lots of other useful info when you do that also.

One further question: When in my kitchen, I can stream music to the AE, as I am connected to that base station. However when I go upstairs to my room, I connect to the TC base station and iTunes music streaming ability disappears. However they are both on the same network (the AE acting as an extender for the TC as I said). So can I stream over the network as I'm not connected directly to the AE?

Thanks people!

Tom

 

[cderalow]

unless you live in an apartment building or condo with brick or solid concrete walls, or for some reason have a house (mansion) that has more than 200ft from where the TC is compared to the AE, there really isn't a need to extend your network. A metal stud wall might cause some degradation in signal strength, but a wooden wall should provide very little in terms of signal loss.

The range of a wireless n network in a typical building is around 70 meters. If you're using wireless g enable devices, it's only 45 meters, but still significantly larger than the average house.

 

[Davmeister]

unless you live in an apartment building or condo with brick or solid concrete walls, or for some reason have a house (mansion) that has more than 200ft from where the TC is compared to the AE, there really isn't a need to extend your network. A metal stud wall might cause some degradation in signal strength, but a wooden wall should provide very little in terms of signal loss.

The range of a wireless n network in a typical building is around 70 meters. If you're using wireless g enable devices, it's only 45 meters, but still significantly larger than the average house.

I get that but 3 things:

1. I live in a house with 10 other students in 9 different rooms, so there are a lot of walls spread over 3 floors, and I have to have the TC in my room as that is where the connection point is, but also because I'm not stupid enough to leave it lying around the house! Therefore I don't cover the entire house (nearly, but not quite), so the buying of an AE is justified.

2. I've already bought it so it's a bit pointless telling me I don't need it...also it's the 802.11n version, however there are 10 students, and I can't persuade them all to upgrade their windows/mac laptops to n wifi cards...they are all g.

3. You didn't answer my question

 

[cderalow]

I get that but 3 things:

1. I live in a house with 10 other students in 9 different rooms, so there are a lot of walls spread over 3 floors, and I have to have the TC in my room as that is where the connection point is, but also because I'm not stupid enough to leave it lying around the house! Therefore I don't cover the entire house (nearly, but not quite), so the buying of an AE is justified.

2. I've already bought it so it's a bit pointless telling me I don't need it...also it's the 802.11n version, however there are 10 students, and I can't persuade them all to upgrade their windows/mac laptops to n wifi cards...they are all g.

3. You didn't answer my question

I was more referencing the fact that you could use the AE as a joined wireless client rather than extending via WDS.

I know I've personally had issues with my airport express base stations & streaming music when using WDS v just as a client on the primary network