Need to increase range of Linksys WRT-160N

[Maxer]

Need to increase range of Linksys WRT-160N (repeater help)

One of those "I have a friend that...." deals.

Anyway, the friend's house has cable internet going from the cable modem to a Linksys WRT-160N.

Their parents live in the house over from them and they want their parents to be able to use their laptop in the parent's house to access the friend's network.

The friend's router is sitting in a window facing the parent's house.

The parent's get signal just fine in the kitchen (a window in their house facing the router in the friend's house).

Obviously the issue is when they leave the kitchen.

I was thinking perhaps a wireless repeater would be the way to go here?

Set it up in the parent's kitchen window and let it rebroadcast through the rest of the parent's house.

(I was wondering at first about a better antenna, but I don't really see that being all that great since it likely wouldn't do much for the parent's once they leave the kitchen the the 160N has no external antenna)

So:

Good wireless repeaters for this router?

In the past I had great luck with Buffalo's gear, but that is no longer on the market so... suggestions?

 

[thiggins]

You really need something more like the PepWave Surf. The WRT160N does not support WDS bridging/repeating.

 

[Maxer]

Now the WRT-160N can use the dd-wrt firmware right? (Version 1) so I COULD get ANOTHER router, use it as "the router" then configure the existing 160N (if it is version 1) to act as a bridge/repeater?
That link you provided, I've never heard of that before so I am reading up on that now, thank you.

 

[thiggins]

Yes. It is supported. Remember that WDS bridging will cut throughput at least in half.

 

[Maxer]

Yeah, I saw that

Anything special I have to do to get it working?

Does anything have to be configured other than enter the SSID, encryption key and that's it?

Do I need to do anything with IP address ranges, or special channel selection, etc?