I purchased this Hawking HWREG1 repeater after a miserable experience with the Linksys repeater. The Hawking unit works perfectly and was very easy to configure. It truly was a 10 minute deal from start to finish. It is extending my Linksys WRT54G wireless network using WPA encryption. You assign the Hawking unit a second SSID (I called mine EXTEND) and then your computer will connect to what it "thinks" is a second wireless network, but everything continues to operate as if you are still on the same network.
I placed this unit on a table that is about half way between the original router and the room with low signal. It is small, and you can easily locate it in an out of the way area. When I use my laptop in the far corner of my house, the original linksys network is still visible as it always was, with a very low signal level. But the EXTEND network has a strong signal, and I just connect to it.
Once connected, you are assigned an IP address from the ORIGINAL Linksys router, and you can ping and communicate with all other devices on your network, even if they are connected to the original network instead of the repeater. So everything continues to work and operate like one network, including shared folders on other computers, printers, etc. I am 100% satisfied with this repeater.
Linksys repeater comparison:
The problem I had with the Linksys WAP54G in repeater mode is that it simply does not work with WPA encryption. It only works with WEP encryption, or no encryption at all. Note that the Linksys website and documents claim that the repeater is compatible with WPA. I can assure you that as of September 2006, up to version 3.04 firmware, the WAP54G access point/repeater does NOT work with WPA encryption. After spending 30 days emailing Linksys tech support back and forth, you will finally be escalated to an engineer that will admit that it doesn't yet work correctly with WPA, but they hope to have it fixed soon! They even sent me some beta firmware, but it did not work with WPA either. Don't waste your time with Linksys, get this HWREG1 Hawking instead. It is easier to configure than Linksys, and works with WPA. Highly recommended. Hawking HWREG1 Wireless G Range Extender
After the truly dreadful set up attempt experience with a Hawking extender I was a bit reluctant to try another but the Hawking tech support and AT&T tech support copnvinced me that the problem was that the first extender was not compatible with the new model 2700 HG 2Wire gateway. Boy were they ever on the right path. I ordered the new one just yesterday afternoon and it arrived today! (Normal UPS shipping-not ovenight). Setup wizard worked! Took less than 2 minutes and I was up and able to put in my wireless card in a 2nd computer way in the upper corner of the house (behind a fireplace) and it WORKED! It sure is nice when that happens. The manual for this new extender is much improved and the setup CD is much bettter than the older one (that I returned to Amazon). Also, this is the first time I have had to return something to Amazon and the process is very easy and helpful.
I purchased two of these, and wasted two days trying to figure out why they worked sometimes and wouldn't work the rest of the time. I finally figured out that the very small switching power supply doesn't work properly with the extender. If you plug the power supply into the extender BEFORE you plug the power into a wall outlet it will NOT work. If you plug the power supply into the wall outlet first, and then into the extender it will work fine. Even though it will work that way, anytime you lose power it will not work again until you disconnect and reconnect the power cord at the extender. I picked up two 12 VDC power supplies at a thrift shop for $2 each, and now I'm back in business. It does work well as a repeater.
After spending hours on the phone with people in India, I called Hawking sales, and got them to transfer me to someone in Engineering. Hopefully they'll soon package the extender with a power supply that works.
This worked exactly as advertised to fill up a coverage hole in our house (so that my son could put his Wii online!). Setup was quick and easy using my Mac laptop. HOWEVER, note that setup requires that you do some network maneuvering -- you need to change the IP address of your setup computer to be in the subnet of the (fixed) initial address of the Extender so you can talk to it over your browser, configure it with the target SSID and a new (fixed) IP address in the subnet of the desired Access Point, and then restore your DHCP or original computer IP address. If that's all gibberish to you, you might be in for problems. If you follow the instructions VERY carefully you will still succeed, but if anything goes wrong you could get stuck.
This is my second attempt at purchasing an extender to work with my 2Wire 2700HG router. I was encouraged by an earlier posting that this extender would work with a 2Wire 2700HG router. After spending two hours with Hawking tech support and then told to call back the next day, I was informed by Hawking that this extender was not compatible with my 2Wire 2700HG router. Back to the drawing board for me! - Repeater - Extender - Range Extender - Range Expander'
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