Wireless Connections

[jeepsrule]

Question for the Tech Guru's out there. I have a Mac Time Capsule which is wirelessly sharing a backup hard drive with our two laptops and a wireless printer in the coach. The laptops can connect to the WiFi RV park internet independently. The problem with this is that if I'm on the internet my laptops are not connected to the Time Capsule base station, so they cannot print or backup.

Is there a way to connect the Time Capsule to the RV Park Wifi directly? That way the Time Capsule could share internet, backup and printer at the same time to my laptops.

[FlyingDiver]

Yes, but it's fairly complicated. Basically, you need to use a WiFi bridge device (like a Deliberant CPE-2) connected to the WAN port on the Time Capsule, which is then connected to the campground Wifi access point. Configuring the CPE requires a fair amount of networking know-how and is not something I would recommend for the casual user.

joe

[jeepsrule]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyingDiver Yes, but it's fairly complicated. Basically, you need to use a WiFi bridge device (like a Deliberant CPE-2) connected to the WAN port on the Time Capsule, which is then connected to the campground Wifi access point. Configuring the CPE requires a fair amount of networking know-how and is not something I would recommend for the casual user. joe

I'm better than the casual user but probably not good enough that I want to pursue this. Right now we have to switch networks to backup and print and we can continue to do that without any more equipment. Be nice if I could plug a USB stick into the AirPort/Time Capsule and have it online........I'll put that on my list for Santa Claus.

[FlyingDiver]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeepsrule I'm better than the casual user but probably not good enough that I want to pursue this. Right now we have to switch networks to backup and print and we can continue to do that without any more equipment. Be nice if I could plug a USB stick into the AirPort/Time Capsule and have it online........I'll put that on my list for Santa Claus.

The problem is that the TC is a fairly dumb device. It doesn't know how to talk to an air card (modem) or a USB Wifi adapter. It only knows how to use the ethernet as a WAN connection. If you were using a Mac mini to share your hard drive and printer instead, it would be fairly easy to do what you want. but you would still need a second Wifi adapter.

I have one of the Deliberant units on the roof (mounted on the batwing so I can aim it), but it still requires manual reconfiguration to use it instead of the satellite or cell modem connections we usually use.

joe

[FlyingDiver]

Oh, it does occur to me that you could solve this a little easier by either hardwiring your computers to the TC, or by adding a second Wifi adapter (USB stick) to the laptops. For instance, you could get those aimable USB Wifi antennas, use those to connect to the campground, and use the built in Wifi to remain connected to the TC.

joe

[jeepsrule]

Thanks all, but the solutions all seem more time consuming than the problem I'm trying to solve.