Apple Airport Express : Expand WiFi Surfing Range On The Road
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23/12/2008 – Apple Airport Express : Expand WiFi Surfing Range On The Road
The need, and desire, to be connected on the road is an important concern to many flyers. Whether you’re on the road for business or pleasure, you want to stay connected (unless you take a romantic weekend getaway to Fiji, in which case you should probably skip the desire to be online and turn your mobile phone off as well).
For travellers who find themselves in hotels with only wired connections, airports with weak connections (or potentially free weak WiFi connections) or anywhere else that the range of WiFi could be beneficial if made a bit stronger, there are some solutions.
You could always get an antenna, a soldering gun and a USB cable you don’t mind splicing, or go the more convenient route of picking up an Apple Airport Express.
The Airport Express, which can be used as both a wireless router and a repeater, is actually slightly smaller than a Blackberry 8700 (although it is slightly thicker). The ultra compact, and fully self contained, design is ideal for travel.  Once you get to a location you’d like to strengthen the WiFi in you can easily pull it out, connect to it via your laptop and set it up to act as a repeater, which extends the range of the available WiFi.   In hotels that are hardwired online, you plug the ethernet cable into the Airport Express, connect your laptop wirelessly and you have a wireless connection for your convenience.
While my Airport Express is usually found in my home, next to my bed, it has proved to be a very useful tool…and small enough to be a great last minute holiday stocking stuffer for both Mac and PC users.
Below is a photo of my Apple Airport Express next to my ‘essentials’ pouch for travelling.
Happy Flying!
–Click Image Below To Enlarge–
Thanks for the tip. I didn’t know this little guy did double duty as a repeater. My Acer netbook, which i find is awesome for photo backup on the road, has wi-fi, but the antenna is rather weak at gathering signal because of it’s diminutive form factor, and hence smaller antenna. I think i’ll definitely consider adding this to my packing list.