I'm working on boosting the signal on our wireless network here, and I just want to throw what I've done to you guys to see if I did it right, as this is my first time setting up a repeater.

Our AP is a USR5450 router. By itself, it covers everyone upstairs very well, but the signal becomes very weak downstairs. So, I bought another one and just configured it as a repeater. So here's how I set it up:

(1) Pointed the repeater to the MAC address of the AP.
(2) Added the MAC address of the repeater to the allowed list on the AP (we have MAC filtering configured).
(3) Both AP and repeater use a short preamble.

Now as far as security settings, I have assumed that I should simply duplicate the security configuration on the repeater, so I've done just that:

(1) Repeater uses exact same 128 bit WEP as the AP.
(2) Both AP and repeater use shared keys.
(3) Both AP and repeater have SSID broadcast disabled.

Only thing I have left to do is to duplicate the MAC filtering list for the repeater. Now, I don't know if it's necessary to duplicate security settings on the repeater in order to keep the network secure, or if the settings on the router are automatically passed on through the repeater, so I figured duplicating would be the "err on the side of caution" approach. If you guys can fill me in on that for sure, it would clear things up considerably.

So it looks like it's working. I have the repeater sitting here downstairs in my office and a laptop connected via wireless sitting right beside. However, despite that I don't have a 100% connection, but it is considerably improved nonetheless.

What do you all think?