Sometimes lost is the fact that I am, by training and experience, a bit of a computer geek.  I spent years doing tech support and many more years tinkering at home.  I know I spend a lot of time talking about either finance or firefighting or drinking.  Before any of that, I was a computer geek.  Well…the booze and computers may be tied.  Anyways, I really haven’t done anything with my geek background in a long time.  Today I got a chance to satisfy that itch.  We recently got a new wireless modem/router device from Bell for our internet connection at home.  This made my separate Linksys router (running DD-WRT firmware, of course) useless.  One problem with my old setup was getting a strong signal up to the top floor of my house.  I currently have the router down in the basement - which allows me to hook up via network cable to my xbox.  I previously added a couple of high gain antennas into the mix to help solve my signal issues.  This gave me pretty good speed but the signal would still drop off every once in a while upstairs, knocking off any wireless clients.  Having freed up my router from it’s previous assignment, I was now able to make use of it in another capacity.  I geeked out for a while and set it up as a repeater bridge.  DD-WRT v24 has this functionality built right in.  It takes a little bit of setup and network know-how if you, like me, refuse to follow instructions.  With my tinkering complete I was able to place that old router (now my repeater) in the living room on the main floor of the house.  This allows me to connect to my upstairs computers by passing through that device.  That repeater does not need to be plugged in to any other cables.  It is hidden, on it’s own, quietly allowing communication to pass through it between my upstairs and downstairs.  WOOO HOOO!  I know this may not seem like a big deal, but it is to me!  I have always been bothered by that signal issue and I just never got around to doing anything about it.  Now I have awesome signal strength at every corner of my house.  How many firefighters can do that?!

*My new Bell modem/router combo device

*My old router that now serves as a repeater