Trying To Use The A1521 To Extend My Network Airport Extreme A1521

Chosen Solution

I have replaced my A1521 with a new DLink DIR-890L as my primary wireless router. My older Airport Extreme Base Station hopped on and exteneded DLink wifi network allowing me to network printers via Cat 5 cables. My newer Airport Express acted in kind. When I try to get the A1521 to allow me to “Add to an existing network” it announces that it can’t locate any base stations. I don’t understand why the newest apple wifi tech I own will not join the same DLink wifi network the older Apple tech hopped onto. Please help. I need the network ports on the A1521 for other non-wifi hardware. Hard reset has not fixed the issue.

The Apple AirPort base stations CANNOT extend the wireless range of non-Apple wireless routers. That is because they use a propriety method to do so with other AirPort base stations. However, the AirPort Extreme base station can “extend” other non-Apple wireless routers if the connection between them is wired. On the other hand, the AirPort Express base station can “join” an existing non-Apple Wi-Fi network as a wireless bridge to share a USB printer.

I would start off checking the range of your Base Station. Give this App a try: NetSpot. The other App I use is this one: WiFi Signal It will help in figuring out what is the best frequencies to use. One problem you can encounter is the AirPorts will try to daisy-chain to each other Vs connecting to your DLink Router. This is where you’ll need to use the AirPort Utility to set different frequencies for the different AirPort units.