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texaggie1994's avatar
texaggie1994
Aspirant
Mar 24, 2024

Adding Nighthawk Router as and extender to orbi satellite?

I have Orbi RBR40 with 3 satellites installed and if works wonderfully, except for inside my metal shop building.  The satellite is mounted on the wall outside of the building, but inside the signal is blocked.  I bought a Nighthawk RAX49 AX6 to "extend" the signal inside the building by running an ethernet cord from outside plugged into the ORBI satellite, and then plugged the other end into the AX6 inside the building. 

 

What can I do to correct this?  I've heard it needs to be "bridged"??  Help Please 

 

I've bene told I need to turn off the DHCP.

 

I've been told that I need to rerun the setup wizard and tell the nighthawk to be an AP vs a router.

 

I've been told to connect the LAN of the satellite to the LAN of the Nighthawk instead of the WAN port.

 

I've been told a lot and nothing seems to work except for having the Nighthawk run as a new "wifi"

name and password and constantly switch when I walk in and out of the metal building...

frustrating

1 Reply

  • CrimpOn's avatar
    CrimpOn
    Guru
    Mar 24, 2024

    The most obvious solution is to:

    • Configure the Nighthawk WiFi router as an Access Point (AP).
    • This will automatically disable the DHCP function of the router, so the primary router (Orbi) will assign IP addresses to devices in the shop building.
    • Configure the Nighthawk router WiFi with exactly the same credentials as the primary Orbi system.
    • If the shop metal walls completely block WiFi signals, then any time a mobile WiFi device enters or leaves the shop, it will lose connection to WiFi and search for a WiFi signal that it recognizes.  Almost instantly, it will find the SSID that it has stored and use the stored password to connect.
    • The Orbi WiFi and the Nighthawk WiFi remain entirely separate WiFi networks.  Devices cannot roam seamlessly between them (using IEEE 802.11r protocol, often called Fast Roaming).  This is  similar to setting up two WiFi networks miles apart with exactly the same credentials.  Get in the car and drive miles to the other system, and your WiFi device will recognize, "Hey.  I know that WiFi!"  Come back and the same thing will happen.  What is different in this case is the metal wall effectively shields one system from the other.

    Have a great day!