Airport Express instead of a dongle

[ureaman]

I am trying to configure a new Airport Express in place of the dongle as recommended by others in this forum due to poor iPad connection issues.  Seems like a snap for others, but I cannot get it to work right. I want to create a network that works like the dongle, being its own network/LAN, no internet connection but Airport Utility won't let me do that. If I configure as an extension to existing network, it doesn't work out of range of that network and of course, I need mobility for gigs. What am I doing wrong?

[Rick_Auricchio]

When you say "dongle," do you mean the USB-to-Ethernet adapter? That is required to get the M20d to do any networking at all. (There have been a few USB-wifi dongles used in the past, but I think the Ethernet one ended up being the most reliable.)

 

The USB port on the AX will never handle network traffic; that's only usable for a printer.

 

If you set up the AX to create a network, it expects an incoming network feed on its Ethernet port. So you can't connect the mixer there, because that becomes an incoming port on the AX.

 

If you set up the AX to join an existing network, then the Ethernet port becomes an output that can feed the mixer. In this case, I'm not sure what the AX does without an available wi-fi signal. At the very least, its LED will flash amber indicating that it sees no incoming network feed. While flashing amber, however, it should still route between wifi connections and its Ethernet port.

 

In this latter situation, you might be able to enable the DHCP server inside the AX, so that it issues IP addresses to both the mixer and the iPad.

 

I haven't got a spare AX to test this.

[ureaman]

Thanks. I think I solved my problem. I do have the adapter. When going thru the set up with Airport Utility, I was getting stuck on the screen after setting up a new network. It would ask me to connect the WAN to a router to get internet access, which I didn't want to do. The AX was flashing amber, not steady green, so I thought that was a problem. Reading more carefully, instructions stated that connection to internet not required, so I moved on and it now works. Thanks again.