Help with Home Wireless Networking Please!

[Atrael]

Hello all,

I'm trying to reconfigure my home network, and am having some difficulties. I had a relativly simple network before. A Westel dsl modem/router that also had wireless ability. For the most part, I didn't change the default settings. I let it act as the DHCP server, and just used MAC address filtering for security. However I had the brilliant idea that since my mother in law lived relatively close, I could get a range expander, and possibly let her use my internet connection. As the Westel modem wasn't very powerful, I went out and purchased a NetGear RangeMax router that I was told had much longer range. Unfortunatly, this one also seems to want to act as a DHCP server. Ok, I thought, no problem...I disable the wireless on the Westell, and let everything go through the NetGear router, as I only will be using wireless networking, so it shouldn't be a big deal. At my mother in law's house, I was barely able to pick up the single next to the window, so I bought a linksys range expander to pick up the singnal, and then re-transmit it upstairs to the computer. The problem seems to be that the range expander has to be a static IP address, and the Netgear router wants to assign a dynamic IP. I can see the linksys expander from the end computer, and the linksys router seems to be able to see the rest of my network, but I can't get them all to talk right.

So, does anyone have any ideas about how I should configure all this? Or any other ideas about perhaps a better way of doing this? I'd rather take all this stuff back and try something else, if someone knows a better way of doing this. My mother in law's place is about 250ft from my house, unfortunatly there are some buildings in between. Are there outside routers that I could mount higher up that would work better? I'm assming that you can't just put anything outside, but there has to be something. Any other way of broadcasting a signal that would let her use my internet connection? I'm open to just about anything.

Thanks,

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