Airport Express woes. . .

To answer the final question - just when it becomes most inconvenient. I find that taking floorboards up, for example, is a cue for my three year old to walk in the door.

Firstly, why is your wireless network 'previously unused'? (this is almost certainly the key to it all...)

(s)he woke up, didn't (s)he......

He certainly did.

Post beans on toast, he's happily playing with an old Mac's keyboard, providing me with a little window of opportunity to investigate the inactive airport express.

John, when I mentioned "previously unused wireless network", I meant that although the wireless light is clearly displayed on the BT Homehub, I haven't actually transmitted anything wirelessly. That is, I haven't previously needed to.

Despite/because of over a decade of Mac use I'm struggling to make sense of what I have/haven't done here. The BT Homehub isn't showing up in Spotlight, so I can't seem to re-configure that, if indeed that's what's required.

Initially the Airport utility identified the Express device but when I was asked to join an existing network or create a new one, I plumped for the former, but to no avail. I've tried rescanning several times but draw the same blank each time.

Now I'm flummoxed and no mistake.

Is your internet connection wired then, and the Home Hub is not being used as a router at all?

The "join existing/create new" step appears to be the nub of it - let's ignore the BT Home Hub for the time being and try reinstalling the AE with the directions here for starters.

Or even look at the apple help, which makes it sound remarkably straightforward:

http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/setup.html

Thanks John. Your guidance is much appreciated. However, I'm still in limbo land. The Airport Express is continually flashing amber and when I try to join my apparently existing network I need to input a WEP password. Any ideas what this is?

Hair being pulled out. . .patience frazzled. . .returning device to sender being considered.

Childcare now in shared mode, but my girlfriend is giving me the "I knew you wouldn't get it going" look.

OK, first principles. In order to create a network between your Mac and your home hub, you ought to be able to just click on the 'Airport' icon in your menu bar, select whatever your home hub is called (probably 'BTHomeHub', surprisingly enough) and carry on - the WEP password for the router should have been given to you when your BT Hub was set up and will be in any documentation you may have (if I recall my FiL's, it was in a letter.....).

Let's try that first, then we can work on the AE.......

We'll discuss WEP later, it's not the most secure encryption, but can be the easiest to get running - if we can get it going with that, we can look at changing it to WPA.

Thanks John, I'll go right back to basics. I may struggle to find my BT Home Hub documentation, so could be scuppered before I've even begun. But here goes. Don't suppose you know whether there's a way to proceed without the WEP password?

Thanks in advance for any further diagnostic assistance.

If you can't join the BTHomeHub network, then you should try to create a new network, with only the airport express, referring back to this page, substituting what I said above for step 10.

It may be worth doing a reset on your AE (there's a little button on it somewhere) so that you're starting from scratch if you try the latter.

JohnDuncan:

the WEP password for the router should have been given to you when your BT Hub was set up and will be in any documentation you may have (if I recall my FiL's, it was in a letter.....).

kerching

John suggested I post this here to too

ÿ

"Assuming you have a functioning wireless network at the minute

disconnect from your existing network

join the network created by the AEÿ

set the AE to join the existing network ( I think extend might work too)ÿ

The trick is that once you get the airport express to join an existing network it becomes invisible.

Then reconnect to your old network and set iTunes to look for AirTunes speakers

They should appear bottom right in iTunes the you are set.

ÿ

The disappearing wifi network makes sense, but can be confusing.ÿEssentially you are changing the mode of the AE from base station to client if you set it to join.ÿOnce it is a client it no longer broadcasts the name or SSID. If you set it to extend, it'll seem to disappear too, but it is actually seamlessly broadcasting the same name (kind of like RDS and FM radio)

Try that and see if it works "ÿ

(ie once you get the wireless networking working - see above - try this)

On the back of your home hub should be 2 boxes of text printed. One says BT Wireless settings, the other BT Fusion settings.  The WEP key/password should be there next to the words "wireless key" in the box for wireless settings.