NETGEAR N300 Wi-Fi Range Extender

We use these to provide SOLID coverage over the ENTIRETY of our Mountain Top Ranch (about 10 Acres on Top of the "Plateau" where our Home, Recreational Areas, and Upper Pastures are located. We also use them "Daisy-Chained Together" to cover our DEEP Valleys surrounding our Mountain.Each Extender is named "(Our SSID Name)_(Area Of Coverage)".. Example: "Our-Router_West" is the extender that covers the Western Top Part Of Our Ranch. When we "Link" or "Daisy Chain" several of these together to provide WiFi coverage down in the Valleys surrounding our Mountain, We use a format like "Our-Router_West1" ("The FIRST 'Daisy Chained' Western Netgear Extender, Connected to the MAIN Netgear Extender that covers the Western Part of the TOP of our Ranch, Which is Connected Directly to our Home's Router"), "Our-Router_West2" ("The SECOND Netgear Western Extender, which is Daisy-Chain-Connected to the FIRST Western Extender, Which is connected to the Main Western Netgear Extender, Which is connected to our Home's Router" - That's a total of THREE Netgear Extenders, Covering the Western Areas Of Our Property, Up top, and down in the Western Valley) etc. etc...You start losing 'Throughput Speed' FAST when Daisy Chaining these units together, but at least you still have "More than Decent" WiFi Coverage, even (ESPECIALLY) in areas where Cell Coverage can be spotty (Like down in our Steep Valley to our North, Where our Natural Springs run, which is a pretty sheer 600 Foot Drop in Elevation, with only a few hundred feet of Width before Climbing UPWARD again to more of our property.. Cell Coverage down there is 'WISHFUL THINKING' at best, even with a Cell Tower Company Renting some space we don't use to place a Mini-Cell-Tower on our Property, so the Cell Companies can cut STRAIGHT ACROSS this HUGE Bowl of Mountains in the Area we live in, to provide Coverage to SEVERAL State Parks, WITHOUT having to run MULTIPLE towers on the Mountains that Surround us in the distance, 360 degrees.. Imagine a "Pound Cake Bowl"... The Edges of the Bowl would be the Mountains surrounding us in the distance, and the Plateau Sticking up in the center of the Bowl, is where WE live). Our iPhones will use "WiFi" to place calls, when they can't get Cell Coverage, so it works out GREAT for us!Recently, One of our Family Members built a home on land I gave them up here, about 900 "Air Feet" away from our house (So they don't have to see/hear us, and we don't have to see/hear them).. When I bought this mountain, NO Utility Company would TOUCH IT as far as "Providing Lines this far from Their Main Lines", So I had to buy all of the Power/Cable/Water/etc lines myself, and hire Contractors to run them all up here (Buried).. I sized ALL of the Utilities to be able to support 10 homes eventually, as our Children can afford to build up here once they are at a place in life where they can work from home if they wish, Or build a "Vacation Home" up here until they CAN live up here full time... I bought HUGE spools of BIG Fiber-Optic Cable Line from 'Corning', and had contractors run it a LONG way, to the Local Cable Company's Main Lines, that Carry Cable TV/Internet between Counties (Same for Power Lines, etc). So we have a LOT more High Speed Bandwidth than I need, Even working from home...Until our Family Member who just built a home here can afford to connect to our Main Fiber Line to get Cable Internet of their own, I bought Two more of these Netgear units, and Daisy-Chained them together toward their new house, which is East of ours. I Fully expected to need THREE Extenders to run 900 "Air-Feet", But TWO of them (One set in about the middle of one of our Upper Pastures, and the Second Unit Plugged into their Enclosed Screen-Room on their Back Porch) provides them with Decently fast WiFi Internet!!! We DO live WAY OUT in the middle of nowhere, without "Other signals everywhere to shorten the range of the signals WE produce" (for many different things), so YMMV if you live in a Suburb or something, but they work FLAWLESSLY up here for us.ALL of the FIRST "Main" Netgear Extenders are placed outside our home, in a Waterproof (But "Signal Transparent") Enclosure. Those First Extenders are simply used to grab the WiFi Signal from our Main Router inside our house (Going through "THICK Stone Walls" is TOUGH for even THE BEST WiFi Router!) and then "Extend The WiFi Signal Out Across our Property"... We have Four of these, Set North/South/East/West around the outside of our home, each about 50 Feet away from our Home.I've found it's easiest just to set up each unit by going to Netgear's site when you find the extender on your device, creating a login, and then you can change ALL of your Units from a Netgear Book-Mark TO EACH UNIT (You REALLY need to have a separate Netgear Bookmark for EACH extender!). From those bookmarks, You can rename each unit, set it's signal strength, see what's connected to it, AND how good the Signal Strength is, TO AND FROM, each unit, etc.I also found that if you just connect your iPhone (or whatever you may be carrying around) to EACH unit ONCE, let your device store that information, Then choose the option on your device to "Connect Automatically To Known Networks (with better signal strength)", Then we can walk, ride the Horses or ATVs, pretty much anywhere, and our iPhones switch from Extender Unit to Extender Unit without even hesitating! Our Devices connect to the Extenders with better Signal Strength as we travel around outside Seamlessly. We never even know when the device has swapped connections from one extender to another.Normally this is where I'd say, "For the Price These Can't Be Beat'... But I've Paid MUCH MORE for WiFi Extenders that didn't perform HALF as well as these do! "And For The Price", you can scatter them everywhere over large areas."Tech Tip": Lightly MIST the INSIDE of a clear "Cake Platter" CD/DVD Bulk Storage Dome with WHITE paint (To reflect the Sun's Heat AWAY from the Cake-Platter, and keep UV OFF the Extenders), Run an Outdoor-Rated Extension Cord through a hole in the bottom of the Cake Patter Storage Case (created when you cut the Center Spindle out of the base), Hot-Glue the Extension Cord in Place close to the bottom of the case, AND to close up the Gaps in the Bottom Hole to keep the bugs out, And you have a HIGHLY decent "Outdoor, Weather Resistant, Signal Transparent, WiFi Signal Extender Dome"I simply set up each new unit here in the house, log in to the Netgear Website, Choose which OTHER unit I want the NEW unit to connect to (either our Main Router, OR one of the Extenders out further from the house), and let the NetGear Site set it up for me (Bookmark the Netgear Site Associated with EACH INDIVIDUAL UNIT!).. Then I unplug the unit, take to where I need it, Plug it back in to Power, and it's good to go! Once we allow ALL of our Devices (iPhones, Palm-Tops, etc) to connect to each extender and save it as a "known Network", I turn OFF the "Broadcast SSID" Option, so no one else sees the (Now HUGE) WiFi Network "Publicly" (without Special Software, or a Signal Sniffer, etc).. But even if someone DID happen to somehow get onto our Property, past all of our Security Fences, and Security Systems, and find the WiFi Signal, well, that's what STRONG PASSWORDS, Encryption, And FIREWALLS are for! It can be a pain, but our Main Router is Set-Up to ONLY allow use by "Devices We Specifically Allow". "Guests" are allowed to connect to a "GUEST ACCOUNT", which puts them on a Secondary Network, so if their devices are Compromised, or have a Virus/Worm/etc, it can't propagate through to other devices on our Main Network. And if their devices contain a Keystroke logger, then whoever is reading the Logger's Output only has a Guest Password, WHICH CHANGES EVERY 10 DAYS, and Each Guest has a PERSONAL password that identifies THEM.. We do it that way so that if a Month from now, someone we don't know starts trying to hack into our network using an old Guest Password [Like: "glenn-1s-C00l-0CT"] that was used by a friend that visited recently, we know to contact THAT friend and tell them they've been compromised ("glenn-1s-C00l-0CT", LOOKS like, "Glenn-Is-Cool-Oct", But what it ACTUALLY tells US is "It was "Glenn", "First Part" [1s] "Of October")... But even then Our Router wouldn't even respond to a MAC Address that's not CURRENTLY on the "Guest List" marked as "Allowed", so even someone Spoofing his MAC Address wouldn't work, since his Guest Access was COMPLETELY deleted the day he left.Probably 10 Times More than you Wanted to know, But nowadays Security Risks are VERY REAL, VERY possible, and that's even MORE of a Concern When you have WiFi COMPLETELY Covering Tens Of Acres. These are VERY useful Items!