Having successfully managed to get an 802.11b wireless LAN up and running, it seemed a shame to still have some remote devices connected by wire .
In particular, although the SliMP3 had worked out wonderfully as a way of playing MP3 files on my main HiFi, it had a rather awkward CAT5 tail that was causing unrest among the other occupants of the Haunt.
Unfortunately, unlike a laptop or PC, you can't just stick a wireless adaptor card into non-computing devices. Although there may be an Ethernet port, there is no operating system to load and manage the drivers necessary to make everything work.
What's needed is an Ethernet Bridge - a device that simply bridges between the Wireless Access Point and the physical device.
And Linksys have delivered. The Linksys WET11 Wireless Bridge has just hit the shops and I am able to say it works as advertised.
Although I have been pretty unhappy with the performance of early efforts by Linksys (the WPC11 ver. 1 PCMCIA card is garbage), they have managed to clean up their act somewhat and their kit now works.
The WET11 is pretty simple - an ethernet RJ45 cable socket, a power socket, an antenna connector and some status lights.
The device is configured by attaching it to an existing network and running a setup program that configures DHCP settings, the WEP encryption key, and a few other parameters. That's it.
Once you have finished configuring the WET11, remove the unit from the network, plug it into whatever device you are trying to connect, wait a few seconds for the bridge to establish communications, and once again, that's it.
This page was last updated on: November 5, 2019
In practice, I set the WET11 to use DHCP rather than a static IP address. A Linksys router/switch acts as the DHCP server on my network and it is just simpler to have everything administered from the same address pool.
I run 128bit WEP encryption in the forlorn hope that I won't get hacked. Living in a highrise in Singapore, it is pretty hard to constrain wandering RF signals. I await the day manufacturers release meaningful security for 802.11b networks.
The SliMP3 connected to the WET11 using the provided CAT5 cable. I power cycled the SliMP3, watched it come back up, and "Server Found" A few key presses on the remote, and music over wireless.
