TP Link TL-WA901N for extending signal - how best to set up?

I've been struggling to get this working optimally for a while and find the manual and TP Link site a little difficult to follow!

The issue I have is that wireless signal is very poor in kitchen at back of house (it's an extension, so thicker walls probably not helping). My ISP is BT and I have a Home Hub 4. From that I've run an ethernet cable down into the kitchen.

The TP Link is on the right domain, and I've just flashed the latest firmware too.

At work, I can walk around with a laptop and get connectivity all the time from the various APs. That's what I want at home (ideally)

The TP Link has modes of:

Universal repeater
Repeater
Bridge with AP
Access Point
Client
Multi-SSID

I *currently* have it set as Universal Repeater, with a static IP and with the Mac of AP set to my HH 4. DHCP is turned off.

At present, the ethernet cable is not connected as the somewhat confusing advice I got from TP Link support is that this shouldn't happen - that seems a bit odd to me.

What I find is that I have in effect two networks and I have to choose which one to select to. I can't seem to get it to just work that I connect to the strongest. And the signal doesn't seem to extend much beyond the kitchen that the TP Link is in (so not much luck in using outside)

The SSID is the same as the main BT HH one.

I've obviously got a lot more detail in the configs, but does this "bare bones" info give enough of a clue of why I'm not having great success?!

Oh, and one other odd thing - when I look at the "Home Network" screen on my BT HH set up, the TP Link doesn't show up - but it does respond to pings. Is that an issue?

firstly I would suggest putting the device into Access point mode as having it in repeater mode will degrade the performance as its using the wireless network to pick up the feed. Put the network cable in place the device into Access point mode turn the DHCP server on the device off and give it a ip address and set the SSID and the wpa2 password the same as your current router and optimise the wireless channels to get the best speeds and you should be done

Edit: I have this setup at my house I have an access point in the house and a access point in a garden office/ summerhouse and this works perfect for me

Edited by deleted (Wed 01-Jan-14 13:59:32)

I have one of these, as an access point upstairs (router is downstairs).

I have mine set up as an access point, it uses a different channel to the router, but the same ssid and the same passphrase, this allows me to roam seamlessly from upstairs to downstairs, with no noticeable change going form a location that the router doesn't cover wirelessly to somewhere the access point doesn't cover wirelessly and vice versa.

I did have trouble with the stock firmware not remaining stable after about a week or so of being on, and then needing a reboot. I solved that by installing openwrt but that wasn't the latest firmware at the time I got it, and that was some time ago (I had wanted an excuse to get openwrt to play with).