REWARD! Airport Express Ethernet Only and Two Wireless Routers Setup

If anyone can solve this I'll buy ya a couple beers ($10 PayPal?)

I have a very large home with two wireless routers, both identical Belkin N300. They are both connected to the house LAN. Router 1 is 192.168.1.1 and connected to the Enternet, Router two is 192.168.1.2 and is configured to function as an Access Point (all routing turned off). There are multiple devices connected via Ethernet to both routers and they can all see each other and have Internet Access. Firewall is turned off on Router 1 just to make sure it is not causing any problems.

The Airport Express is in Ethernet only mode (wireless disabled) and connected to the LAN via a couple of daisy chained switches.

I've given the two different routers separate SSIDs to be able to know which one I'm connecting to.

Via iTunes, on my 802.11n notebook, I can see and use the Airport Express when connected wirelessly from either router.

On my iPhone 4 (4.3.3 IOS) I can only see the Airport Express when connected wirelessly to Router 2 (the AP only Router)

Both routers are operating in mixed mode and they are on different channels.

The only thing I can think of is it has something to do with the iPhone not using N network, but G network. I've been a PC/Network guy both professionally and hobbyist for a long time and this one has me stumped.

That is correct the iPhone can only do 2.4 GHz in N so you would need dual simultaneous radios like the new Airport Extreme or whatever other brand that will act simultaneously or put everything on 2.4 instead of 5 GHz.

osxx said:

That is correct the iPhone can only do 2.4 GHz in N so you would need dual simultaneous radios like the new Airport Extreme or whatever other brand that will act simultaneously or put everything on 2.4 instead of 5 GHz.

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If you think about it though, that doesn't make sense because the routers are identical, both using the same wireless mode. So why the iPhone only works with one yet doesn't work with the other and the PC works fine is a mystery.

But I THINK I've got it. I noticed that if the wireless connection gets week (low bandwidth) the Airport connection dissapears even though I'm still connected to the network. My guess is that the wireless-N has better speeds farther from the router. But nope, that doesn't work either because I can go stand right next to the router and even though iTunes sees the AE, the iPhone doesn't. It's insane! It's almost like the iPhone is remembering something about the network or routing and won't see the AE when you switch routers. I tried power cycling the iPhone but that doesn't work.

I'm assuming you aren't mandating channel bonding on either router? As an experiment - if you disconnect all devices from the router in question - will your iPhone connect?