iPaq 2795 and Apple Airport WiFi - how to connect?

[Jordan]

I'm trying to get my hp iPaq 275 to connect to my Apple WiFi base station. The iPaq can detect the base station but I'm not sure how to set up a connection. It keeps asking me for a "network key." I have no idea what that is, and don't recall having to know any such thing when I connected my Mac laptop or windows desktop. The iPaq documentation is so terse it hardly deserves the name - it's no help at all. It doesn't seem to be the password to access my wireless network since the iPaq is insisting a network key is a number with a fixed number of digits, 8, 12 or 16 digits or something like that.

I was able to use the iPaq WiFi to connect to the internet at a local Starbucks so it's clearly working and I didn't need any network key for that.

Is there anyone here who can tell me how to get this working?

[Nurhisham Hussein]

Network key usually means the password for the encryption type you have - WEP or WPA. Apple has a zero configuration utility for MAC and Windows, which may explain why you didn't have to do much to connect. This is obviously not the case for Windows Mobile. Which Airport model do you have? Can you access the router's settings and see what the security is set to?

[Jordan]

The airport admin utility on my Mac laptop says the airport base station is using 128 bit WEP encryption. I do have a network password to get on the network and I tried typing that in, but the iPaq insists the network key can only be a number consisting of a fixed number of digits (8, 12 or 16 or something like that) and my password is nothing like that.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

Quite likely the iPaq is assuming it's a hex key, whereas you're using a alphanumeric key. Have you tried changing the key to test it out? or using WPA instead?

[mharrison]

I have been banging my head against devote MAC IT person for weeks on this. Of course he is insisting that my PC (pocket) is not working properly. The funny thing was, a fellow employee has the iPaq1955 (something like that), an earlier and slower model, and it connected no problem.
I had HP Tech support online a few times and of course they were saying it had something to do with the MAC Airport settings and that I should talk to an Apple tech. We tried WEP and WAP to no avail. (WAP is the way to go by the way.) When it finally DID start to work (and only when) was when my IT guy finally agreed to change a setting on the Airport itself. Now I am not sure where or exactly what the setting was but he did say that what he had to change was this:
He had to enable the Airport to issue it's own Dynamic IP.
Whereas previously the router did the issue.
Apparently the router still does issue but the Airport now issues Dynamic Addresses to inquiries as well.

He found this quite puzzling I might add. Can anyone add insight?

[Janak Parekh]

He found this quite puzzling I might add. Can anyone add insight?
I'm afraid I can't make full sense of your post. I'm guessing your router was misconfigured. Most routers, out of the box, are designed to act as a IP address "assigner" (DHCP server). Jordan's stuck at a different point in getting his wireless working...

I do have a network password to get on the network and I tried typing that in, but the iPaq insists the network key can only be a number consisting of a fixed number of digits (8, 12 or 16 or something like that) and my password is nothing like that.
Hmm. A 128-bit WEP key must be exactly 13 ASCII characters (or 26 hex characters) long. How long is your network password? And is this the password you use when a friend brings a laptop, or is this an "administrative password" used to change router settings?

(Hisham, every Pocket PC I know accepts ASCII keys, as long as the length is correct.)

--janak

[mharrison]

Well he did say the router was issueing the IP. But the airport is a different piece of hardware which obviously also has the same capability of issueing IPs (we didn't touch the actual router). What he was saying was that he got the airport to issue it's own IP instead of getting it from the router.

[Janak Parekh]

Well he did say the router was issueing the IP. But the airport is a different piece of hardware which obviously also has the same capability of issueing IPs (we didn't touch the actual router). What he was saying was that he got the airport to issue it's own IP instead of getting it from the router.
A-ha! The key difference in your setup is that you have both a wired router and an AirPort. This is a fairly unusual configuration, and you're right, you may need to change some settings for this to work properly. Ironically, you ideally want to ask the AirPort not to assign IPs itself, instead letting the router do this. That's known as "bridge mode". The fact he got it to work with the AirPort issuing IPs means there was some other configuration issue, and he sidestepped it by essentially setting up two routers with their own IP addressing.

In any case, most people actually have either an AirPort, a wired router, or a combo wired-wireless router (like the Linksys WRT54G). That makes the setup much simpler. In any case, I think the original poster is not having the same issue.

--janak

[Pearbear]

Jordan,

I had your problem today. Just got a WiFi enabled smartphone (Cingular 8125), and it was recognizing AirPort but not taking the AirPort's normal password.

I found this thread on a Google Search trying to figure out my problem. But I solved it myself after remembering an old thread about this somewhere.

I have an old Airport here at home....I think it's, like, Second Generation. And the Apple software I'm running is old too....OS X 10.3.9. So what you experience may be a lot different, and I apologize for that.

Anyway, here's what I did:

Go to Utilities folder.
Open AirPort Admin Utility.
A list of base station(s) comes up.
Double click the base station you want.
A window pops up asking for the password (that's the regular password you'd normally use to access the base station). ...enter the password...
Now a window will open for that particular base station.
Across the top of that window I see 4 icons labeled; Restart, Upload, Default, and Password.
CLICK "Password".
A window opens that says:

"To connect to the AirPort network created by this base station from a computer not using AirPort software, you should use the following:

Hex equivalent password (WEP key): xxxxxxxxxx"

I typed 10 x's here to represent the 10 digit password that I was shown.

I typed the 10 digit password into my smartphone and VOILA! I was online via my home AirPort network.

I joined this forum JUST SO I COULD REPLY TO YOU ABOUT THIS. I sure hope I haven't led you astray due to my old software. It's almost certain your administrator has newer software, but maybe with a little looking around he'll be able to find what you need.

I really do hope this helps you.

Pearbear