AirPort, AirTunes, Security (advice needed)

deemery (apparently) - 10:27am Jun 16, 2007 PST
via email - David Emery

(As I've mentioned before) I stream my (classical) CD connection through
the house using an FM transmitter plugged into the AirTunes port on an
Airport Express. I've been a bit concerned about the security of the
whole wireless network, and wanted to move from WEP to WPA/WPA2.

I have a Linksys wired-only VPN router (recommended by a Mac
consultant). This also provides the DHCP addresses for the network. A
wire runs (through a switch) currently to a DLink VBR1310 Wireless
Access Point. This is configured as a bridge, i.e. it doesn't hand out
addresses. It talks wireless (through an external antenna, a reason why
I bought this particular WAP) to the Airport Express upstairs. I was
unable to get WPA/WPA2 configured to allow the Airport Express (or any
other Mac device) to talk to this WAP, so it's running WEP.

I figured I could do better by replacing the DLink WAP with an Apple
Airport Extreme unit. I carefully bid on eBay until I won one of the
units with an external antenna port at an affordable price ($50 shipped,
if you're interested in the going rate.) After some fooling around, I
was able to get the Airport Extreme to talk to my Mac laptop with WPA2
(it was much harder than I expected.) I was also able to get the
Airport Extreme to talk to the Airport Express on an -open- network.
So far I've been unable to get the Airport Express to talk to the
Airport Extreme via WPA/WPA2 (with the Extreme configured as a bridge,
i.e. not as NAT/DHCP) One of the problems is that it's not easy to
reconfigure the Airport Express in 'connect to existing network' mode.
When it doesn't connect to the Airport Extreme, I have to go reboot the
(darn) Express to reset it to open network, so I can get at it from my
laptop. Both Express and Extreme are running latest Apple software.

When I did get the Express to work on the open network, the AirTunes
playback was appallingly choppy. My guess is weak signal between the
Extreme and Express located upstairs. Moving the Express into the same
room seemed to fix the choppy playback (but basically defeated the whole
purpose of the remote network!)

So, after all this background, two questions:
   
1. What's the collected experience/recommendation for connecting an
Airport Extreme as a wired-wireless bridge to an Airport Express as a
wireless-wired (and AirTunes) bridge? Which security mechanism works
best/provides acceptable security?

2. Has anyone else seen (heard) the problem with AirTunes
dropouts/choppiness? Was poor signal strength the cause?

This is very disappointing. I'm so used to Apple stuff that "just
works", having this kind of frustrations, particularly when replacing a
non-Apple product with an Apple one, is downright infuriating!

          dave