On Thu, 4 Oct 2018 23:32:07 -0700 (PDT), Kevin H wrote:

1) Repeater. Picks up the existing Wi-Fi signal and re-transmits
it.

And knocks throughput in half in the process, only one thing can
talk
at a time...

You are correct to say that the "repeater" mode which just re-transmits
the main SSID does halve the bandwdth of the wireless signal, it doesn't stop multiple devices working concurrently - they will just have to
share a lower performance wireless connection.

My advice is if you have a network cable just put your new wireless
device into access point mode only, give it a differnet SSID and let
your wireless device connect to which ever AP has the strongest signal.

Don't need to use a different SSID unless you want to know which one
you are connected to and/or which band, if you code that into the
SSID.

Auto channel selection should be OK but if you are able to determine
which channels other neighbourhood APs are using you can manually select
an unused channel. Just try and avoid using the bottom or top channel
numbers as you get slightly less performance.

And preferably only use 1, 6 or 11 as those are the only ones that
don't overlap each other.

--
Cheers
Dave.