I have an old router with Tomato installed. I want to make this router an AP. does it have to be hardwired to the existing router to work as an AP? if not, what setting on the tomato setup will i need to click to make it "talk" to the main router in my house?
Any router that's repurposed as an AP, or a device that has an AP mode, needs to connect to a router - via CAT5 or a CAT5 replacement such as HomePlug/IP on powerline, or MoCA.
A WDS repeater, a.k.a. range extender, with its halving of throughput, uses WiFi to retransmit data to/from a router. Thus, a WDS repeater is in moment 1 a client device of the router and in moment 2, an access point for nearby clients.