[Marco Prozzo]

I'm posting this hear since the Transporter is a fixture in the Modwright lineup and I have no doubt someone here has faced this challenge.  My questions is more Transporter specific, and not unique to Modwright.  I don't know if Dan will consider this worthy of archiving, but considering the woefully inadequate instructions provided by SlimDevices for this specific vital detail of connectivity I would think the answer would be very useful.  I cannot even recall how I figured this out originally, but I've since forgotten the answer and need some help at this point.  OK, enough with the preamble:

I've had my Transporter up and running for months.  It just recently did an auto-firmware update and in doing so seems to have lost my WEP 128 password in the process.  I remember having a devil of a time trying to figure out how to derive those 26 characters from my Airport Base Station, which operates using a WPA (ascii) password with only 9 characters.  I have no clue how I derived the 26 character WEP code from my 9 characters of WPA (usually that conversion requires 13 characters of WPA)...but somehow I had done it before because it's been running for months that way (nothing in my network has changed).  So my question has two parts:

1. Useful to newbies: Can someone provide a step-by-step process for those of us using Airport with WPA password of how to hook up to a Transporter - which seems to require inputting either a WEP64 or WEP128 key to join a (protected) network?  There is nothing in the manual for the TP that covers this...or else I'm missing it entirely.

2. More specific to my current dilemma: How do I figure out the current 26 character WEP key that my Transporter is asking me for in order to connect with my network?  If I go into Airport Utility and click on the base station, it indicates that I am using WEP128 encryption but gives no option to reveal the password, which is represented by dots.  When I go into "Keychain Access" and look up the password being used for my network it reveals the 9 character ASCII password I've been using for years.  All of the online converters will only convert ASCII passwords of 13 characters.  What did I do to derive the WEP128 key?!?! I do not want to change my password since three computers and two printers are currently hooked up to the network as well as two Airport Express devices.  I'd rather not go and change all of these if I don't have to.  Everything I can find in half a dozen Google searches keeps telling me either what I was doing was impossible, or simply that I should use a WEP converter to derive the key.   

[Marco Prozzo]

OK, after tremendous frustration and I think even some additional grey hairs added to the few I have, I happened upon my own solution.  Here it is in the hopes it may help others.  Apple evidently does not want to make it easy to find the hex equivalent of their password.  The answer is actually simple if you know where to look for it, but it is not obvious by any means. 

Here's the step-by-step:

1. Open Airport Utility (Applications>Utility>Airport Utility)
2. From the menu on the left choose the item that broadcasts your network ... in my case it is Airport Base Station.
3. At the bottom choose "Manual Setup"
4. From the tabs choose "Wireless"
5. Here's were my frustration originated..below you will observe your Wireless Security section with the password represented as a bunch of dots and no means evident to reveal the password (if you also check in Keychain Access you will find that your network is protected by an ASCII password you came up with...or that was the case with me...don't even bother trying to convert it using a convertor as it will NOT yield the proper hex code you need)
6. Here's where the bacon is hiding: from the menu bar above drop down Base Station>Equivalent Network Password...Viola! An info box appears with the 26 character hex key equivalent password you will need to input into your Transporter when it asks you.

Hope this can help spare someone else a few grey hairs.