Grover,
From a network perspective, it worked great. However, I noticed later I had low level noise (hum) in the system. I ended up spending hours tearing the system apart trying to find the problem and finally when I disconnected the ethernet adapter, it went away. It was either a ground loop situation (probably), or the unit introduced noise in the mains. Anyway, it is doing great service in my basement, so no real loss.
The wireless bridge is TP-Link AC2600 RE650 Range Extender, which I am using in bridge mode with ethernet cable from the bridge to the RPI. I was having problems with using it initially, probably because I did not get clear wireless channels and therefore could not get reliable connection back to the router. Once I worked on my router wireless configuration, I was able to setup clear 2.4G and 5G channels that the range extender could connect to, but by that time, I was already using the powerline adapter in my system and moved it to my basement. When I discovered the hum issue with the powerline adapter, I just swapped the wireless range extender back in and it worked flawlessly. BTW, I set up the unit with its own SSID, so made sure than nothing else on my network connects to the range extender, by default it uses the same SSID as the router, which caused alot of problems initially with devices randomly disconnecting and reconnecting based on the strongest signal. I have had it running now for a few weeks now, and it is solid.
I wonder if finding clear 2.4G and 5G channels on the router probably would have fixed the situation at the start, allowing reliable connections on all devices back to the router. I had just used the default channel settings on the router, which turned out to be pretty congested. I often noticed significant wireless network delays and disconnects before I started down this path, and now everything is connecting and staying connected without delays. It is probably good advice to anyone in a situation where wireless streaming is the only practical alternative, to work on getting clear channels setup at the router, i.e. DON'T USE THE DEFAULTS. Usually the router will have a utility that shows channel usage and signal strength (my neighborhood is pretty active), and will actually recommend the clearest channels. Also, a wireless bridge is a good idea since it means devices that may have less than stellar wifi adapters (like earlier RPIs) are connected via a more reliable and likely lower CPU overhead ethernet cable.
David
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