I called Linksys support and very carefully explained to them what I
was trying to do but they tried to tell me it could not be done. Of
course me not speaking Hindi may have been the problem.

Visit the http://www.dd-wrt.com website. It has what's called a 3rd party
firmware for the WRT54 series of routers. When using that you can
reconfigure the router to act as a client. That's what I've done on my
boat. I have no other amplifiers; they generally don't work anyway (at
least no better than with proper antennae setup)

Yes, the linksys people are dumb as a bag of hammers. Of course they don't
know jack about dd-wrt. They make a cheap box, buy it and RUN from their
support. If it breaks, well, it was cheap anyway. That's why I laid in a
couple of spares.

If you're not prepared to learn the geek aspects of this you might just be
better off buying one of the packaged marine wifi setups. I've never used
one so I have no opinions regarding how well they work or not.

-Bill Kearney