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Check the Airport adaptor is on

The first step in connecting to a wireless network in OSX is to check that your AirPort adapter is turned on.

Click the Apple menu (the apple icon in the top left corner of the screen) and select System Preferences...

Click the Network icon under the Internet & Network heading

Click on AirPort in the list of connections on the left side of the Network window.

If the status is shown as "Off", click the Turn Airport On button. While you are on this screen, check that the "Show AirPort status in menu bar" tick box is checked.

Airport Icon Status

Check the menu bar for the AirPort icon, it should look like one of the following:

AirPort Card Off	AirPort card On Not connected to a network	Airport card On Connected to a network

Note: If the icon displays the card is off, check the AirPort status again (see above). 

Note: The AirPort Connected to a network icon may be a mixture of black and grey bars - the black bars indicate the signal strength (the more black bars, the stronger the signal.) You may find that the network performance is quite poor if you do not see 2 or more black bars.

Connect to a Wireless Network

Now that you have confirmed that the AirPort adapter is on, click on the AirPort icon in the menu bar. You should now see a list of wireless network in range of your computer.

Note: If you do not see the network that you wish to join to, wait a few seconds and try again, or turn AirPort Off and On again.

Click on the network name from the list. If the network has security enabled, a dialog box will appear prompting you to type a passphrase. Type the passphrase into the box. After a few seconds the icon should change from Not connected to a network (all grey) to Connected to a network (mixture of black and grey)

All done! - your computer will save the settings for the network so that next time you are in range of this wireless network (and the AirPort adapter is on), it will automatically connect to the network.