High power USB WiFi Adapter

[Dave M]

At 12:20 AM 6/24/2007 , Dave wrote:
>Have any of you had success with the Alfa 500mW USB WiFi adapter (ebay item
>290077228200)?
>
>What software is used to make connections to open hot spots (Ubuntu v6.06)?

Well, I could not find any useful info on this thing so I just ordered one 
to try it out. Its a nice unit. It uses the RealTek RTL8187 chip (same as 
the Netgear WG111v2) but the Alpha also has a built-in 500mw amplifier.

It works well on Windows. Ubuntu (v6.06) seems to recognize it as wlan0 but 
I can not make a connection to the access point.

$iwconfig wlan0
wlan0     802.11b/g  ESSID:"SBC_DSL"
           Mode:Managed  Channel=6  Access Point: Not-Associated
           Bit Rate=11 Mb/s   Sensitivity=4/6
           Retry:on   Fragment thr:off
           Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
           Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

The adaptor shows up in System/Admin/Networking/NetworkSettings and has the 
correct network name. So I assume it is communicating with the AP. I tried 
installing wifiradar and swscanner but neither of them show my AP. I also 
tried installing NetworkManager and that does not make the connection either.

I see that Realtek has a Linux driver for the RTL8187 on their web site. 
But I have never installed a driver that was not from the repository. So I 
am not sure what the downside is to using their driver.

This is going into a mobile application so I need the high power USB 
adaptor. The alpha looks like a nice unit but I am open to trying something 
else if it will work out of the box.

I am new to this so I am not sure where to go from here. I am looking for 
suggestions and advice.


-------------------------------
Dave M
Davem (at) Mich (dot) Com
Ann Arbor, Mich. USA

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