[MLB-WIRELESS] New Senao/Atheros USB long-range Adaptors

[Dan Flett]

Check out the Senao products page:

http://www.senao.com/english/product/Product_wireless01_all.asp

They now have 200mW USB Adaptors.  All of these new devices use the Atheros 
chipset.  Some of them also tout something called "Dynamic Frequency 
Selection" which enables the devices to automatically find the cleanest 
channel available.  DFS sounds like a Good Thing if it can be made to work 
across a wide range of devices.

The NUB-362 is a b/g model with an internal U.Fl connector.  Review and 
photo here (scroll way down):
http://www.wifithoughts.com/newug/bblog/
Interestingly, the review states that the windows driver doesn't fully 
support USB 1.1 where only low data rates are possible.  A future firmware 
or driver may fix this.

Also there is a model with an external connector - looks like an RP-SMA in 
the photo.  Model number NUB-362(EXT). It is 100mW by default but firmware 
upgradeable to 200mW - it says so on the Senao datasheeet:
http://www.senao.com/english/product/driverdb/000189316/NUB-362_EXT_-Datasheet_08222005.pdf

Finally, they also have an a/b/g adaptor which has 18dBm (60mW) tx power at 
5.8GHz and 20dBm (100mW) at 2.4GHz.  The Model Number is NUB-862.  It 
doesn't have an external antenna connector, but I'd guess that it probably 
has one or more internal U.Fl connectors.
Datasheet here:
http://www.senao.com/english/product/driverdb/000172308/NUB-862-Datasheet_08222005.pdf

I can see these as being very useful in community wireless networking.  They 
could be put in an outdoor enclosure by themselves with a USB cable run down 
into the house.  I recently bought a 10 metre USB cable and sucessfully 
connected an 802.11b LevelOne wifi adaptor to my Windows XP box.  A hub was 
needed at the far end - this could be put in the enclosure.  Testing would 
be need to be done if these devices could actually handle a 10 metre USB 
cable run.

Or they could be put in an enclosure with a usb-enabled router such as the 
ASUS wl500g (or Mitsubishi R100 of course).  With a USB hub you could add as 
many of these as you want - you're not limited by the number of Mini-PCI or 
PCMCIA slots the motherboard has.

I should probably write this up on the wiki at some point... :)

Cheers,

Dan



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