[nmglug] wireless pcmcia card

[pi]

Karl Hegbloom wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-06-21 at 13:57 -0600, pi wrote:
> 
>>I haven't had much experience with a/b/g cards, but I know that the 
>>Atheros-based triband cards REALLY SUCK. If you're looking for an A or 
>>G-mode card, find one based on the Prism54 chipset.
> 
> 
> My laptop has an Atheros based mini-PCI wireless card in it that works
> very well.  I've never had any trouble with it at all.  At the same
> time, I've never had any other wireless card for this laptop, and so
> cannot make a direct comparison.
> 
> What is it about the Atheros PCMCIA cards that make them "suck"?  Why
> don't you like them?  I'd like to know more about various cards and how
> they compare, but cannot personally afford either the cards or the time
> for the testing.  (I'm in college.)
> 

Atheros based cards are the wireless equivalent of winmodems -Winmodems 
are soundcards connected to phone lines and rely on the host computer to 
do all of the modem sound generation; atheros wireless cards are similar 
in design.

The driver, or some part thereof, MUST be closed source, because 
otherwise the FCC gets nervous that people can modify the card software 
to do things it shouldn't, like transmit on out-of-band frequencies. The 
hardware on other cards usualy prevents that on other cards.

Also, I've found that they simply have very low recieve sensitivity.