News

If you use Microsoft Windows Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, or all versions of Windows 10, including server versions, read this article here for crucial information about updating due to newly discovered security vulnerabilities.

Running Windows update can seem time consuming and unproductive, but making sure your system is secure will save you a headache down the road and help keep your data safe. 

If you are in the market for a dual band Wi-Fi USB adapter that supports DFS channels on the 5 GHz band, the AWUS036AC and AWUS036ACH models from Alfa are great choices.

These models do receive on 5 Ghz DFS channels and not all dual band products do.

From time to time you may encounter a campground Wi-Fi network that does not use traditional encryption where you enter a password/passkey at the time of connection. Instead, the campground may be using a captive portal login system, where the network is technically open (no password protection), but once you connect and try to go to a web page, you get redirected to a screen where you have to accept a Terms of Service, enter a password, or do both.

Usually with the Alfa WiFi Camp Pro 2/Camp Pro 2 Mini and R36A router, you simply will not see the "hotspot password" field during setup and will proceed to complete setup as if it were an open network. When finished, if you try to go to a web page you will be redirected to the campground's captive portal page to sign in.

But because captive portals are not standardized technology, at some parks this may not happen, and you may be able to see a Connected status on the Camp Pro status page, but you won't be able to get redirected to the captive portal sign in page and thus no web pages will load.

A new workaround to this is to use the R36A router's MAC ID cloning feature. 

The first step in this process is to connect one of your devices, such as your laptop or tablet, directly to the campground network and sign in via the captive portal page. Once signed in, you will need to obtain the MAC ID, aka MAC address of your device. MAC means Media Access Control, and is not related to Apple Mac computers FYI. 

Determining your device's MAC ID may involve Google. Here is how to find it on some more common devices:

1. Samsung Galaxy/Android: Settings > About Phone > Status > WiFi Address
2. Microsoft Windows 10
3.Apple iPhone 10 > Settings > General > About > WiFi Address

MAC IDs consist of letters and numbers with a colon between every two characters, such as 12:1A:12:A1:A0:12 (this is just an example, do not try to use this one), and in order for this feature to work, you must enter the MAC ID correctly during the R36A setup. Therefore we recommend making a screenshot or writing it down and double-checking it. Even one wrong character means this solution will fail.

Once you have the MAC ID of your device, login to your R36A setup area and go through Easy Setup as normal. After you have selected the network and are on the final page of setup, enter the MAC ID where it says "Clone Mac address". 



Then complete setup. The campground should recognize the R36A and grant it immediate Internet access without you needing to go to the captive portal page. This can also be a useful feature if your park network restricts the total number of devices you can connect to their network- with MAC cloning, the R36A does not count against your device limit.

If you encounter any problems, repeat the setup process and remove the MAC ID you entered from the Clone MAC address field and complete setup. This will cause the R36A to join the campground network again with its own MAC address as normal. If problems continue, engage a factory reset per the instructions.

Summary: MAC address cloning on R36A will help you get around captive portal network login issues. First you must connect a device like a laptop or cell phone to the campground WiFi network and signin at the captive portal page. Then locate that device's MAC address, and enter it during R36A setup in the Clone Mac Address field. The process will not work if you mistype the MAC address, or if you are using the MAC address of a device that has not successfully joined the campground network already.

We are excited to announce the launch of the Alfa WiFi Camp Pro 2 Mini, from Alfa Network, Inc.

Summary: Alfa WiFi Camp Pro 2 mini has a similar purpose as full size Alfa WiFi Camp Pro 2, smaller form factor, for indoor or portable use.

As of July 2019, every product imported into the USA from China will face up to 25% in tariffs, including electronics and Wi-Fi items. This is due to President Trump's announcement of new tariffs on 200 billion dollars more in Chinese imports. This fourth round of tariffs means every product imported from China will cost more.

Some companies including Walmart and Macys have announced that prices will be going up as a result, because many of their items are made in China,

Prices on our Alfa Network Wi-Fi products will not be increasing, because Alfa products are made in Taiwan and not subject to these tariffs. Taiwan companies tend to use better quality control mechanisms and pay better wages to workers too. Keep these facts in mind when deciding between Alfa products and other WiFi products that are made in China. 

In the coming years we will also be partnering with Alfa to manufacture some items right here in the USA. Our distribution operation is already based here in Florida and more jobs are on the way.

Effective today, in addition to normal credit card transactions, you can now checkout on our site with Amazon Pay!


Amazon Pay allows you to securely sign in to Amazon and complete checkout using addresses and credit cards you already have on file in your Amazon account.

Safe- your credit card details are never shared with retailers when you use Amazon pay, so you can rest comfortably knowing your information is safe.

Convenient- if you shop online at 1AM like we do, the last thing you want to do is run across the house to find your wallet and then have to type out all your address information amongst the faint glimmer of the TV. Amazon Pay lets you complete your purchase quickly without having to type out tedious address and credit card information.

We will also be phasing out PayPal checkout on May 6th, 2019. Earlier in April, PayPal announced another fee structure change/hike that makes it more expensive for merchants to accept PayPal. After surveying our buyers, we determined the best choice was to phase out PayPal Checkout and offer Amazon Pay as an alternative payment option instead.

Look for the Amazon Pay button directly under the normal "Checkout with Credit Card" button during our checkout. As always, you can make normal credit card payments using the standard "Checkout with Credit Card" button.

We have a new firmware release for Alfa WiFi Camp Pro 2. Read the firmware update instructions here.

Click here to download firmware file.

This package includes a fix for a connection issue with one type of special WiFi router used in some campgrounds.

Coming soon at Rokland, Alfa ID36ACH 802.11ac AC1200 Industrial USB Antenna with dual N-female antenna connectors. Pair with Alfa AOA-2458-59-TM.

ID36ACH  
802.11ac AC1200 Industrial USB Antenna 
High Quality N Female Antenna Connector
USB 3.0 Micro B Connector
High-Speed 802.11ac
867Mbps@5GHz
300Mbps@2.4GHz
Detachable RF-connector
Universal N female connector
allow to exchange to any
preferred antenna 
Copyright @ ALFA NETWORK Inc. All Rights Reserved  *specifications may change at any time without prior notice
Contact us: sales@alfa.com.tw    
Website: www.alfa.com.tw
Heavy Duty Industrial Design
Die casting enclosure for better
temperature control  with
Din Rail mount 
Industrial Temperature range  
Support temperature range
-40℃ to 70℃
ID36ACH    802.11ac AC1200 Industrial USB Antenna
Specifications
Chipset  RTL8812AU
Working
Standard IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
5.15GHz – 5.825GHz
Output
Frequency
2.412GHz – 2.472GHz
Data-Rate
802.11b: up to 11Mbps
802.11g: up to 54Mbps
802.11n: up to 300Mbps
802.11ac: up to 867Mbps 
Antenna
External detachable dual-band
Antenna
Connector
Channel
Width
antenna
Security
N female
Copyright @ ALFA NETWORK Inc. All Rights Reserved  *specifications may change at any time without prior notice
Channel
1-14 (2.4GHz)
36-165 (5GHz)
Power
(Typical)
30dBm@2.4GHz
27dBm@5GHz
Sensitivity
802.11b: -88dBm@11Mbps
 
20 / 40 / 80MHz
Operating
LED Indicators Power / WLAN
OS Support
Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8,
10
Mac OS X 10.7 or up
Linux
Suggest Antenna:
AOA-2458-59TM
Dual-Band 2.4GHz +5GHz Omni Antenna
5dBi @ 2.4GHz
9dBi @ 5GHz
Contact us: sales@alfa.com.tw    
Website: www.alfa.com.tw
802.11g: -76dBm@54Mbps
802.11n: -70dBm@300Mbps
802.11ac: -54dBm@867Mbps
64/128bit WEP
WPA (TKIP with IEEE 802.1x)
WPA2 (AES with IEEE 802.1x)
WPA Mixed
Temperature
-40°C ~ 70°C
Storage
Humidity
5% ~ 98% (Non-condensing)
Dimension  125 x 102 x 34 mm
Weight 680g

If you have purchased a new Wi-Fi repeater system, whether one from your local store or a more complex kit like the Alfa WiFi Camp Pro 2, you may have decided to give it a test run at home in the same room as your router. 

You may have been surprised to see that at 100% signal and not much distance between your computer, router and your repeater, your speed through the repeater was slower than when directly connecting your PC to your home router's Wi-Fi signal. But the repeater was supposed to make everything faster, you thought.

Repeaters are designed to take a fair/weak Wi-Fi signal and rebroadcast it (repeat it) as a  new Wi-Fi signal that will cover additional area where signal could not previously be received well. When you setup a repeater at close range to a router, you are detouring data packets through an unnecessary route. The best way to describe it comes from this post we saw on CNET forums:

PC to router = 1 request and 1 reply.

What Wi-Fi USB adapters are the most popular for injecting in Kali Linux?

A recent poll from WirelesSHACK shows these results:

The Alfa AWUS036NH and the AWUS036NHA are clear cut winners (graphic source https://www.wirelesshack.org/best-kali-linux-compatible-usb-adapter-dongles.html)

The AWUS036NH is a 2.4 GHz product with the Ralink (Mediatek) RT3070 chipset. The AWUS036NHA is also 2.4 GHz and uses the Atheros AR9271 chip.

Both models are excellent choices with great performance. If you need a Wi-Fi adapter for Kali Linux, Kali users have spoken, and their choice is one of these two.

In conjunction with Alfa Network, Inc. we have a new Windows 10 driver & utility package for the Realtek RTL8812AU/RTL8814AU based dual band products which include the Alfa AWUS036ACH, AWUS036AC, and the AWUS1900.

We have tested this on multiple Windows 10 computers. You can continue to use the Windows 10 connection manager to connect to networks as always, but this appears to be the first driver package that includes a working Realtek Client Utility app for Windows 10.

As always, blog comments are not regularly monitored, so please use our contact page if you bought a product and need technical support.

[Editor's note: the comment section is not regularly monitored. For tech support, visit our support page. At this time we can only provide support to customers, though we can also answer any questions about compatibility.]

If you own some of our products advertised as Mac compatible, you may be in a situation where they just aren't working. The most likely issue is that on Mac OS 10.11 and later, Apple has SIP protection enabled by default.

What is SIP protection?

Apple defines SIP protection as "...technology in OS X El Capitan and later that's designed to help prevent potentially malicious software from modifying protected files and folders...it restricts the root user account and limits the actions that the root user can perform..."

In other words, it is designed to limit capabilities of your Mac system with the intention of preventing unscrupulous software from doing things it shouldn't. But it also blocks legitimate software from being installed outside of the Apple app store (FYI Apple does not approve WiFi driver software for the app store).

SIP protection locks down system folders to prevent third party software from writing to them. So to use Mac driver installers for most of our Mac compatible products on 10.11 and later, you have to disable SIP protection. Fortunately this is easy to do, read on.

Does disabling SIP your Mac less safe?

It makes it as safe as it was in Mac OS 10.10 and earlier. You are essentially just allowing applications to write to your system folders again. As always, never run any application from a source you don't trust, and always use antivirus software.

How to disable SIP protection

To use any of our Mac installers on most 10.11 and newer Macs, you will need to first disable SIP protection before installing the software. If you already installed the software, uninstall it. Then take these steps to disable SIP protection:

1. Click the Apple menu.
2. Select Restart...
3. Hold down Command key and R key to boot
into the Recovery System.
4. Click the Utilities menu and select Terminal.
5. Type csrutil disable and press return.
6. Close the Terminal app.
7. Click the Apple menu and select Restart...

Now install the software desired and you should be able to use your product.

If you own a Realtek RTL8812AU based product like Alfa AWUS036AC or AWUS036ACH and are having issues with Kali, we recommend you read our knowledge base articles that can help get you going.

Go to our help center and click on the category "Alfa AWUS036AC AWUS036ACH AWUS036EAC". Then click on the subcategory "Linux/Kali help".

There we have some great article including one showing how to install the item on Kali 2018.2

If you need additional help, we recommend posting in actual Linux or Kali forums as Linux is a community supported operating system. Our blog post comments are not regularly monitored. You can reach out to our support team with questions and feedback, but please note our support staff can only offer guidance on Linux related issues are not able to provide walkthroughs, step by step instructions, or guaranteed solutions for Linux use.

If you have followed our blog for some time, you may recall us mentioning Connectify, a software tool that allows you to create a hotspot on your computer and share a Wi-Fi connection. Now the company that makes Connectify has does it again with Speedify.

Speedify is an exciting new service that allows you to bond more than one Internet connection together to increase your Internet speed. For example, if you are using one of our Alfa Wi-Fi USB extenders to get better signal to a network, and you are in a location where your built-in Wi-Fi card still works, you can bond the connections together and essentially use them both at the same time.

From the Speedify web site:

"...The technology behind Speedify’s connection magic is called Channel Bonding. We combine multiple Internet connections – Wi-Fi, cellular, ethernet, etc. – to provide increased bandwidth, lower latency, and better reliability."

Speedify also includes VPN service which helps encrypt and protect your data even when you are connected to an open Wi-Fi connection. Rokland strongly recommends VPN service to all users of Alfa R36A and Alfa WiFi Camp Pro Kit 2.

*Rokland is not affiliated with Speedify and is not receiving any compensation for this post. We are writing about it simply because it could be of great benefit to many of our customers.

Speedify does have a free plan for low-bandwidth users and monthly and annual plans for those who use more data. Read more here.