My first card was an Alfa AWUS036H and that was pretty long time ago. It was used for various testing and especially I tried it with maximum power it can support for long periods of time. Therefore my chip got fucked up and had a lot of connectivity issues and was no longer was stable with frequent disconnects, etc.
Next one was Alfa AWUS036NH, it was a bit better over the last one perhaps because I learnt my lesson and didn't boost the power to max, and as of now it runs fine without any connectivity issues. It has good range and not much issue other than the fact that it has driver problem so it doesn't work that well with aircrack-ng (especially packet injection part on my current arch linux distro) but it doesn't matter since I only use it for regular connection and have my first card for that job.
Also if you see this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5jTORBwsVQ, they show you a booster...I've seen a booster quite similar to that and was thinking of buying one. Anyone has any ideas how effective they're with long range antennas or if they're feasible at all?
Also I would want to try some new cards other than alfa that might be good, feel free to leave some suggestions.
Ok i thought about replying to this topic earlier, decided it was well in hand....but now it looks like i might be able to help some, but before i get to some of the later replys i want to start with OP.
@OP: This will be something of an ape of those before me, card usability GREATLY differs on what your initial criteria is. Not just injection/web surfing but are you doing almost nothing but large data transfers etc. Which means you are generally going to have to pick one or two KEY usages for the card and search for cards that review well both in lab simulations as well as have a positive review from customers(stability). Keep in mind in MANY cases the antenna that ships with card X sucks donkey balls and can make a card look worse than it is.
So i thought about just throwing a bunch of math out....but that would leave a lot of people in the dark. Instead what i will do is post a useful wiki link with all the necessary math and explanations of how this stuff works, and instead explain using other equipment that most should be more familiar with. After that ill toss out a few other key points/notes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antenna_gainbasically think of a antenna's receiving ability in terms of a microphone, transmission in terms of your speakers. Basically the sensitivity of your microphone determines how well it picks up sounds and converts it to energy for transmission, the more sensitive it is the more it picks up, from further away. This is a double edged sword. The more it picks up the more firmware/software has to filter "extraneous" noise out of the channel. Same goes for an antenna, the higher the gain...the more noise. However unlike a microphone when you are dealing with a two way street (access point+your system). Which is where we switch technology too....car stereo. More specifically that antenna you have on your car. When ever you start getting to far away from a transmission source(radio station) you start getting "choppy" music for two main reasons. Interference from other sources AND degradation of signal from distance. This matters in cases like the video that rogue posted. that "19 access points detected" off of a boosted signal likely somewhere around only HALF of those would you be able to connect to reliably. In short boosting power is not always the answer, especially when you are trying to boost an antenna beyond its nominal gain. On top of that the firmware of your card(and the software on your system) can greatly increase or decrease "recognizable" signals in how it filters them. Hence why under windows their was a disparity card to card (firmware) and an even bigger disparity on kali vs windows(software). Also in that video note how close he put the booster to the card. This IS correct placement, the initial signal coming out of the card is "weak" you dont want to boost a weakened signal, because you boost the "bad" along with the "good". That said you also dont really want to use a booster unless like him your antenna is a good distance away AND rated for the power you are putting into it.
side hack:
http://www.instructables.com/id/turn-ANY-speaker-into-a-microphone-in-just-2-easy-/Some after thoughts(well a few of the many i have still going on):
Never forget that any piece of gear you add between point A and point B add's latency. In terms of a booster since its a "dumb" item it adds maybe .5ms each way or 1ms round trip. in the case of "smart" tech that makes some sort of decision its normally figured to be 2ms round trip. On top of it adding in cabling, the type of cabling AND core technology behind it can make a huge difference in not just latency but in where/how the signal starts breaking down. Anyway in that video id assume 2-3ms added to the round trip latency, which means if latency is important to you it would be a bad setup.
Boosting power via the motherboard/usb is generally bad juju. Most of the time not because its damaging your antenna, but damaging the card itself because the components generally arnt rated for the heat generated.
Which brings me to something else i seem to say a LOT....the biggest component and system killer is HEAT. more heat is ALWAYS bad for longevity. the higher power something uses, the more heat it produces(i could link to that math too. but fuck it go google). It weakens solder, degrades capacitors etc etc etc. say no to heat.
That said, its not the only way boosting power can harm a component, if it goes way beyond the (as an instance) rating that a resistor can handle it is going to blow up then and their. Even if your not going past its rating, if your hitting it near its max...it just wont last as long(due to heat!).
Anyway hope i cleared things up some. im gonna go poke a bear now before i write even more on this.
