How to manually install your Alfa AWUS036H 1000mW or 500mW USB adapter on Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)

If you have or plan to get an Alfa AWUS036H wireless USB adapter, which uses the Realtek RTL8187 chipset, the adapter is compatible with Windows 7. We have purchased a number of Windows 7 systems for our technicians and found in most cases the device was actually auto-installed by Windows 7 when we had the driver CD in the computer. However with some systems this did not happen, and we were able to successfully get the item working on Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit editions by manually installing the Windows Vista drivers from the Alfa installation CD.

We created this PDF guide that provides a step by step walk-through to do a manual install. If you have any questions, please remember that blog comments are not regularly monitored by Rokland staff, so please contact us through our web site Rokland.com.

Christmas week shipping schedule

Merry Christmas and happy Festivus to all!

We will be operating on a short week beginning Monday, December 21st, and will be closed Thursday December 24th, and Friday December 25th, so that our employees may enjoy the holiday with their families.

We generally ship orders the next business day after they are placed/paid. All eBay orders paid for by Wednesday night (12/23) at 11:59 PM EST will be shipped out on Thursday morning, even though the rest of our offices will be closed. Purchases made through eBay on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or Saturday and Sunday (12/26 and 12/27) will be shipped on Monday December 28th.

A special note for our web site customers, UPS will not be picking up packages on Christmas Eve. Therefore orders placed on or after Wednesday 12/23 will not be shipped until Monday 12/28. This means if you place an order on 12/23 with Next Day Air shipping, it will ship on 12/28 and arrive on 12/29.

If you are a web customer, please note at this time our web site only supports UPS shipping options. If you would like to make a purchase and select a US Postal option, you can do so by calling us (click on Contact Us link on the right hand side of our web site for our sales and support phone number). Thank you for making this a great year at Rokland, and we wish you the best this holiday season and a happy new year as well!

BearExtender.com: the ultimate Wi-Fi experience for Macs

Readers may be familiar with our efforts to develop long range (and affordable) Wi-Fi solutions for Apple Macintosh users. We have had some great successes with the RokAir and RokN wireless USB adapters. We were also the first to launch a Snow Leopard compatible wireless USB adapter for Macs. Today we are excited to announce the launch of BearExtender.com, a project that has been in the works for a long time.

BearExtender.com is the only place you can purchase our newest product, BearExtender n3. BearExtender n3 is the result of a joint venture between our product development team and Roland Saekow, a product design major and graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. Together we built off of our well-reviewed n3 wireless USB adapter for Macs to put together a kit that is geared toward mobile Mac users and college students.

BearExtender n3 features a 700mW 802.11n USB wireless adapter that is compatible with Mac OS 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, and even 10.6 Snow Leopard (32-bit only). Instead of including drivers on a CD-ROM that will end up in a landfill, BearExtender n3 comes with software on a reusable flash drive. Once you are done installing the device, you can drag and drop the contents of the drive to some place on your Mac (for future use if needed) and then use the flash drive for other purposes.

BearExtender n3 also comes with a special metal flex cable allowing the unit to stand freely in the air, with no need for a surface on which to set it down (great for use in coffee shops or crowded desks where surface space is at a premium). The unit also has a clip on the back for easy attachment to the back of your laptop.

BearExtender n3 is the ultimate portable Wi-Fi device for Mac users, and it is also 802.11n compatible. Check out the press release here, and be the first to get one at the low introductory price here.

Our holiday promises to you...

1. We promise to get your order shipped out on time and as advertised.

2. We promise excellent customer service before and after the sale.

3. We promise not to make any video advertisements set to the tune of well known Christmas songs. That may have been neat the first time it happened, but who gets a laugh these days when
"Deck the Halls..." and "Jingle Bells" are rewritten about everything from hardware to kitchen appliances?

Black Friday Deal: 802.11n Wireless USB adapter only $9.00 with free shipping...

To celebrate 9 years in business, this Friday and Saturday only (November 27th and 28th) we will have a "Black Friday" deal of our own at Rokland.com:

A wireless 802.11n mini USB adapter with 300 mbps max speed for just $9 including shipping (limit 4 per customer- the deal price will not appear on the web site until Friday November 27th).

You won't find a better Black Friday deal unless it involves one of those "wait 10 weeks for a rebate" programs.

This Friday or Saturday, just add the item to the cart, checkout, and your card is charged $9 and the item is mailed to you. Best. Deal. Ever?

Well, okay, Wal-Mart and Best Buy have a $197 laptop and that is a pretty sweet deal, but it is limited to something like 5 per store, and you have to get there at 3AM. You can buy your $9 wireless 802.11n adapter from Rokland.com any time Friday or Saturday at this link (the $9.00 sale price will not be shown on the site until Friday November 27th).

We are not going to advertise this deal anywhere but here on our blog, and via a Twitter post. We want to see just how effective Twitter searches and tweets will be in getting the word out about this deal. So please help us by tweeting about this deal, or retweeting our tweet. We are @rokland

We hope you enjoy the deal, and happy Thanksgiving to all!

Thanksgiving week shipping schedule

Happy Thanksgiving! This week we are on a short week, and will be closed Thursday November 26th for Thanksgiving Day, with limited hours on Friday November 27th so that our employees may enjoy the holiday with their families.

We generally ship orders the next business day after they are placed/paid. All orders paid for by Tuesday night at 11:59 PM EST will be shipped on Wednesday November 25th. Purchases made through eBay on Wednesday and Thursday of this week with a US Postal shipping method such as First Class or Priority Mail will be shipped Friday November 27th.

A special note for our web site customers, and eBay or phone customers who select UPS shipping. UPS will not be in operation from Thursday until Monday of next week. Therefore any UPS shipment paid for after 11:59 EST on Tuesday November 24th will not be shipped out until Monday November 30th. Please keep this in mind especially if purchasing an expedited UPS shipping method such as Next Day Air. Next Day Air orders paid for on Wednesday will not ship until next Monday and thus will be delivered Tuesday.

If you are a web customer, please note at this time our web site only supports UPS shipping options. If you would like to make a purchase and select a US Postal option, you can do so by calling us (click on Contact Us link on the right hand side of our web site for our sales and support phone number).

Using your Alfa AWUS036H or Rok500 wireless USB adapter with Windows 7

(Note: this article applies to the AWUS036H 500mW and 1000mW wireless USB adapters from Alfa, the Rok500 500mW USB adapter from Rokland, and other devices that have a Realtek RTL8187L chipset.)

If you have an Alfa AWUS036H or are considering buying one and want to know if it will work with Windows 7, the technical answer is yes. If you are not that familiar with computers though, please note the installation process may be a bit more involved than a normal WiFi adapter installation.

We have found in some cases you can just put the Alfa drivers CD in the CD drive and connect the adapter to the computer, and then Windows will automatically set it up for you. In many cases though (primarily with Windows 7 64-bit), nothing will happen when you connect the device, or Windows will report that it was not able to find a driver.

The Alfa AWUS036H works great in Windows 7 using the Vista driver. If your computer does not install the driver for you, at the time this article was published you cannot use the Setup program on the CD, as a message will come up saying it is not compatible with Windows 7 (the setup program is only for use with Windows Vista or earlier). What you have to do is manually install the Vista X86 (for 32-bit) or X64 (for 64-bit) driver from the Alfa CD by going to the Device Manager, right clicking on the device, and selecting Update Driver (or Properties > Update Driver). Then proceed through the wizard, browsing to the driver location on the Alfa CD.

If you have not done a manual driver installation in Windows XP or Vista before, or get lost in the process, we will have some video and picture guides available to assist you within the next week.

Happy Halloween from Rokland

RokIt wireless USB adapter not Snow Leopard compatible

Our RokIt wireless USB adapter for Macs is not currently compatible with Mac Snow Leopard (OS 10.6). It currently works with 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5 Leopard.

For our other Mac compatible devices that have a Realtek chip, such as the RokAir, those devices can be used on Snow Leopard 32-bit by installing the 10.5 Leopard drives. But do not attempt this sae procedure with the RokIt, the 10.5 driver package for the RokIt not only does not work with 10.6, but may interfere with other wireless adapters installed on your system.

Alfa AWUS036H 1000mW (1w) USB adapters are here, but are they really 1000mW max output?

If you have used the Alfa AWUS036H 500mW max output wireless USB adapter before, you know it is an awesome WiFi adapter. The range is amazing, and it really does a lot better job than most all other products on the market.

Alfa is a great brand, and they have recently announced that the new AWUS036H models are now 1000mW max output. We received the first shipment of these 1000mW max units from Alfa today, and can confirm the retail box is different. But there are no markings on the box to indicated it is now 1000mW (30 dBm), and the adapter is physically identical to the older version in all aspects. The CD inside the box has a manual which still refers to 27 dBm max output, apparently they forgot to change the manual. They have changed their official web page for this model though.

We asked Alfa, and they have confirmed the units are 1000mW. Alfa is a great company that has long made excellent networking items and we have no doubt that these units are in fact now capable of 1000mW. But Alfa does not have a US-based operation and may not understand that US buyers are constantly faced with ads and products that have inaccurate specs. We have encouraged Alfa to fix their manuals to properly show the new version as 1000mW, and to also add the output specs to the retail box itself. Until they do, we will continue to advertise the model AWUS036H as 500mW max. Note that other retailers have chosen to advertise the same units as 1000mW, but if you buy from Rokland you will be getting the same item.