Seeking WiFi card supporting hostap

[Frank Leonhardt]

Can anyone point me to a PCIe (or possibly USB) WiFi NIC that supports
hostap, that I can actually buy? Link to Amazon UK or similar appreciated.

I believe the best choice may be something based on the Qualcomm Atheros
AR9380. Finding a card for sale that says it's base on this chip is,
however, proving difficult. They're all "super-fast" or "mega-fast" or
"ultra-fast" but the silicon doesn't feature in the description. If you
know of a card but you're not sure it will probably be connected using
the ath driver, or run ifconfig and see if HOSTAP is one of the flags.

Any pointers much appreciated.

Thanks, Frank.

[Waitman Gobble]

It's been ages but I recall only finding one that does host ap, and my
memory is it was the usb dongle raspberry pi sold before they had
wifi... might check ebay.

--
Waitman Gobble
650-209-2610

[Frank Leonhardt]

Thanks.

I've read some notes to say that Atheros support is lagging, and FreeBSD 15 has a partial update to the newer chips so suspect I'll have to use an older one if stable. At least they're cheap! But I can't locate a PCIe card.

The QCNFA222 module for laptops seems to be well supported for a fiver, but only goes up to 802.11n (which is probably okay). There is also a world of laptop -> PCIe adapters I wasn't aware of, and the GLOTRENDS WA01 looks idea as it has the antennas built in.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tyatocepy-QCNFA222-AW-NB234NF-Wireless-Bluetooth-White-green/dp/B0CXDT8WTW
https://www.amazon.co.uk/GLOTRENDS-Wireless-Adapter-Network-Antenna-Gold/dp/B09ZDPP43X

It's annoying because Intel chipset cards are more modern, higher throughput, cheap and plentiful. I'm tempted to see if I can do anything with the drivers myself, but I suspect it's non-trivial.

Regards, Frank.

[Sergio Carlavilla]

.

Hi,

I am using this one and works by default and without problems[1]

Bye!

[1] https://www.amazon.es/gp/aw/d/B008IFXQFU?psc=1

[Frank Leonhardt]

On 31 March 2026 11:02:46 BST, Sergio Carlavilla <carla...@freebsd.org> wrote:
>On Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 11:49 AM Frank Leonhardt <freeb...@fjl.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
>> On 31/03/2026 00:42, Waitman Gobble wrote:
>>

Thanks Sergio, and good to know. They're very cheap so I might buy one for testing. As it has a very small antenna I don't think it will be the best for AP use even though it does support it - unless I break it open and hack the PCB.

Regards, Frank

[Ярослав Машко]

hi,

i'm using old tp-link usb dongle. tp-links historically have good support, correct me if i'm wrong.

avg speed is something of 5mbps. it is a small dongle with a chip being smaller than its connecting socket.

Ярослав Машко

+380 50 56 75 347