Cantennas, PCMCIA WiFi, and Linux
 

I live very, very, close to my college campus (like under 1/4 mi) and they have a big wireless network. From my room I am unable to pick-up the signal with my built-in laptop WiFi card, however, I have a direct line of sight on a building on campus with several powerfull access points. To connect to the network I was going to buy a cantenna from www.cantenna.com and a newish PCMCIA WiFi card (hopefully 802.11g/54g).

My problem is that I can't find any on-line sources that tell me which PCMCIA cards have external antenna capabilities, and if they do, which pigtail package to get for the card/cantenna (the supported cards seems a little vague on the cantenna page). ALSO, I want the card to be able to boot into linux and be able to use programs like AirSnort. I've been hearing that ORiNOCO is the best chipset, but that there are new ones being made that don't support external antennas.

Any help in the matter of what card to puchase would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

You probably aren't going to find any newer cards that work with drivers that support advanced tools like AirSnort. I would recommend getting a card through eBay.

The Senao SL-2511CD PLUS EXT2 uses the Prism2.5 chipset and has a maximum output of 250mW. It also requires an external antenna. So that seems to be a decent choice. You can get one e.g. here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...ayphotohosting
(actually that's a 200mW Senao NL-2511CD but it does have two MMCX connectors, so it's good)

Now that I check the AirSnort site, they only say Prism2 cards, so I don't know if the Prism2.5 would work. :(

But they do support Cisco Aironet cards, and those are decent (I've got one). Try the Cisco AIR-LMC352, it's the Aironet 350 PC-Card with two MMCX connectors.

It's a tad expensive, though:
http://www.thenerds.net/productpage.asp?un=149036&s=1
http://www.nextag.com/serv/main/buye...co_aironet_350