DIGITAL YACHT WL400 Datasheet

QUICK START WL400-01- VR1.1
Installation & Quick Start Guide
WL400 Wireless Adaptor/Antenna

DIGITAL ALLTEK
WL400 Quick Start Guide
1. Introduction
Congratulations on the purchase of your WL400 Wireless Adaptor/Antenna. This unit is designed for permanent or semi-
permanent installation on sail or motor vessels. The base of the WL400 is threaded and designed to be screwed in to a
suitable 1” x 14 TPI threaded VHF antenna mounting bracket (not supplied).
Before operating the unit you should familiarise yourself with the complete user manual supplied with the
product.
2. Before you start
The WL400 comes complete with a USB Memory Stick or CD-ROM that includes all necessary Realtek drivers/software
for the following operating systems;
Microsoft Windows XP®, Windows Vista®and Windows 7®
Apple Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4
Note: Compatible drivers for the WL400 are also included with some LINUX distributions such as the latest version of
Ubuntu. However, due to the wide variety of LINUX distributions available we cannot guarantee that the WL400
will work on all LINUX computers and suggest that users search for compatibility with the Realtek wireless
chipsets that the WL400 uses.
Do not plug in the WL400 to the USB port of your computer until you have inserted the driver USB
Memory Stick or CD-ROM.
3. Mounting the WL400 Antenna
The WL400 should be mounted at deck level, on the wheel house roof or radar arch. Unlike VHF, Wifi signals do not
benefit from being mounted at the top of a mast and this is not to be recommended. The WL400 is designed to be
screwed on to a standard 1” x 14 TPI threaded VHF mounting bracket (not supplied).
Ensure the USB lead is not connected and is coiled before attempting to attach the WL400 to the threaded mounting
bracket. Holding the coiled USB against the WL400, carefully screw the WL400 to the bracket, ensuring that the USB
lead does not become twisted.
Route the USB lead through to the computer that you wish to connect the WL400 to but do not plug the USB lead in to
the computer. Proceed to Section 4 - “Driver/Software Installation”.
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DIGITAL ALLTEK
WL400 Quick Start Guide
4. Driver/Software Installation
It is very important that you do not plug the WL400 in to a USB port on your computer unless you have the WL400 Drivers
USB Memory Stick or CD-ROM close to hand. By plugging in the WL400 you will initiate the Windows “Found New
Hardware Wizard” which will not be able to complete correctly without the Drivers on the USB Memory Stick or CD-ROM
being present. The installation process varies depending upon which Operating System your computer has, so please
ensure that you follow the correct procedure.
Installation for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7
Insert the WL400 Drivers USB Memory Stick or CD-ROM in to your
Windows PC. After the Stick or CD-ROM has been detected by
Windows, an AutoPlay window will be displayed as shown in Fig 1.
Click on the “Run Setup.Exe” option. On Windows Vista and 7 you
maybe asked to confirm that you want to run this program –click on
the “Continue” button to confirm.
Windows will now run the Realtek driver installer. First you will need to
select the language as shown in Fig 2. Click on the language you
require and click “Next”.
Now you will see the Welcome window shown in Fig 3. Click on “Next”
to start the installation. The progress window in Fig 4 will now be
displayed and the progress bar will gradually move across the screen.
When the installation is complete, you will see the Complete Window shown in Fig 5.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5

DIGITAL ALLTEK
WL400 Quick Start Guide
Now that the Realtek drivers are installed, you can connect the WL400 to the computer by plugging in the USB connector
in to a spare USB port. Windows should now start the “Found New Hardware” wizard and a pop-up will be displayed on
the task bar in the bottom right corner of the screen. After about 10-20 seconds, the pop-up should show a “New
Hardware Installed Successfully” message. This indicates that everything has installed correctly and your WL400 is now
ready to be used.
If your laptop has a built-in, normal wireless adaptor, then you should turn it off whenever the WL400 is plugged in.
Consult your laptop instruction manual to find out how to do this. Following this procedure whenever the WL400 is
plugged in, will ensure that you connect via the WL400 to get the best signal range possible.
To connect to a wireless network, you must run the “Realtek USB Wireless LAN Utility” which will now be one of the
programs listed in the Start>All Programs menu. The first time you run this program, you will see the window displayed in
Fig 6 which shows that you are not connected to a wireless network.
Click on the “Available Network” tab and the window shown in Fig 7 will appear which lists all of the available wireless
networks that the WL400 can detect. Select the wireless network that you wish to connect to and click the “Add to Profile”
button.
You will now be prompted to enter the Network Key
(also known as Password, WEP key or Passphrase) for
the network that you have selected. Consult the
network operator to get the necessary password and
enter this in the two boxes at the bottom of the window
shown in Fig 8. Click “OK”.
Assuming that the password was correct, the WL400
should connect to the network and you will see the
window shown in Fig 9 (next page).
If you click on the “General” tab you should see the
window shown in Fig 10 (next page) which gives the
wireless connection status.
.
Figure 4
Figure 6
Figure 7
Figure 8

DIGITAL ALLTEK
WL400 Quick Start Guide
Installation for Apple Mac OS X
Insert the WL400 Drivers/Software USB Memory Stick or CD-ROM in to your Apple Mac and using Finder open the
folder called MacOS10.4 or MacOS10.3 depending upon the version of Mac OS X you have.
Included in each of these folders is an Install.mpkg package that you can double click on to install.
Installation for LINUX
Due to the large number of different LINUX distributions, it is not possible to guarantee that the WL400 will work on all
distributions. It has been tested on Ubuntu V8.04.2 (a Debian based distro) with Kernel V2.6.24 and all drivers were
included in this distro.
If the drivers are included in your distro, simply insert the WL400 USB connector in to a spare USB port and LINUX
will automatically load the correct driver and you will see the wireless networks that the WL400 can detect in the drop
down wireless menu that appears when you click the wireless icon in the task bar.
Included on the USB Memory Stick or CD-Rom are the source files for compiling your own drivers but this assumes a
high level of expertise in compiling LINUX drivers and is beyond the capabilities of most users.
Figure 5
Figure 9
Figure 10