DIGITAL YACHT WL70 Quick guide

QUICK START WL70- VR1.01
***IMPORTANT NOTE***
Due to major changes in the way USB devices are supported
in Mac OSX Version 10.11 (El Capitan) and higher, the
WL70 will only work on Macs with OSX 10.10 or lower
WL70
LONG RANGE
Wi-Fi ADAPTOR

Quick Start Guide for WL70 V2.01
Tel: + 44 1179 554474 Web: www.digitalyachtamerica.com E-Mail: [e-mail]
1. Introduction
Congratulations on the purchase of your WL70 Wireless Adaptor/Antenna. This unit is designed for quick and simple DIY
installation on a yacht or power boat and can be permanently installed on deck. The WL70 is supplied with an integral 5m
USB cable that should not be cut, modified or extended.
On Window’s PCs, do not plug in the WL70 until you have installed the correct USB drivers, otherwise the
WL70 will be an “Unknown Device” and you will need to update the drivers in Device Manager.
2. Before you start
The WL70 requires that the computer it is connected to has compatible USB drivers installed on it. As computer operating
systems are changing all of the time, we recommend that you visit the following website to download the latest drivers for
your operating system.
http://www.digitalyachtamerica.com/index.php/en/support/support-manuals/utilities
On this site you will find two files for the WL70;
•WL70 Version 2 Drivers for Windows XP®, Vista®, 7, 8 and 10®
•WL70 Drivers for Apple Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9 or 10.10
Drivers for the WL70 are already built-in to all of the latest LINUX distributions and Raspberry Pi operating systems. This
means that you do not need to install any drivers and can simply plug in the WL70 for easy “plug and play” operation.
3. Mounting the WL70 Antenna
The WL70 should be mounted outside, with the best possible line of sight of the wireless hotspot antenna that you wish to
connect to. The WL70 has a standard 1” x 14TPI thread mount, the same as most VHF and GPS antennas use. A wide
variety of mounts are available from chandleries and marine electronic dealers.
Figure 1 –Examples of mounts Figure 2 –WL70 on mount
When screwing the WL70 on to the mount, make sure that the USB cable does not get twisted as this will
weaken and potentially damage the cable. Better to screw the mount on to the WL70 and then secure the
mount in place.
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Quick Start Guide for WL70 V2.01
Tel: + 44 1179 554474 Web: www.digitalyachtamerica.com E-Mail: [e-mail]
4. Installing the WL70 on Windows
Windows Vista/7/8/10 “On-Line” Installation
By far the easiest method of installation, if your PC
is running Windows Vista or Windows 7/8/10, is to
connect the PC to the internet, as you would
normally do, using the internal wireless adaptor
and then plug the WL70 in to a spare USB port on
the laptop.
Windows will detect the new hardware and display
the message shown in Figure 3 if a Vista or Win7
installation but if Win8 or Win10 you will probably
just see an icon appear in the task bar. Windows
will now automatically search the on-line Windows
Update server for the correct drivers. Depending
upon the speed of your PC and internet connection
this should take between 20 seconds and a couple
of minutes to complete.
You can click on the message/icon and the
Window in Figure 4 should be displayed giving you
the status of the driver installation.
After the correct driver has been found,
downloaded and installed the WL70 will appear in
the “Network Adaptor” section of the Windows
Device Manager as shown in Figure 5. If it is not
shown in this section or you see a “Unknown
Device” or a device with a Yellow Exclaimation
mark next to it, then you should try to install the
drivers manually by following the procedure shown
in the next section for Off-Line installation.
If the drivers, are installed correctly and you are
ready to use the WL70 to find and connect to a
wireless hotspot, proceed to the “Operating WL70
on Windows Vista and Windows 7/8/10” section.
“Off-Line” Installation (All versions of Windows)
If you cannot connect to the internet or you have Windows XP, you can install the drivers manually using the USB Driver
Installer that we recommended you to download from our website (see “Before you Start” section on page 2).
Extract the single EXE file in to a folder on your PC and then right click this file and select “Run as administrator” from the
options menu. This is important so that Windows allows the installation program the necessary security permissions to
copy the USB driver files to the Windows System folder.
The installer program will install the USB drivers and if required an optional Wi-Fi Utility program that can be used instead
of the normal Windows Wireless Connection Manager that you see in the right hand side of the task bar. This utility is only
recommended for Windows XP which had a very poor wireless manager and for all other versions of Windows we
recommend selecting “Install Driver Only” as shown in Fig 7.
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5

Quick Start Guide for WL70 V2.01
Tel: + 44 1179 554474 Web: www.digitalyachtamerica.com E-Mail: [e-mail]
After you start the installation, you will be asked to agree to the terms and conditions (Fig 6), then given the option of
installing just the USB drivers or also the WI-Fi Utility (Fig 7) before having to click the “Install” button to start the
installation. Now you will see a progress bar move across the screen before you see the Installation Complete screen (Fig
9) at which point you can click the “Finish” button and plug the WL70 in to a spare USB port on the computer.
At this stage, the new hardware function shold start and if you are using Windows Vista/7 a pop up window will appear
saying that it is Installing the drivers and if you are using Windows 8/10 you may just see an icon appear briefly in the task
bar.
When completed the pop up will change to say that the device software has been installed successfully. The WL70 is now
ready to use and you can proceed to the next section on operating the WL70.
Figure 6
Figure 7
Figure 8
Figure 11
Figure 10
Figure 9

Quick Start Guide for WL70 V2.01
Tel: + 44 1179 554474 Web: www.digitalyachtamerica.com E-Mail: [e-mail]
5. Operating the WL70 on Windows
IMPORTANT NOTE - It is always best to turn off (disable) the internal wireless adaptor on your laptop before using the
WL70. The exact method to do this, varies from PC to PC, but some laptops have a dedicated button in or around the
keyboard area or a special keyboard combination e.g. pressing the Fn + F8 keys.
Operating the WL70 on Windows Vista/7/8
Click on the Wireless Networks icon in the task bar
(lower right hand side of the screen) and a list of
the available wireless networks (hotspots) will be
displayed. Your laptops internal wireless adaptor is
usually named “Wireless Network Connection” and
the WL70 will automatically be named “Wireless
Network Connection 2” or possibly another number
if other adaptors have been used previously.
It is possible to rename this connection to
something more meaningful by going in to the
“Network and Sharing Center” and then clicking in
the “Change Adaptor Settings” option. From this
screen you can right click on the WiFi 2 network
adaptor (or whatever name the WL70 has been
given) and select the Rename option, just like
renaming a file. Giving the new Network Adaptor a
name like “WL70 Wi-Fi Adaptor” or similar, will
make it much easier to differentiate the WL70 from
the internal wireless adaptor –as shown in Fig 11.
Click on the wireless network you wish to connect to and click the “Connect” button that will appear. You may be asked to
enter a password or confirm if the network is a Public, Work or Private network (to set security levels) and then the
wireless connection should be made and you will be able to connect to the internet.
6. Installing and Operating the WL70 on a Mac
Mac OSX has been regularly updated over the last few years and it is important that you install the correct driver that
matches the version of OSX that you are using on your Mac. The WL70 Mac Driver file that we recommended you to
download from our website (see “Before you Start” section on page 2), includes the drivers for all versions of OSX since
10.7 up to 10.10.
Unfortunately Macs with OSX 10.11 (El Capitan) or higher cannot work with the WL70 and you need to use the WL70
with one of our iKConnect mini wireless routers in these situations or to work with iPhones/iPads.
Double click the DMG file that you downloaded and inside is an Installer.pkg and an Unistaller.pkg file. Double click on
the Installer.pkg file to start the driver and Wireless Utility installation.
When you run the Installer.pkg file, the first screen that you see will be the one shown in Fig 12. Click “Continue” for this
screen and the next couple of screens that are displayed. You will be asked to enter your Administrator password and
then the installation will start and you will see a progress bar as shown in Fig 13.
Figure 11

Quick Start Guide for WL70 V2.01
Tel: + 44 1179 554474 Web: www.digitalyachtamerica.com E-Mail: [e-mail]
Figure 17
Once the installation is completed you will see the screen shown in Fig 14. Make sure any important programs or
documents are saved and closed properly and then click “Restart”. The Mac will now close down and restart again.
Before plugging in the WL70, it is always good practice to turn off the Mac’s own internal Wi-Fi, the Airport, To do this
click on the wireless icon in the task bar at the top right of the screen and click on “Turn Airport Off”. This will avoid
any problems with the WL70 and Airport interfering with each other (Fig 15)..
Once the Mac has restarted, plug the WL70 in to a free USB port on the Mac and two things will happen. A new Icon
will appear in the Taskbar (Fig 16) and a new Wireless Utility application will open with a message saying that a new
network interface has been detected (Fig 17).
Figure 12
Figure 13
Figure 14
Figure 15
Figure 16

Quick Start Guide for WL70 V2.01
Tel: + 44 1179 554474 Web: www.digitalyachtamerica.com E-Mail: [e-mail]
Figure 18
You can click on the “Network Preferences” button and then
see the WL70 now listed in the network adaptors list as
“802.11 n WLAN” (Fig 18).
The status indicator will be Yellow and there will be no IP
address shown, as the WL70 is currently not connected to
any wireless networks.
Close the Network Preferences window and return to the
new Wireless Utility window.
You use the Wireless Utility whenever you want to connect the WL70 to a wireless network. Go to the Site Survey tab
(Fig 19) and click the “Scan” button to scan for all available wireless networks. Select the wireless network that you
want to connect to and click “Connect”. You will now see a window like the one shown in Fig 20. Enter the password
of the network (if applicable) in the WPA Pre-Shared Key box and click “OK”.
The WL70 should now connect to the selected wireless
network and display a green icon with two shaking hands to
show that you are joined.
You can click the Link Status tab shown in Fig 21, to see
what the signal strength and link quality are.
The network details plus the password can be stored as a
profile which is remembered in case you return to the
network again. To create a profile, select the network you
are joined to in the Site Survey tab (Fig 19) and click on the
“Add Profile” button.
Figure 19
Figure 20
Figure 21

Quick Start Guide for WL70 V2.01
Tel: + 44 1179 554474 Web: www.digitalyachtamerica.com E-Mail: [e-mail]
You will now see the screen shown in Fig 22 and you simply type in the name that you want to give the profile, Home
in the example below) and then click the “OK” button. If you now click on the “Profiles” tab you will see the new profile
that you have created in the Profile list (Fig 23).
If you have a version of OSX higher than 10.9, please contact [e-mail]. With new releases of OSX,
Apple are regularly making changes to the USB drivers and security systems and new drivers and work arounds are
being developed all of the time to try and keep the WL70 compatible with new versions of OSX
7. Installing and Operating the WL70 on a LINUX PC or Raspberry Pi
Generally the drivers for the WL70 are included in the LINUX kernel and it should just be a case of plugging the WL70
in to a spare USB port and LINUX will find the correct driver and enable the wireless adaptor.
The Raspberry Pi is also based on a LINUX distribution and so the WL70 makes a very useful long range WI-Fi
adaptor for the Raspberry Pi.
Figure 22
Figure 23