Cannot get AWUS036NH to work correctly. HELP

[ohnoitsbroken]

First-- let me say I have done a good bit of reading on this already. I have read many (not very helpful) articles on compat wireless from 2012 or earlier that have not solved my issue for one reason or another. I realize that many people are using the AWUS036H or AWUS036NHA without issue.

I have the gotten the card working in both a VM, and standalone when I boot to a live-usb. The card comes up, and it scans 20+ AP's which is great.... but I cannot associate with any of them. I can correctly set the card to monitor mode but if I do an aireplay-ng test

root@kali:~# aireplay-ng -9 wlan0
05:02:40  Trying broadcast probe requests...
05:02:42  No Answer...
05:02:42  Found 20 APs

05:02:42  Trying directed probe requests...
05:02:42  00:00:00:00:00:00 - channel: 1 - 'AP1'
05:02:48   0/30:   0%

05:02:48  00:00:00:00:00:00 - channel: 1 - 'AP2'
05:02:54   0/30:   0%

05:02:54  00:00:00:00:00:00 - channel: 1 - 'AP3'
05:03:00   0/30:   0%

etc.... etc...

I then tried to single out a specific AP and run an aireplay test against it..

root@kali:~# aireplay-ng -9 -a 00:00:00:00:00:00 wlan0
05:11:48  Waiting for beacon frame (BSSID: 00:00:00:00:00:00) on channel 13
05:11:51  wlan0 is on channel 13, but the AP uses channel 1
root@kali:~# iwconfig wlan0 channel 1
root@kali:~# aireplay-ng -9 -a 00:00:00:00:00:00wlan0
05:12:18  Waiting for beacon frame (BSSID: 00:00:00:00:00:00) on channel 7
05:12:25  wlan0 is on channel 7, but the AP uses channel 1

Similarly, I cannot get reaver to associate and I am running out of ideas. Can someone please suggest something?


Edit: Should I opt for a different card like the AWUS036NHA or AWUS036H?? Even my card is supposedly supported right out of the box, so I don't know why I'm having issues.