Alfa AWUS036ACH (brand new) can only see 5 networks on Kali?

[Leijonasisu]

Hey guys. I am trying to get my brand new Alfa AWUS036ACH to work. On Windows I can see 48 networks on the device. With 22 networks on my internal Intel 8260.

First I installed the drivers that support injection with:

apt-get update
apt install realtek-rtl88xxau-dkms

Then I disabled my internal Wi-fi to prevent conflicts:

rfkill block 0  <-- (Where 0 is the internal Wi-fi device #)

Next I kill any conflicting processes:

airmon-ng check kill

Then I ran monitor mode on the Alfa AWUS036ACH device.
The traditional method doesn't seem to work, but I found this method on a blog.

ip link set wlan1 down
iwconfig wlan1 mode monitor
ip link set wlan1 up

Now let's actually start monitoring networks

airodump-ng wlan1

The problem is that it shows there are only FIVE networks around me. As I said, in windows I can see FORTY EIGHT
networks in my area with the Alfa device. With my inbuilt Intel 8260 I can see at least 22 of those. With both cards enabled
in Kali I can only see these 5 that the Alfa shows (on both cards in network-manager)

What am I doing wrong?

Here's a readout of "iwconfig"

root@gitgud:~# iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

wlan1     IEEE 802.11  Mode:Monitor  Frequency:2.422 GHz  Tx-Power=18 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          
eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=off   (disabled with rfkill in this readout)
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:on

(wlan0 is my Intel 8260 and wlan1 is my Alfa)

Disconnecting the Alfa device causes the internal Intel 8260 to display all 22-ish networks again.

Am I missing a driver or a step or something?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Leijonasisu]

Hi,

Turns out it's a f__king problem with the USB 3 cable. Due to it using the old USB 3 interface (split Mini USB + USB3) the cable doesn't make proper connection with the USB 3 interface on the device. This is due to the cable weight and just garbage interface layout in general. i.e. The reason why we now have reversible USB 3 (the interface connectivity sucking @ss) is why my Alfa can only find 5 networks.

Plugging an old mini USB 2 into the first part of the USB 3 interface on the Alfa instantly shows me a good 30+ networks in range. The downside of course is that I lose 1000mbps of throughput.. and I'm stuck at USB 2.0 speeds of about 250Mbps. I'm going to look for a way to run the Alfa with the garbage old USB 3 interface and somehow not have to deal with issues of the connection being flimsy. If anyone has any ideas that would be greatly appreciated!