"Mike, Good news! On your advice this morning, I had forgotten to apply the Airport Extreme 2007-001 update. I did that, rebooted and the Dell card now shows up as "N" in my Network program. Sensational!
I will be doing some testing over the next few days and will let you know how it goes....
-SF"

The one other reader that mentioned this (Mac Pro kit) later wrote he also had forgotten to install the AE update. Although I know regular readers are tired of me saying this, remember that the AE 2007-001 update is reported to break WEP on 2wire.com modem/routers which are often the OEM hardware supplied by some cable and DSL providers.
BTW: Late tonight I was told that yesterday a service bulletin was sent to providers (apple dealers/service providers) saying that the Mac Pro Airport Extreme (N compatible) card kit was not supported in any other products than the Mac Pro and iMac late 2006 models (except 1.83GHz model) and "could cause damage" in other models and stressed to avoid any warranty exceptions, they should not install the card in other than those "supported" models. (There are probably thousands of Core Duo MacBook/MacBook Pro, Core Duo iMac and Mini owners that have installed the card in the last week or so. Just a FYI to keep your original AE card around in case you ever need it serviced, as they may check that now.)

" ...Just to add another report on using the Dell 1500 wireless module in the MacBook Pro, I decided to use this module initially rather than the Mac Pro one due to availability issues with the latter in the UK (if anyone knows of an easy way to obtain the Mac Pro module in the UK the info would be appreciated). Although 'n' abilities are a welcome addition, the main reason for trying this module was to improve performance on 802.11g networks as using the standard card resulted in poor transfer rates with high error rates being seen by the base station (A/P extreme using a SNMP monitoring utility), other macs I have showed better network performance with few or no errors, even an old Pismo with a Broadcom based cardbus 'g' card!

The physical installation was relatively simple, (see article here) the note made by another of your contributors (one of the reports yesterday, others did not mention this-Mike) about swapping the antennae leads when using the Dell card may be incorrect, the main and aux antennae connections are in the same position on both cards, but the Dell instructions refer to the white lead as the main ant. but Apple seem to use the opposite colours for the main and aux cables.

The 802.11n enabler installed correctly using Pacifist, on reboot the card was correctly identified as a,b,g,n capable ('n' capability not tested due to lack of compatible base station). Immediately network transfer rates were back to what I would expect from a 'g' wireless network and checking the error rates showed that the Dell card performs on a par with my other 'g' devices - fewer than 10 errors after transferring nearly 1GB of data and good speed with small files and browsing directories on a remote machine. Connections with low signal strength and WAP seem more reliable with less inclination to drop out than before as well.

(In reply to my comments on future updates for this card, at least for those not running Bootcamp/XP-Mike)
As far as future updates are concerned, I'll cross that bridge when it appears (or get the Mac Pro card somehow).
In summary, it seems (to me at least) that most of the wireless issues with the Macbook Pro are due to some fundamental problem with the Atheros wireless chipset and/or driver. It will be interesting to see if these are fixed in 10.4.9 or 10.5 but I'm not holding my breath...
-Nigel "

The reader that mentioned swapping antenna connections with the Dell 1500 card yesterday replied:

"...I read the comments from a poster today (above) about Dell antenna wires (NOT) being swapped. (No other user of this card mentioned swapping the antenna cables)
I'm still looking into that as Dell has two symbols for their antenna connectors on the card. One filled in triangle and one triangle outline. I assumed the filled in triangle was the main antenna and the outlined triangle was the secondary antenna. Hence why I swapped antennas.
Have I assumed wrong?
Cheers, SF"

• Giga Design G4/1.5GHz (7455) in (Digital Audio) G4/AGP (rated 8)
  
  (Full reviews of G4 and G3 upgrades compared to stock CPUs, including real world apps/game tests, install info, etc. are linked at the G4 upgrade reviews and G3 upgrade reviews pages. OC/CPU module articles are on the Systems page.)

You can find the full reports by searching the database selecting the indicated Mac model and upgrade card brand/type. If you've upgraded the CPU on your Mac, send a review with your experience (performance/stability/installation, etc.), Mac Model/Upgrade brand info and overall rating (1= worst to 10=best). Search the database for entries from most every upgradable Mac model *before* you buy. (Searchable by mac model/upgrade brand).

• Parallels Desktop Build 3186
• Bullseye becomes Trampoline 2.0
• Groupcal 3 updated
• IT-Enquirer reports on Pfeiffer: Vista worse than XP
• Feature List for Upcoming Firefox 3.0 Browser (pcworld)
• Vista's user interface suffers from more 'friction' than Microsoft XP
• IBM's Move to Smaller, Faster Chips
• Browser Bugs, Attacks Expected to Mount
• Toshiba Ships HD DVD-R Laptop
• World of Warcraft (surely not) coming to iPhone? (based on anom. rumor posted earlier this month - from a tipster that lied about calling using an iPhone...)
• Experts: No cure in sight for unpredictable hard drive loss (references Google paper on HD failures released previously)
• EMI to Apple, Microsoft: Ditching DRM is going to cost you
• Photos: Five years of Mini-ITX mods
  
  Updated Apple Knowledge Base Docs:
• OS X Server (Universal) 10.4.7 and later: May become unresponsive when clients search mounted network volumes
• Xsan: File System Status reported by cvfsck does not indicate need for repair
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for iPod Games
• Troubleshooting iPod Games
• Error 1415, 1417, 1418, or 1428 when restoring or updating an iPod in iTunes 7 or later (revised again)
• OS X: Firmware Updates for Intel-based Macs (reference doc - not new updates)