Following on from my question and Ralph's suggestion, I looked at Arch Linux wiki and it suggests that to find out if I can use my dongle in a software Access Point I run iw list. Under supported Interface Modes it needs to have 'AP'. it doesn't.
peterm@peterm-MBB-34204H:~$ iw list Wiphy phy0 max # scan SSIDs: 4 max scan IEs length: 2257 bytes max # sched scan SSIDs: 0 max # match sets: 0 max # scan plans: 1 max scan plan interval: -1 max scan plan iterations: 0 Retry short limit: 7 Retry long limit: 4 Coverage class: 0 (up to 0m) Supported Ciphers: * WEP40 (00-0f-ac:1) * WEP104 (00-0f-ac:5) * TKIP (00-0f-ac:2) * CCMP-128 (00-0f-ac:4) * CCMP-256 (00-0f-ac:10) * GCMP-128 (00-0f-ac:8) * GCMP-256 (00-0f-ac:9) Available Antennas: TX 0 RX 0 Supported interface modes: * managed * monitor Band 1: Capabilities: 0x17e HT20/HT40 Peter M. -- Next meeting: BEC, Bournemouth, Tuesday, 2019-03-05 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk