Once you put your wireless card into monitor mode, you typically will not be able to use it as your connection to the network. If you want a wireless connection to your network as well as the ability to monitor the wireless network, you'll need to have two wireless cards installed in your system.

Starting with the "1.5.0" release of the NST, there is one known exception to this rule. A wireless card supported by the madwifi drivers is capable of being used in both managed mode (for a standard network connection) and monitor mode (for monitoring wireless traffic) simultaneously. However, one should be sure to turn off channel hopping when in this situation.