I just built a very small computer to replace the giant workstation that has been heating my shack for more than a decade. That old Dell was a workhorse and held a compliment of extra serial boards for all those old serial connections we once used: packet, transceivers, etc. But, the Dell doesn't sound as good as it once did, and both the radio and the amp have been replaced, so it was time for the computer to go.
I selected a very small case, the 7x7x3 "M-350" case you see everywhere and the Zotac IONITX-A-U that was available used at a great price. I decided to use Windows 7 so I didn't have to change that for another ten years, and I could continue to use DX4WIN to control everything. The Zotac is a mini-iITX form-factor and uses very low power. It is quiet and cool and takes up little space. This motherboard doesn't have any of the old serial ports, so I was taking a gamble that all my equipment would interface over USB. Almost all of it worked, often with workarounds. The first USB-serial cables that I bought from a seller on eBay were failures. They seem to just be wire with connectors on the end, with not real circuit for adapting the USB bus to a serial port. Well, I didn't risk much on them. The second USB-serial cables were interesting. The Windows 7 system recognized them immediately and assigned them COM ports, but the system didn't seem to want to use both COM5 and COM6 at the same time, so neither my rotor nor my radio CAT worked with any stability. Turn off one or the other and it seemed better, but never use both. But I stumbled on a workaround. If I connected the USB-Hub in my monitor and then connected the USB-serial cable to that, things were more stable. The COM ports were higher, but they worked. In the end, I have the M2 rotor, Tentec Orion II CAT and Keyer working through USB. There is an occasional delay in first-character keying, but I think that might be Windows and not USB. I'll keep testing that to see how to improve it. One thing I haven't worked out is the USB-USB connection for the Alpha 9500. The Alpha Windows software is pretty sad and I didn't have time to try something useful, but in the end I really doubted I cared about talking computer-to-amp for something that was sitting on my desk. I know there are other solutions, like external keyers, hubs, etc, but this seems like a great first step. I'd also comment that the new look of DX4WIN 8 "frames" is nice. I don't see much different in the software yet, but things were familiar enough for me to work 4A4A pretty quickly tonight. 73, Byron ______________________________________________________________ Dx4win mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/dx4win Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
