A look in the archives will bring up a long long series of posts about USB/RS232 that does not need repeating from beginning.
The adapter sold by Elecraft is Prolific chip based. Issues with USB are mostly in the drivers, but not always. The Prolific chip had problems with Windows 7, particularly 64 bit, and only the very latest Prolific drivers, with build date middle December, address those issues. That the drivers are written by manufacturers that cannot possibly test the millions of unique combinations of apps, and then "certified" by a process that cannot test them all either, dooms us to a cycle where drivers come out and get first tested in small volume situations by customers who are expecting working apps. Some of this blame is always hosed over commercial USERS of such devices, such as Elecraft, who have zero point zero percent chance of solving them. Other issues include trying to connect to the radio over a heavily used USB hub, or an underpowered hub. These are issues that have nothing to do with RS232, but can cloud progress due to the confusion of some apps working and others not. Your operating system sets the comm port number behavior. Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 seem to vary. Some system bios will make it easier to set, others not. Actual hardware comm ports can usually be set to a permanent comm port. Some laptop manufacturers assign comm ports only in the order they grab the system, making setting comm port numbers in apps a boot up task, every boot. This is what I MUST do if I use my laptop for MM to drive my K3 directly in portable situations. The apps themselves document how many comm port numbers they will look for. N1MM, though many times requested otherwise, remains at 8 for the maximum useable comm port number. There is no universal answer to USB com port issues. Two people with identical setups, one will have problems, the other not, probably only differing in the order that applications were installed on the hard drive. In full size PCs, new motherboards can have three or four PCIX slots (only used by firewalled pedal to the metal gamers). My Asus P6T has four. I am driving a 32 inch monitor with ONE video card, which has never seemed slow on any thing I do. I have three extra PCIX slots that will never be used for video. One can buy inexpensive serial cards for PCIX which never have a problem, because the only task on the card is a serial port, and it's a real serial port UART, not a simulated one. I finally got tired of USB issues and got one of those. It's in a space that will never get used otherwise, and because the mobo itself has no on board serial ports, I set it in Windows Device manager to use COMM 1 and COMM 2. A whole boatload of wierdness, some hard to figure, just went away. Drivers for hardware comm ports are in the OS, long perfected and very stable code. Part of hams' problems with USB is that we are a tiny, microscopic niche in the list of all things USB-able. The BIG stuff, printers, portable devices, etc, garner the lions share of attention. Ipod users started having Ipod sync problems with Vista, and quite more so with Win 7, and how big a market is that to be having problems, and us looking for attention on ham radio logging problems has what chance of attracting resources? Read the archives on why RS232. We just got done with a huge, monster thread on it. It needs to cool off for several months before we start it over again. 73, and absolutely best of luck on your adventure, Guy. On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 11:17 AM, John Ragle <[email protected]> wrote: > Does anyone know the nature of the K3 USB -> COMM adapter sold by > Elecraft? I cannot find anything in the Elecraft literature about it > (other than the price, of course). For example: > > Does it come with a pre-defined COMM port number? > A settable COMM port number between 1 and 10? > A settable COMM port number which may be anything (e.g. 17 or 25 or...). > > How do driver software programs/suites such as DigiPan, FLDIGI, HRDeluxe > recognize this adapter (if at all)? [Some software will not recognize > ports above 10, while other programs are more relaxed about such things.] > > Can the adapter be used for CAT control? > > Any information would be useful. > > John Ragle -- W1ZI > > P.S. Grumbling about the fact that RS-232 is still being used when long > obsolete...grumble grumble grumble...USB-2.0 on a chip...etc. > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > 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 > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft 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
