RTTY
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [RTTY] Windows 7 & Serial/USB Experience

To: <david@levinecentral.com>, RTTY <rtty@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [RTTY] Windows 7 & Serial/USB Experience
From: John Elsik <wa5zup@msn.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:52:36 -0700
List-post: <rtty@contesting.com">mailto:rtty@contesting.com>
I am no longer using the edgeport for fsk keying.  I now use a MicroHam MK II.  
But originally I did use it for FSK keying.   I did not use EXTFSK.  If I 
remember correctly I am pretty sure it was off TxD.  I now use the edgeport for 
accessories such as amp, rotor, wattmeter, etc.
73 wa5zup


Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:12:17 -0500
Subject: Re: [RTTY] Windows 7 & Serial/USB Experience
From: david@levinecentral.com
To: ve3iay@storm.ca; wa5zup@msn.com

I am not using EXTFSK. In MMTTY on the TX tab, PTT & FSK is set to Com5 which 
is the 2nd serial port assigned on the Edgeport/8 unit. I do not have EXTFSK 
selected in MMTTY, On the Misc tab in MMTTY I have Com-TxD (FSK) select as the 
Tx Port option. 

I think that means I'm not using EXTFSK but if there's a specific 
question/answer I can give that further clarifies it, let me know. 


WA5ZUP also uses the same device so we can ask him what his settings are in 
MMTTY. I've copied John on this email as well. 

David


On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 9:57 AM, Richard Ferch <ve3iay@storm.ca> wrote:

David,

That's a very nice post on the Edgeport 8 serial adapter. However, there is one 
key piece of information that you didn't make clear. This is whether or not the 
device keys FSK RTTY with MMTTY without using EXTFSK.

As you noted in your post, almost any USB-to-serial adapter should work for 
basic CAT control. The exception appears to be that some adapters do not work 
so well at low speeds; the advice that I have seen is that if an adapter 
doesn't work for CAT and your radio is capable of a higher baud rate than you 
were using, try a higher speed.

Likewise, almost any USB-to-serial adapter should work for simple PTT switching 
(usually using the RTS line). If someone found one that didn't, that would be 
unusual and worthy of note. If an adapter works for PTT, it should also work 
for CW keying (usually on DTR), since the mechanism is the same.

For FSK keying, any adapter that can do simple PTT switching should also work 
with the EXTFSK plug-in for MMTTY. EXTFSK will work with almost anything, even 
parallel ports. EXTFSK can do FSK keying on any of the TxD, DTR or RTS lines, 
just depending on where you have your hardware interface connected.

The function that almost never works with USB-to-serial adapters is direct 
keying from TxD on a serial port (through a keying transistor or optoisolator, 
of course) for 45 baud RTTY using the 5-bit Baudot code, but without using 
EXTFSK. Many adapters do not support 5-bit codes, and many do not support baud 
rates that low. Indeed, I am not sure whether there are any USB adapters that 
will run with operating systems newer than Windows 98 and that will do 5-bit 
codes at 45 baud without using EXTFSK (or Writelog's built-in equivalent). If 
you can definitively report that the Edgeport adapter will key FSK RTTY 
correctly from MMTTY without using EXTFSK, that would be big news and 
definitely worthy of adding to the list at 
<http://n1mm.hamdocs.com/tiki-index.php?page=Interface+Devices> . The problem 
with this list is that people contributing to it don't make clear all of the 
details, e.g. whether they were using EXTFSK or not, and what baud rate they 
were using for CAT. Without thes
 e details, the information is not complete.

The issue with Prolific chipsets is a more complicated one. In Windows XP there 
is a problem with the Prolific driver that only seems to show up in software 
that is written in Visual Basic (like N1MM Logger). Apparently there is an 
interaction between the Prolific driver and the Visual Basic I/O code that 
shows up in a variety of subtle timing-dependent ways. This problem probably 
also exists in newer versions of Windows; the number of reports of problems 
with Prolific drivers seems to be getting worse, which I suspect correlates 
with the increased number of people using Windows 7. I think Joe W4TV is the 
expert on this issue.

73,
Rich VE3KI




                                          
_______________________________________________
RTTY mailing list
RTTY@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rtty

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>