I promised a summary of responses - here's what I got - my comments are at
the bottom:
W2UP says:
>I have an 4 COM port 1 IRQ ISA Byterunner that works fine. I heard
>the PCI boards were flaky at times - don't know if that has changed.
AC0M says:
>I bought a USB to serial converter from PCCables for $35.00 a month or
>so ago and am using it for rig control on the FT-920. Also, bought a
>Stratitec 4 port USB to USB hub from Sam's just last week for $21.98. I
>now have the converter running through the hub to the rig. Have not
>tried the converter on the PK-900 or Rigblaster but I have been told
>that it works well on both. At least the price is right and the product
>from PCCables was here in a flash. I am going to order a several more of
>the converters.
WA9ALS says:
>The Belkin USB serial adapters and the White Heat adapter will do most
>"normal" stuff like let you read your rig and/or control your TNC.
>
>I cannot recommend the Byterunner PCI serial card, but there has been
>nothing but good about their ISA card - cheap and functional - However,
>I guess some computers don't even have ISA slots anymore! GL
AF4Z says:
>I have used the Byterunner Model: TC-420-S5-4 card and no problems . Mine
>is the ISA 4 serial and 2 parallel ports. This gives me 6 serial and 3
>parallels. The LPT ports are used for CW, Contest Filter control and a
>spare. Antenna rotor control is next
>There are about 10 of us local RTTY hams that use them and no one has had
>a problem.
>You can check it out at www.byterunner.com. Current prices are on the
>WEB. The These cards will work with 5 bit and 8 bit so dumb terminal
>modems are no problem.
>
>Also Bruce (WT4I) has some info on his webpage. He's one of the
>locals. You can find the info at http://www5.palmnet.net/~wt4i/.
K4NR says:
>I added the 2-port PCI card to my PC so I could add rig control and run 2
>TNCs. The Byterunner product has worked flawlessly. I have the mouse on
>Com 1, rig on Com 2, VHF TNC on Com 3, HF TNC on Com 4, printer on LPT 1,
>and the W9XT card on LPT 2. No problems here.
>
>Running Win 98 on a P-166 with 32 mb RAM...
K6XT says:
>I have been using a 4 port Byterunner ISA card under NT4.0 for some years.
>No probs once it is set up. It is configured as Com 3-6, one of the
>"standard" configurations in the card manual. Been thru 3 motherboards with
>progressively faster processors, now residing in a Celeron 400 system.
>Always under NT4.
>
>Can't say enough good things about the support I received from Byterunner.
>First class.
W3LJ says:
>I added a Byterunner PCI 4 serial port card a couple of weeks ago. It came
>with drivers and, since I have Win2000, the ability to download drivers for
>it. It failed when connected to the rig and failed to send CW. I moved the
>PC, a Dell 1ghz Dimension 4100 with 256Mb, into another room to test it with
>an external modem during the 10 meter contest and it checked out OK. I put
>it back into the shack and it's worked fine ever since. All four ports work
>fine, now. Suspect card seating. Get it in properly the first time and it
>will be fine. They are definitely cheaper than the alternates.
Many thanks to all who responded - lots of good information, generally
saying that the ISA cards work without any problems and that the PCI cards
sometimes are flaky. Not much response regarding using USB to Serial
converters so I take it not many of you are doing that.
I was prepared to order the PCI version of the Byterunner card with 4
serial and 1 parallel but at the same time was doing some testing of my
2-radio setup and determined that station to station interference was going
to be so severe that I needed to focus on fixing that problem before worry
about controlling lots of rigs. So when I get that solved, I'll probably
pick up the Byterunner PCI card and try it out - being a professional
Windows programmer I figure I've got a pretty good chance of getting it to
work even if it balks a little at first (They don't call it "Plug and Pray"
for nothing... ;-)
One last note - I had commented that the archives weren't very searchable.
Turns out I just didn't know how to do it -- as K6EP points out:
>I find the archives to be very searchable. Just go to:
>http://www.contesting.com and enter "writelog byterunner" in
>the list search box (without the quotes) and you'll get 38
>references including some from the old wl-users list.
Sure enough, it works quite nicely. You can search any of the lists hosted
at contesting.com from that page.
73 and thanks again for the responses. Happy holidays to one and all!
-Marty NW0L
martyt@pobox.com
At 11:14 AM 12/16/00 -0600, Marty Tippin wrote:
>Couldn't find anything in the archives (they're not very searchable either...)
>
>Wondering if anyone is successfully using one of the ByteRunner multi-port
>serial cards - I see that WA9ALS had trouble with one about 18 months ago
>but can't find any other reference to them.
>
>Looking to add more ports (I need about 4 more) and can't afford to spend
>much on them.
>
>Also, what's the latest verdict on the USB-to-Serial adapters? Seems like
>a cheap way to add an almost unlimited number of ports - if the only issue
>is the problem with 5-bit codes for some TNCs, I can live with that.
>
>Any info appreciated - please reply direct and I'll summarize to the
>reflector.
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