[aprssig] Best USB<-->Serial Dongle Ever ???

[Dave B]

Hi..

Se also, the info at:-
https://fedorahosted.org/fldigi/wiki/Documentation/HOWTO

Especialy the entry:-
Taming the Wild COMport in Windows.

That works with all USB<>RS232 devices (regardless of the driver used) on 
everything from Win2000 to Win7.


The advice to avoid Prolific based devies where posible may be moot, but 
in most cases, unless you open the packaging (voiding the ability to 
return as "unopened") you don't know what chipsets are used until you 
load it's utilites, or plug it in, and look with usbdview/usbview etc.   
I've yet to see that listed on the external packaging.

Also, many "non RS232" devices, use the same chipsets to communicate with 
their own hardware, so "faking" a USB interface.

I'm not defending Prolific, nor am I a great fan of theirs.  I do prefer 
the FTDI chipset (It's UK designed at least) but the latest so called 
DRM'd Prolific drivers, do work very well indeed with none of the 
flakeyness seen in the old ones.  They had to get it right, so their 
latest stuff will work on the latest Windows versions.

The only gripe I have (with all of them!)   Is that when Windows (7 at 
least) "sees" another USB device connected (mouse, disk drive etc) it 
seems to reinitialise all the drivers, causing them to "flap" the RTS/DTR 
lines several times.   That can be "interesting" if you have a radio 
attached with a simple PTT interface, unless you invoke any TXDISABLE 
feature of the individual radios, or use the two handshake lines in 
diferential mode, if they are otherwise unused...

If anyone knows a reliable way to disable that, it would be good to know.

73.

Dave G0WBX.







On 21 May 2013 at 18:59, Stephen H. Smith wrote:

> I have just put up a new page on my website dealing with USB<-->serial
> adapters a.k.a. "dongles". This includes a review of what may be the
> best dongle ever for ham/APRS applications.
> 
>     <http://wa8lmf.net/ham/USB-Serial-Dongles.htm>
> 
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Stephen H. Smith    wa8lmf (at) aol.com
> Skype:        WA8LMF
> Home Page:          http://wa8lmf.net
> 
> 
>   Long-Range APRS on 30 Meters HF
>      http://wa8lmf.net/aprs/HF_APRS_Notes.htm
> 
> High Performance Sound Systems for Soundcard Apps
>     http://wa8lmf.net/ham/imic.htm
>     http://wa8lmf.net/ham/uca202.htm
> 
> "APRS 101"  Explanation of APRS Path Selection & Digipeating
>    http://wa8lmf.net/DigiPaths
> 
> 
> 
>