Folks...
Just had to add this as reading the comment (appended below) drove
me outta lurk mode... No, no, no, no. Please, O Lord, no! No USB on
radios. Keep it plain serial. Put a level converter in the radio
(MAX232, etc.) - or make room for it as an "internal optional
accessory" so that a "lumpy" (i.e., anaconda swallowing a pig) cable
isn't needed.
The advantage of a serial interface is that *any* computing engine
(even microcontrollers) has a serial port - plus or minus a level
converter. If a PC does not have a serial port [I find that hard to
believe; maybe the connector just wasn't brought out from the PCB,
but it'd be a chipset feature] one can be added on the PCMCIA, PCI or
even as an adapter on the USB bus (with appropriate driver). Serial
comms are easy to use, and it's easy to write very generic portable
programs for it.
Not everyone wants a true PC connected to their radio. And USB is
harder to deal with programatically (libraries, header files, etc.)
and it's going to be very RF noisy, esp if other devices are sharing
the bus on a hub. Radios just don't need high-bit-rate interfaces -
9600 or 38400bps serial is just fine.
Off my soapbox...
73
Bill, N6AOT
San Mateo, CA
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
Of course current state-of-art uses USB instead of RS-232C.
There are quite a few computers that don't have the "legacy"
serial or parallel ports any more. It would be nice if the
radio manufacturers would get together and create a common
programming language utilizing USB.
