[DXBase] IC781 & DXBase

[Ron Stordahl]

Bill wrote:

>A friend of mine had a pair of IC781s and didn't have a place to keep them.
>He asked if I would keep them for him. (No he doesn't have any more!) I've
>been playing around with them and they work fine. After finding out that
>they require an outboard interface to connect to the computer I have them
>interfaced and working.
>
>One small irritation, it seems to take a fairly long time after I press
>enter for my QSO to appear in DXBase. I found in my reading that the native
>communication rate for ICOM is 1200 Baud. Since my FT1000MP is virtually
>instantaneous, I assume that this may be the reason. The 781 is capable of
>using other rates so I upped it to 4800 like the MP but it still seems slow.
>I am using DXBase 2004 and a Pentium II 350 with Windows 98SE.
>
>I was just wondering if someone had run across this problem before or might
>have a suggestion. These 781s have not had an easy life; they are the ones
>we used down at 6D2X. My guess is that the technology was not quite there in
>1990 when these radios were new.
>
>Bill, W5VX
>
>  
>
Bill

When you say slow...how slow?  I could test this here, but my 781 is in 
the hospital (power supply problem).

The interface is definitely quite a bit slower than my 756ProII which I 
connect at 19200, and which responds quickly.

But my recollection on the 781 is that it certainly does not take over 1 
second to set or read the frequency.  Are you seeing a lot longer delay?

Ron N5IN