[Elecraft] KIO2 - PDA Adapter - PSK - success!

[email protected] [email protected]
Fri Jan 18 12:55:09 2002


Hi Folks,
I finally have some good news to report about my efforts to place a serial 
port on my laptop. 

To recap: the new laptop (HP) has what looked like a serial port when I 
bought it, but it was not!  (was a video port) So, the route to take is to 
add the "dongle" which is a USB to serial port adapter. There is one that 
Belkin makes for around $80 F5U103 which is rather large and has several 
connections. Several posts to this reflector indicated that these work with 
the KIO2. Then there is the smaller version,  the Belkin F5U109, which is 
sold as a PDA serial port adapter to USB and the cost is about half of the 
larger unit. It has one output connection.  They are both billed as USB to 
serial port adapters.  The company, through email, told me that the smaller 
unit is a "virtual port" and might not work in all situations but the larger 
unit works almost all of the time. 

I bought the smaller unit and at first it did not work.  The problem turned 
out to be the fact that installing one of these things can be very tricky.  
First and foremost you must get the proper drivers (installation software) 
from the manufacturer's website!  As my new computer runs the new Windows XP 
operating system no devices seem to come with software which is compatible.  
There is a real difference between the software needed to interface one of 
these adapters to Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000 and XP.  Believe it or not!  Also, 
the way in which you install the software is very important.  If you skip a 
step you must first uninstall everything, (which is a time consuming process) 
and then start again.  (This reminds me of the KAF2 clock --- just kidding :)

The upshot of all of this is that the small Belkin F5U109 USB to serial PDA 
adapter will work with the KIO2 and Windows XP.  The laptop will now "hear" 
through the KIO2 and change the K2 bands, freqencies, etc. and switch from Rx 
to Tx.  I am using MixW2 on the laptop to control the K2. (Kenwood setting)  
The one "external" connector needed is from the computer audio output to the 
K2 mic input.

I have a question for those using this setup.  What do you do about the Rx 
noise from the K2?  That is, when using a separate cable from the K2 to the 
audio input of the computer the K2 speaker was silenced as the conneciton was 
made through the external speaker or headphone jack. However, now that the 
audio to the computer comes from the KIO2, the speaker in the K2 is not 
silenced. Turning the K2 volume down also turns down the volume on the KIO2 
line so that when the speaker is "low" there is not enough audio going to the 
computer to activate the decoding (MixW2) program.  I can compensate with the 
audio gain in the computer but this only goes so far and the K2 audio still 
needs to be high enough to be annoying. Of course, some people might like to 
listen to those squeals!  

That's it.  Success!  I greatly appreciate the help (and sympathy) I received 
from those on this reflector. Nice guys!  Thanks. 
73,
Bob WB2DHK in Hoboken, NJ