[Elecraft] K2 vs USB to Serial Adapter

[Jim Harris]

Hi,

Some of you may remember from 2-3 weeks ago that my K2 would not work with my new Vista equipted laptop that did not have a serial port.  Over the space of several weeks I collected four adapters from various locations and none would work with the K2 but they would work with my FT897D.  The K2 would work with both the serial port and USB port, with an adapter, on a home brew XP computer.

After literally weeks of throwing hardware at the problem and tweaking everything available in the K2, the laptop and several contest/logging programs.  That included finding and installing all the latest drivers. I finally decided to take off my amateur radio hat and put on my electronic technician hat.  Literally within minutes I found and resolved the problem.  There was ~300 millivolts AC and ~350 millivolts DC between the chassis of the K2 and the laptop chassis.  A short jumper cable between the two corrected the problem.

Now I can control the K2 from the laptop.  As of yet I've not tryed to hook up the audio to see if the K2 will transmit audio from the computer without a ground loop problem.  So when things calm down later on this Christmas Day I will try the audio and see how that works.

Thanks to everyone for their patience, time and support.

Merry Christmas and 73,

Jim, AB0UK
K2 S/N 4787