[Elecraft] Prolific drivers and Mac OS

[Bob McGraw - K4TAX]

Largely the issue of RFI can be more related to antenna location and the 
radio/computer location.  The closer the two are the more problems are 
likely to arise.  The signal strength at a specific location is defined by 
the inverse square law.  Double the distance and the RF field decreases by a 
factor of 4.

I realize that some must use indoor antennas.  In this case, RFI is a tough 
solution.  Common mode chokes on every cable, both ends, is likely a must. 
Keep cables as short as practical.  Make sure all pieces of equipment are 
bonded together and I don't suggest just relying on the shield or drain in 
the cables to accomplish this task.  If one needs a ground between two 
pieces of equipment, then one must run a wire between the two.  Do not daisy 
chain pieces of equipment together.  Establish a common point such as the 
power supply case ground terminal {it does have one doesn't it?} and each 
piece of equipment.  The power supply ground terminal should end up with a 
number of ground connections where each piece of equipment will only have 
one ground connection.

I make my ground jumpers from #10 or #12 primary auto wire, crimp a good 
quality VACO terminal on the ends and then solder the terminals.  Crimping 
is only good for the mechanical connection and does not provide a reliable 
low resistance connection.

Once done and the station is clean, one might be surprised to find that many 
of the birdies are no longer heard or are of much lower level too.

73
Bob, K4TAX




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "lstavenhagen" <lstavenhagen at hotmail.com>
To: <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 7:46 AM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Prolific drivers and Mac OS


>
> Well, for what it's worth, I'm still trying to get over my prejudice that
> computers and HF rigs don't mix but that's going with extreme difficulty
> recently hi hi. I've been experimenting with grounding schemes, chokes and
> so on with exasperating results with my macs and the K3. At this point,
> totally ironically, the only thing useful involving a wire between the
> computer and the rig has been my USB->RS-232 adapter to run the K3 
> utility.
> Everything else involves too much RFI to be able to use the rig/computer 
> for
> any intended purpose and the cables always seem to hop back out of the rig
> and back into the storage boxes.
> Maybe a Faraday cage around the computer would be the next thing to try.
> Moving to a location where I can put up a real antenna a long ways from 
> the
> rig would probably help too, but that's impractical right now hi hi.
>
> So I've about thrown in the towel on this (again) hi hi and am about to
> surrender and just go back to computerless HF ops. The K3's built-in
> PSK/RTTY decoder/encoder works surprisingly well now that I'm learning how
> to use it and I need to practice my CW sending anyway.
>
> As for the prolific drivers on MacOS X, the 32 bit releases work great 
> with
> no problems using my Bill-n-Ted's Excellent adapter from BestBuy. I havn't
> worked on the apparent problem with the recent 64 bit version, tho, 
> because
> the 32 versions already work fine. And the error messages I get when 
> trying
> to load it suggest it's a perms thing and not a problem with the driver
> itself.
>
> PS, I did try this with the non-commercial version of MacLoggerDX and
> everything I tried out with it also worked perfectly with no problems. I
> just couldn't hear any signals because of the noise hi hi.
>
> 73,
> LS
> W5QD
> -- 
> View this message in context: 
> http://n2.nabble.com/Prolific-drivers-and-Mac-OS-tp4872457p4876847.html
> Sent from the [K3] mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:Elecraft at mailman.qth.net
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>