[Elecraft] Prolific drivers and Mac OS

[Alan Bloom]

In my experience, often the primary source of computer RFI is the router
and the cables connected to it.  I have to turn off my router and modem
if I want to operate on HF from the same room as the computer.  No
problem with the computer itself.

Al N1AL


On Fri, 2010-04-09 at 21:00 -0500, Bob McGraw - K4TAX wrote:
> 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.
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