[Elecraft] Bluetooth and Elecraft Rig Serial Comms

Sat Apr 13 10:42:42 EDT 2013

Joel,

About the issue of always expecting Apple devices for BT  on a Mac...

I used to have a couple of non-Apple devices BT-connected with my Mac.  One was my old Palm Pilot (which I still have actually stuffed away in some drawer) and the other was an old Cell Phone I had before the emergence of iPhone.  But, that was a while back, maybe around 2005 to 2008 or so and I have not done any non-Apple BT connecting since then so their could be a problem.  I should dig out my Palm Pilot and give it a try.

73, phil, K7PEH

On Apr 13, 2013, at 4:19 AM, Joel Black <w4jbb at charter.net> wrote:

> I recently tried this with some no-name BT transceivers. Using just the BT in my Mac, I could not connect to the devices. I did not try going through a serial-to-USB adapter as that would occupy another USB port which is what I was trying to eliminate.
> 
> I also tried experimenting with a Logitech M315 mouse. I couldn't get the mouse to connect to the Mac either. I did not try using the USB BT transceiver that came with the mouse. Again, that would occupy a USB port which I'm trying to keep from doing.
> 
> Apparently, what you try to connect via BT needs to be an Apple device - I could be wrong, this is just my experience.
> 
> I have not tried this on my Boot Camp partition.
> 
> 73,
> Joel - W4JBB
> 
> On 4/12/13 7:23 PM, Phil Hystad wrote:
>> Don,
>> 
>> I may try it but I was hoping someone had done some work to thin the field a bit.  There are a number of different RS232/Bluetooth devices with a very wide price range from my brief googling.  Wide is $25 to $150.  Actually, only one I found at $150 and most seem to be in the $45 to $75 range.
>> 
>> I am also preferring Mac versions and most of what I find seem to offer on Windows (not surprising) but a few on Linux and Mac but again I am wondering if anyone else has experience.
>> 
>> 73, phil, K7PEH
>> 
>> 
>> On Apr 12, 2013, at 3:30 PM, Don Wilhelm <w3fpr at embarqmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Phil,
>>> 
>>> Why do you not try it and report the results?  If the bluetooth connection is good and the bluetooth to RS-232 adapter is of good quality, it should work just fine.
>>> I have not tried it, but in theory it should work.  The only caution that I can state is that the quality of some consumer devices is wanting for something more robust.  Find one that is sufficiently robust and it should work.
>>> 
>>> Unfortunately, many PC type devices do not conform to true RS-232 levels and speeds, and will work with some devices over short distances, but fail on other devices that expect the minimum RS-232 switching voltages.  Others do not work at slow speeds - note the reports of USB to RS-232 adapter failures on this reflector - some work, and others do not, particularly with the slower data rate used by the K2.  Adapters designed for industrial applications will likely work, but some of those offered for the consumer market may present problems.  My Edgeport-4 will handle anything I have connected to it so far, but a garden variety Prolific adapter is very picky and fails at slow data rates.
>>> 
>>> 73,
>>> Don W3FPR
>>> 
>>> On 4/12/2013 6:09 PM, Phil Hystad wrote:
>>>> Has anyone used a Bluetooth to RS232 Serial adapter, such as the dongle style that could plug into a 9-pin connector (but, it does not have to be dongle style).
>>>> 
>>>> This would be instead of using a Serial to USB adapter.  I think, though I am not positive, that such devices come with driver to define additional serial COM ports.  I was wondering if such a configuration would work with the Elecraft utility programs.
>>>> 
>>>> 
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