[Ham-Mac] Need Ideas on USB-Serial Problems

Steve Muncy smuncy at mac.com
Sat Dec 15 14:33:30 EST 2007


I'm stumped and I'm looking for some fresh ideas to solve my problem.

I've been off the air for several months (lots of travel) and recently  
acquired a new Intel iMac (I love it). I have Leopard installed, and  
since I use the KeySpan twin serial converters, I downloaded and  
installed the latest drivers. Two Keyspan USB serial converters were  
re-installed along with the associated cables to hook up my K2/KIO and  
Icom IC-910H and IC-706MKIIG. Two months ago and prior to this  
reinstallation, all worked perfectly using MacLoggerDX  and  
MacDoppler, my BIG TWO ham applications.  Now it doesn't work.

Using both MacDoppler and MacLoggerDX, neither program can find the  
radios--none of them, including the K2 which doesn't use the CT-17 (CI- 
V) interface. Yes, I've re-assigned the ports to correspond and double- 
checked all of the parameters and all are correct.

I've also tried connecting to the K2 using MacK2 (which I wrote but no  
longer use since I prefer MacLoggerDX), and MacK2 cannot find the K2  
either. Since I can't communicate with the K2 either, I've ruled out a  
problem with the Icom CI-V interface and problems with MacDoppler and  
MacLoggerDX. However, I've also tried using the BCSIcomOSX program  
from Black Cat Systems, and it CANNOT locate any radios on the CI-V  
interface.

All of of this lead me to suspect a problem with the keyspan units. I  
have three Keyspan units, and have tried all of them in every possible  
configuration -- and still no luck.

It gets worse..... Connecting a Kantronics KPC9612 to any of the  
Keyspan units, I have no problem getting a successful two-way  
connection to the TNC through all of the Keyspan units. I've  
successfully connected to the TNC using both MacTNC and the TNC  
features of MacLoggerDX.....so it IS possible to communicate through  
the cables and keyspan units to the TNC -- but I can't connect to the  
radios.

I've tested the K2 by connecting the serial converters to the K2 (KIO)  
and used the port test on the K2 to communicate with ZTerm and MacTNC.  
In both cases, I can read the test string generated by the K2, but the  
K2 will not accept commands.

OK, maybe there is something funky with Leopard and/or my Intel Mac  
that is causing some problems with the keyspan drivers or the keyspan  
converters.... so I pull everything out and hook back up to a  
Powerbook G4 running Mac OSX 10.3.9  -- this isn't an Intel machine  
and it isn't running Leopard, but it does have the latest keyspan  
drivers.  I repeat each and every test on the PowerBook G4 as outlined  
above, with exactly the same results.  (I turned OFF the Intel iMac  
during this test to make sure there were no interference issues.)

(I don't have any other models of USB-serial converters, so I'm  
limited to testing with the keyspan units and keyspan drivers.)

I'm stumped and completely out of ideas.....and I really want my  
MacDoppler and MacLoggerDX back.  Does anyone have any ideas????


- 73 -

Steve Muncy, NI5V
AMSAT / QCWA / ARRL Life Member
ni5v at arrl.net / smuncy at mac.com




More information about the Ham-Mac mailing list