FT 8000/G4/G5 [was Re: [Ham-Mac] Re.Serial ports, Boot Camp, Parallels 4.0]

[Hal Mueller]

Frederick:

The class of rig control software for Mac OS is Dog Park Software's  
MacLoggerDX. However, your FT 8000 is not listed as a supported radio.  
It would be worth dropping a line to Don Agro (the developer) to see  
whether it would work. I had a similar query for my FT-857 and his  
satellite tracking program; it wasn't listed as supported, but  
actually works fine.
http://www.dogparksoftware.com/MacLoggerDX.html

MacLoggerDX has some straight packet and APRS capabilities. I haven't  
found a really compelling, nicely done pure packet or APRS program for  
Mac OS X; I generally use Xastir, which has a rather baroque UI and  
requires X Windows.

You'll need a USB-serial converter (or two if you want to do rig  
control plus packet). The Keyspan line is popular and well supported.

If you want to run Winlink 2000, the only solution I'm aware of is to  
use Parallels or VMWare to run MS Windows, and then use the same  
Windows 2000 binaries that the Windows world uses. You would be  
limited to one of the older emulation packages (SoftPC/VirtualPC) on  
your iBook G4/Powerbook G5, and I don't think you'll be happy with the  
performance of the emulator.

73
Hal
N3YX