[Ham-Mac] VirtualBox and USB-to-Serial adapter

[Bill Howell]

I'm running an iMac with 10.6. I recently installed VirtualBox 4.1 running XP.
What I'd like to do is have VB talk to my Uniden scanner (which requires a serial connection).
The USB-to-Serial device is a Keyspan USA-19HS.
The problem is the Mac won't 'release' the Keyspan to the PC side (even though there are no Keyspan drivers on the Mac).
The PC says it can't mount the Keyspan because it's 'in use' or some such language (The Keyspan is visible in the Mac System Profiler).
I've Googled the heck out of the VB/Keyspan issue and apparently there's no fix, short of
*maybe* some third-party software and some terminal chops.

I could probably do Boot Camp to resolve this, but I'd rather not, if anyone out there happens to have found a USB-to-Serial adapter that happens to play well with VB.

thanks,
Bill N5AB