Serial -vs- USB cable (GRE)

[aaronp]

In a previous post, I asked if the new USB cable from GRE was any faster than the Serial Cable from Radio Shack.
I had heard somewhere "don't buy that cable, this one is faster". I'm not sure which ones were supposed to be faster, but, I needed a second cable, so I decided to buy the USB cable and see for myself.

The results are in, and I've determined that they're both about the same speed. I pretty much expected this result because I was fairly sure that the download speed was limited by the scanner. The User manual states " Although the USB interface supports full speed USB communications, actual data transfer speed is set and limited by the scanner's hardware."

The file that I dump to my Pro 96 takes 50 seconds to download with the serial cable.
With the USB cable, it was within one second of the same 50 seconds. I'm pretty sure that any differences were caused by my timing methods (click mouse, start stopwatch, wait for "done" on computer, click stopwatch). The only noticeable speedup I could make was by unchecking the " Enable Readback Tests" box. This saved about 10 seconds, but I think the risks of a bad dump aren't really worth 10 seconds of my time.

A couple of observations:
1. The serial cable has a 1/4" mono plug on the scanner end, the USB cable has a 1/4" stereo cable on it. It comes with a short "conversion" cable that goes from stereo to mono, but the instructions said the conversion cable was for the Pro 83, Pro 94 and 2051, so I didn't use it for my Pro-96.
2. I noticed that after programming is completed, I have to remove the 1/4" plug from the scanner on the USB model to get my scanner scanning again (*CLONE MODE*). On the serial programming cable, I could leave the scanner plugged in and it would reboot and start scanning again. I thought it had something to do with #1 above, but I tried it again with the serial to mono "conversion cable" and it programmed, but was still in *CLONE MODE* at the end.
3. I like the LED's for TXD and RXD.
4. The USB cable requires drivers, and comes with a CD. I expected this, so it wasn't a surprise. The drivers are 760 Kb, so they'll fit on a floppy (or memory stick!) if you need them to.

Conclusions:
The USB cable is a good idea, because so many computers today are coming without serial ports (especially laptops). It works just fine. If you have a serial port, I'd stick with the serial cable because, it's cheaper, it's just as fast, and it doesn't require any special drivers.

[Voyager]

Originally Posted by aaronp

In a previous post, I asked if the new USB cable from GRE was any faster than the Serial Cable from Radio Shack.
I had heard somewhere "don't buy that cable, this one is faster". I'm not sure which ones were supposed to be faster, but, I needed a second cable, so I decided to buy the USB cable and see for myself.

The results are in, and I've determined that they're both about the same speed. I pretty much expected this result because I was fairly sure that the download speed was limited by the scanner. The User manual states " Although the USB interface supports full speed USB communications, actual data transfer speed is set and limited by the scanner's hardware."


Conclusions:
The USB cable is a good idea, because so many computers today are coming without serial ports (especially laptops). It works just fine. If you have a serial port, I'd stick with the serial cable because, it's cheaper, it's just as fast, and it doesn't require any special drivers.

Your results are predictable for the reasons you mentioned.

I would add to your conclusions that you can buy a cheap USB to RS232 adapter that can be used for MANY serial cables (overall saving in cost even more), as opposed to the 'all in one' cable that can only be used on RS scanners. Also, you would only need the driver for that one converter as opposed to a driver for each USB cable.

Joe M.

[daciscoml]

Hi, I have a few older scanners and wonder if any of them could be programmed too?

1)Radio Shack- HYPERSCAN-PRO2039 DeskTop

2)Radio Shack- Uniden- TrunkTracker PRO-90


3)Uniden- Bearcat- TrunkTracker-BC235XLT


I would appreciate any and all help you could give me on these scanners.

Thanks

[N8IAA]

Originally Posted by daciscoml

Hi, I have a few older scanners and wonder if any of them could be programmed too?

1)Radio Shack- HYPERSCAN-PRO2039 DeskTop

2)Radio Shack- Uniden- TrunkTracker PRO-90


3)Uniden- Bearcat- TrunkTracker-BC235XLT


I would appreciate any and all help you could give me on these scanners.

Thanks

Programmed by hand. The Pro-90 and the BC235XLT are essentially the same scanner. (Uniden) The 2039 I am not sure of. I believe the first to do programming by pc was the BC246XLT.
Larry