Best Cable?
- Thread starter ct240guy
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rpowley
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Check out these cable choices
Halfpint
Member
If you have a DB9 serial port I'd recommend the RS RS# 20-289 serial cable. (You'll probably have to do a bit of calling around to find it unfortunately.) However if you have USB available then go with the USB version. (Since all my machines currently have the DB9 serial port I use the first mentioned cable and will admit that I haven't bothered yet to check to see what the catalog number is for the USB one. {WAN GRIN!}) From what I've both seen here and heard from several people locally the only `problem' one might have with the USB cable is getting the port to `stick'. (IE: Configured and stay configured.) Once you do that you'll have all the features of the DB9 one and you'll be a `happy camper'. You `could?' go with a `third party' cable for a bit less but even with the much vanted `Purple Cable' I used to have a lot of troubles because of all the plugging and unplugging you have to do with them.
With, at least the DB9 cable one can plug it in keep on listening to the radio, make any changes one needs to make, upload them, and then the radio goes back to scanning as soon as the upload is completed and if you aren't satisfied with your `tweak' you can change things back and re-upload again all without having to keep going through the `plug / unplug' sequence every time. (I've got 4 2096s, 3 96s, 4 2055s, and 3 97s and sometimes I find myself `tweaking' each one several times in a session and it's easier to just leave cables in place and just change either the port number or switch position as I `jump' between radios. Once I figure I've got things pretty much set for the time being I'll then unplug the cables and sit back, let them scan for a while, and see if I'm satisfied. [It's especially nice when I'm working on my daughter's radios and am taking stuff from either my radios and putting it on her's or vice-a-versa. I can be pulling stuff off of multiple radios, or files, at a time and not be going through the plugging / unplugging hassles. Another time it comes in handy is when we are on a `road trip' and we have one radio searching and the others scanning. Whoever is in `the second seat' can make `adjustments' pretty much `on the fly' if necessary. (This is especially nice with the 2055s and 97s since we don't have the `luxury' of V-Scanners that we can have `pre-loaded' in advance like the 2096s and 96s. But, even with the V-Scanners, we sometimes have to do it with the computer because we ended up somewhere where we hadn't quite planned to be going.)])
Just an `Olde Fart's' 2¢ worth. {GRIN!}
With, at least the DB9 cable one can plug it in keep on listening to the radio, make any changes one needs to make, upload them, and then the radio goes back to scanning as soon as the upload is completed and if you aren't satisfied with your `tweak' you can change things back and re-upload again all without having to keep going through the `plug / unplug' sequence every time. (I've got 4 2096s, 3 96s, 4 2055s, and 3 97s and sometimes I find myself `tweaking' each one several times in a session and it's easier to just leave cables in place and just change either the port number or switch position as I `jump' between radios. Once I figure I've got things pretty much set for the time being I'll then unplug the cables and sit back, let them scan for a while, and see if I'm satisfied. [It's especially nice when I'm working on my daughter's radios and am taking stuff from either my radios and putting it on her's or vice-a-versa. I can be pulling stuff off of multiple radios, or files, at a time and not be going through the plugging / unplugging hassles. Another time it comes in handy is when we are on a `road trip' and we have one radio searching and the others scanning. Whoever is in `the second seat' can make `adjustments' pretty much `on the fly' if necessary. (This is especially nice with the 2055s and 97s since we don't have the `luxury' of V-Scanners that we can have `pre-loaded' in advance like the 2096s and 96s. But, even with the V-Scanners, we sometimes have to do it with the computer because we ended up somewhere where we hadn't quite planned to be going.)])
Just an `Olde Fart's' 2¢ worth. {GRIN!}
Al42
Member
For future reference, from one old fart to another, if you change the hole you plug the USB adapter into, it will appear as a different COM port number.Halfpint said:
If, when you first get the adapter, you plug it into each USB jack in turn, and force it to be a particular port number (the same one for all the jacks) and ignore the warning about the port being in use (it, is, you stupid computer - by this same device if I plug it into another jack), you can leave your software aimed at that port number regardless of where you plug the adapter in. The computer recognizes the device by the name in the device's firmware, not by the jack it's plugged into.
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