Well I'm glad you can hobble along. Now I'll jump on my soapbox. If you scan the forums on commericial radio, you
will see many threads about problems and errors concerning the ability to read and write to a radio from a computer.
For starters check the Motorola forum. Wonder why?
The commercial radio industry seems to drag its feet when it comes to new technology in this area. Without details, we
needed new software to program Motorola HT1000's. It is still available to order, but it comes as a DOS program on a
3 1/2 diskette. Come on!
Only the latest wave of radios are can comunicate directly via USB, although how many years has this protocol been
available? If a radio is only a few years old, it needs to communicate via RS-232 serial data which has been around
for eons. When was last time you saw a new computer for sale with a serial comm port and a floppy drive. This was
windows 98 stuff ten years ago or more. Thank god you can still special order this stuff, but it's not the norm.
So how does the average Joe program radios with his whiz bang XP/Vista/7 computer with no serial port and no DOS?
DOS programs are a PITA. Some work on newer OS's under a DOS window and some only work with a older machine. Windows
98 with a P-1? Maybe. You might have to step backwards to a 486 with DOS 6.2. No one can tell until everything plays.
The serial port is a kludge. If you do not have a true blue serial port on your computer, then you will have to use
an adaptor, whether it is built into the cable or it a universal one for use with serial cables. USB to RS-232 adaptors
are built pretty much the same. What makes it is the driver that allows the USB protocol to emulate RS-232. I am on my
third USB USB to serial adapter. The other two either did not work, or were flaky. I think the driver, not the adapter
was the issue. I now program Motorola, Kenwood, Icom, Zetron, Ritron(ick!), Federal Signal, etc, without a problem.
I use a EEE PC 1000 HA as my main programming computer and these seem to play real well. Don't mess with it if it works.
There is no hard and fast recommendation for a programming setup. We all live in a world of computers now and have to
try to understand the technology and do our best to fudge a compatable solution with what we know and what we have.
My sympathy to all those out there that struggle with this. I will now get off of my soapbbox, Ouch! Fell on my a$$.
