RTTY
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [RTTY] USB serial port adapters

To: rtty@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [RTTY] USB serial port adapters
From: "Joe Subich, W4TV" <lists@subich.com>
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2016 12:49:04 -0400
List-post: <rtty@contesting.com">mailto:rtty@contesting.com>

One article I read was saying that 45 baud rtty is too slow for the
adapter while another said that they don't handle 5 bit characters.

Modern USB to serial adapters are designed (since the advent of USB 2.)
to support data rates to 1 MBaud or more.  Typically the maximum data
rate is 3 to 5 MBaud, for example the FTDI products support data rates
to 3 MBaud.

Unfortunately, since the data rate is set using a 14 bit integer, the
ratio of maximum data rate to minimum data rate is fixed at 2^14 or
16,384:1.  With a 3 MBaud maximum data rate, the minimum available
rate becomes 183 Baud ... the lowest "standard" data rate is 300 Baud.

Note: FTDI's specifications only list support for 7 or 8 data bits in
their current products.

Anyway, I'm writing a C program under Linux and I have successfully
got an adapter with a PL2303 chip to send FSK RTTY at 45 baud. I had
to write code for a custom bit rate since 45 baud isn't a standard
rate.

Yes, some UART/Bridge chips provide for custom baud rates (typically
by bypassing the "baud rate divisor").  However, doing that generally
limits one to that particular manufacturer/chip as custom data rates
are generally not supported by any of the OS drivers.

73,

   ... Joe, W4TV

On 4/24/2016 12:16 PM, Lee wrote:
Now for my next question: why is FSK RTTY difficult when using USB
serial port adapters? One article I read was saying that 45 baud rtty is
too slow for the adapter while another said that they don't handle 5 bit
characters. From my research POSIX allows you to specify 5 bit
characters.   Anyway, I'm writing a C program under Linux and I have
successfully got an adapter with a PL2303 chip to send FSK RTTY at 45
baud. I had to write code for a custom bit rate since 45 baud isn't a
standard rate. Anyway, my project is still WIP, though. I've noticed
that there's EXTFSK for MMTTY and I've tried it - works for me - but I
want a program that runs on Linux. If the developers of FLDIGI ever
decide to incorporate FSK into their code or if another developer puts
out a native Linux FSK RTTY program, I'll drop my project. I don't want
to build an adapter to convert audio tones (AFSK) to FSK (pseudo-FSK).
Hopefully nobody thinks I'm being critical of any developers - I just
want to know what's going on and why.

N0SQ
_______________________________________________
RTTY mailing list
RTTY@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rtty

_______________________________________________
RTTY mailing list
RTTY@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rtty

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>