After working my way through a number of motherboards and serial devices there
are several suggestions I would like to offer for those using baudot through
com ports such as found in fsk keying.
Try to use motherboards that allow you to reserve interrupts on the PCI buss.
This allows you to "protect" certain cards from interrupt conflicts. The bios
used in Gigabyte boards (among others) allow the user to do this.
The PCI-e buss handles interrupts differently than the PCI buss and many
conflicts can be avoided by using 16550/650 cards designed for the PCI-e buss.
The Bytecc BT-PE2S is one example that is a proven card.
Avoid cards that are only an emulation of the 16550 or 16650 UART. Emulations
are very unreliable, especially with data at slow baud rates (emulation
missing).
When using multiple comports try to avoid mixing of physical devices requiring
more than one common driver. Use multiple devices of the same type and using
the same driver to help avoid driver conflicts.
Not all USB/Serial devices are created equal. Many do not support a full
implementation of the 16550/650 UART. Many only support 7-8 bit emulations and
do not cover all baud rates. The USB/Serial card marketed by MFJ is only
capable of supporting 7-8 bit data (as one example). You can check the level
of emulation of these cables by going into your hardware manager; clicking on
the device name; clicking properties; then advanced settings. The bit level
that the
device is capable of assembling will be displayed. The Belkin USB/Serial cable
is a proven device (Best Buy) as well as the Kensington line of USB/Serial
cables. The Kensington cables
also come with support software. Again, if using multiple com ports use
identical cables to avoid driver conflicts.
Hope some of these suggestions helps others avoid some of the problems I have
encountered
along the way.
73 Ben, KR6E
_______________________________________________
WriteLog mailing list
WriteLog@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/writelog
WriteLog on the web: http://www.writelog.com/
|