[SD-User] SD and virtual COM ports

[Martin Davies G0HDB]

Hello all, I hope the collective wisdom of the group will be able to help me...

I've used SD for about 16 years - firstly the DOS versions and latterly the WIndows versions 
(currently V17.55) - and to date I've never really tried to get the rig control facilities to work, 
although I do have vague recollections of experimenting with them many years ago using a 
DOS version of SD.  However, I decided earlier today to give it a try but have failed miserably 
to get the interface to my rig to work.  Details of my setup are:

The rig is an Icom IC-7600 which has a USB connection to the PC (running Win7 Pro); the 
'USB-to-UART Bridge' drivers on the PC are the latest version for the Silicon Labs CP210x  
interface that Icom have used in the 7600.  The USB connection appears to Windows as a 
virtual COM port, COM4 to be precise.  WIndows Device Manager reports that the COM4 
port is working fine without any problems.

Another logging program (Win-EQF*) is able to use the virtual COM4 port to communicate 
with the 7600 without any difficulty whatosever, the port configuration used by Win-EQF* is 
19200/8/N/1.  However, when I close Win-EQF* then start SD and set RIGPORT to COM4 
and apply the same 19200/8/N/1 settings as before to 'Radio 1', there's no communications 
whatsoever between SD and the rig.

The 'USB Serial Function' on the IC-7600 is set to CI-V format, so data to and from the rig 
are in the same format as on the rig's separate CI-V interface - this setting is clearly correct 
because Win-EQF* can communicate with the rig via the virtual COM4 port.  The rig's 'CI-V 
Baud Rate' is set to 19200bps but I'm not sure whether this will have any effect on the data 
being sent and received via the USB interface.

I've tried all sorts of different settings in SD but so far nothing has made the interface to the 
rig work.

Has anyone else managed to get SD to interoperate with an IC-7600 (or any other Icom rig!) 
via a virtual COM port over a USB interface?  If you have, how did you do it??!!

73 and thanks in advance,
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Martin, G0HDB


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