[TenTec] USB-to-Serial Converter for use with OMNI VI

[N4YG]

Several weeks ago there was a discussion of which USB-to-Serial converter to purchase. I have only had my OMNI VI+ for about 9 months and, at the time I knew nothing of what was available through the OMNI VI RS232 port. After spending a little time looking at it, I concluded that any converter that one might purchase should work fine. Any converter should work fine because the only actions that occur through the port are byte transfers and nothing unusual like playing around with the handshaking lines. I looked on E-bay and found that you can purchase from several vendors for about $5 including shipping. I selected one which had 6 feet of USB cable so that I could connect directly to my DB-25 to DB-9 adapter constructed as described in the OMNI VI+manual. It worked perfectly the first time I tried it.

It was rather simple to add code for my logging program which takes advantage of the communication with the OMNI and automatically make entries into the log for FREQUENCY, BAND and MODE. It works great and all that is required is to connect the OMNI and select the COM port number from the program.

My logging program, which I wrote myself, is called Key-n-Log. It is a logging program with an integrated CW keyboard. It may be used for SSB or any other mode by simply ignoring the keyboard features. It has support for LoTW and generates ADIF compliant files automatically from the log. The program is free and may be downloaded from my web site www.n4yg.com.

Joe, N4YG