[WriteLog] USB Support

[Bob McCormick W1QA]

> >Are there any rigs, rotors, etc. that have USB interfaces? 
> >(the USB version shouldn't really matter for the type of 
> >devices we'd be talking about).  I don't know of any ...
> 
> See this posting to the CQ-Contest reflector by OM7ZZ:
> 
   http://lists.contesting.com/_cq-contest/2003-11/msg00103.html

Thanks Jim: pretty cool ...

  http://www.microham.com/USB1.jpg

Few thoughts / observations come to mind:

- not sure what kind of power these things draw ...
  but I've seen a number of situations, especially 
  with older, first go-round implementation of USB,
  where people plug in a lot of things and exceed
  what the system can handle

- I've used a small, external optionally powered
  USB hub (I think Belkin - will have to get behind
  the system to check it out) ... and it had RFI
  ingress issues

- the aforementioned photo link above ...
  shows a lot of cable between the USB interface
  and the rig jacks ... from experience trying
  to build up an SO2R setup chokes may be 
  necessary on many/all of these connections

One last, final thought:

Appears that that nifty device does a number of things:
CW keying, PTT and rig control (assume freq, etc.).

I hope that those functions can be *independantly* controled ...
for situations like what we're doing: using the W5XD (or some
other) box for CW, etc.

73 Bob W1QA