[WriteLog] Byterunner

[Robert Carroll]

I've had very good luck with the RocketPort cards.  They can provide 32
ports or more with genuine UART hardware.  They are aimed at small business
and at RS232/422 datacom applications but are very useful in ham
applications.  The PCI 8 with an Octacble will give you 8 ports, but above
that you have to go to an external patch panel for up to 32 ports.  They are
expensive if new, but I see them regularly on eBay for about $50. Make sure
you get one with a cable, because if you have to buy the cable separately
new it will cost more than the card.  Make sure you have the PCI or ISA
version as appropriate. Interestingly enough the driver is automatically
installed by Windows 98, XP etc and has been certified by Microsoft. I
haven’t run into any other serial port cards that have certified drivers.
The RocketPort people told me it is very very expensive to go through the
certification procedure.

By the way, they make USB based multi serial interfaces. I discussed the 5
bit RTTY requirement and they said they had not programmed the 5 bit mode
but would do so in a future release.  They had heard of no application
utilizing 5 bit mode.

Bob W2WG

-----Original Message-----
From: writelog-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:writelog-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Ellam, Timothy St. J.
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 8:46 PM
To: writelog at contesting.com
Subject: [WriteLog] Byterunner

What about the Byterunner USB to RS-232/RS-422/RS-485 Serial Adapters? How
do they play with Writelog? I am running a P2 using Windows 2000.
 
Tim VE6SH
 
 
For two radios, I would suggest adding a 4 or 8-port 32-bit PCI serial card
if
you have an open PCI slot in the PC.  I added a Byterunner PCI-400HS-9 card
in
my Dell 4600 with the spider cable  and it works great.  Actually, I first
added
a Byterunner PCI-200H (or might have been the L model) and that gave me 3
COM
ports (there was one COM port already in the PC).  I decided I wanted more
COM
ports so I installed the PCI-400HS-9 in the slot next to the PCI-200 and now
I
have seven COM ports (COM 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9 & 10).  Installation of the
Byterunner cards was very easy once I figured out I had to run the "Add new
hardware" routine for each port.

In other words, if you install the 4 port board, XP will recognize the new
hardware and prompt you to run the new hardware wizard.  When finished, only
one
COM port is installed.  Restart the PC and it prompts you to run the new
hardware wizard again.  Run it again and the 2nd COM port is installed.  Do
this
for each port on the board.

I have owned several Byterunner serial boards going back to the days of ISA
slots and I have always been 110% satisfied with them.  The great thing
about
the Byterunner boards is that all the COM ports on the board share the same
IRQ
but can still be used at the same time (this is not as important with XP as
it
is with Win98).

If I had it all to do again, I would purchase the Byterunner PCI-800H-CB
which
gives you 8 ports and a nice break-out box for your connections.  At $192,
it
appears to be a good deal.  The other boards I've mentioned are considerably
more inexpensive.



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