[WriteLog] Re: Rascal Interface

[Marc Ressler]

Gary,

do you mean the 8 pin MIKE connector or do you mean the 8 pin Aux connector 
on the Icom? I am running a Rascal and a CT-17, and did have some problems 
when trying to run both to the same radio. Can you provide some more 
details about your setup?

Eventually I modified both the Rascal and the CT-17 to support CW keying to 
try and get past the problems with running both of them and CW on the 
parallel port (I moved to an XP machine, and wanted to avoid the driver 
issues). This allowed me to pick the PTT on RTS on same port as CW option, 
which eliminated most of the problems - although I am not convinced that I 
get PTT keyed on CW this way. I don't know how much of this was due to 
using a USB serial port for one of the connections, but I can tell you that 
if you don't designate the port to do something, that it will leave RTS (or 
DTR) high, which will (in the Rascal) put the rig into transmit. You may 
have to cut out one of the diodes in the Rascal as they are Wire-ORing the 
RTS and DTR together into the PTT line. This seems to be because there is 
no standard for which line gets used and some programs use one, some the 
other, and some let you choose (or even drive both).

MarC, K3NCO
marc.ressler at verizon.net