[WriteLog] Using a USB-to-serial adapter for Kenwood radio control

Don Hill AA5AU aa5au at bellsouth.net
Wed Feb 5 19:15:23 EST 2020


I made a little progress. I looked at the INI file and change the stop bit
from 2 to 1 (I'm guessing it's the stop bit).

WL now reads the radio but does not command it. In other words, if I type in
a frequency or click on a packet spot, the radio does not change frequency.

I even changed the settings in the radio to 4800 and 2 stop bits and set the
COM port to the same in WL (in the INI) but get the same results.

Don AA5AU

-----Original Message-----
From: WriteLog [mailto:writelog-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Don
Hill AA5AU
Sent: Wednesday, February 5, 2020 5:57 PM
To: writelog at contesting.com
Subject: [WriteLog] Using a USB-to-serial adapter for Kenwood radio control

I have set up a clean Windows 10 install on a PC for my Kenwood TS-870.
Since I don't have any legacy COM ports on this machine yet, I ran the XE
RTTY contest with WL using a Mortty for FSK/PTT and a Cool Gear
USB-to-serial converter for radio control of the '870. This combination
worked great and I couldn't be more happier with it.

However, the Cool Gear converter doesn't belong to me and even though I can
use it any time I want, I would prefer to use one of two that I do own. The
ones I own are a UNITEK that has a genuine Prolific chip in it and the other
one is a TrippLite U209-000-R.

Neither the UNITEK or the TrippLite works with WriteLog to control the
TS-870. I don't think it's a driver problem because both installed fine and
both can communicate with other devices using Procomm. They just don't want
to talk to the Kenwood.

What happens when I try to use them with WL is that the little button in the
Entry Window that usually displays the frequency will read something like
"kHz LSB" or "kHz FSK". On startup, I was able to type a frequency in the
Entry Window and the radio actually did change to that frequency but then it
wouldn't do it again. This happens on both converters. Neither reads the
frequency. The display changes when I start WriteLog and CTRL shows on the
radio front panel suggesting there is control, but the frequency is not
showing.

I have tried changing some of the port settings but nothing seems to be
working.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Don AA5AU


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