Hi Don, i had just come to the same suspicion when I read your email. And we are right. My homebrew desktop system (Tyan Tiger dual AMD board) works fine. This is a Dell problem.
I will look around to see if there is an updated serial port driver that fixes this. I will be pleasantly surprised if there is. In all likelihood, I will simply have to eschew using these control lines on this machine. Bill W5WVO Don Wilhelm wrote: > Bill, > > Just out of curiosity, I tried it here too. Your momentary action may > be 'normal' > I tried it in CW mode and set the K3 menu to key on DTR. > When I issued the command mode com1 dtr=on, the K3 keyed for a very > brief time and then went back to receive - it did not stay key-down > as I expected. > > It may be that your Dell has the on and off states of the control > lines backwards for the default (inactive) state. I would suggest > trying another computer to verify. > > 73, > Don W3FPR > > Bill W5WVO wrote: >> Hi Julian, >> >> Fascinating! (as Mr Spock would say). >> >> I first enabled PTT=RTS on the K3. The rig keyed up as usual. >> >> I then asserted the command line you suggested in a command window, >> and the RTS line dropped but then immediately reasserted itself -- I >> would say the dropped time was maybe 200 ms. >> >> As an aside, any application that actually had control of the serial >> port would block the user's attempt to control it through the >> command line. I verified this by running my logging program (which >> talks with the K3) and then trying the command. Windows responded >> that the serial port was not available. I closed the logging program >> and tried again, and it worked as described above. I'm beginning to think >> this is some kind of weird-ass Dell snafu... >> Great! :-( Thanks, >> >> Bill W5WVO >> >> >> Julian, G4ILO wrote: >> >>> Bill W5WVO wrote: >>> >>>> Julian et al., >>>> >>>> I have always used VOX for WSJT keying, so I tried setting it up >>>> for RTS control >>>> as you suggest above. But when I try to configure the K3 for ether >>>> PTT=RTS or >>>> PTT=DTR with NO RS232-controlling application (like WSJT) running, >>>> the rig keys >>>> up (and switches into TEST mode automatically as per the manual). >>>> If I then >>>> disconnect the serial cable at the laptop serial connector, the >>>> keyed condition >>>> disappears. >>>> >>>> My conclusion is that the laptop's serial port is asserting RTS and >>>> DTR full-time for some reason. It's a 2-year-old Dell Latitude >>>> D820, Core2 processor, 2 GHz, 2 GB RAM, running XP Home. It has >>>> one true RS232 port (COM1), >>>> the one I'm using. Flow control is set to NONE, so it should not be >>>> asserting >>>> these lines by default. Has anyone ever encountered this? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> For many years I have used RTS for PTT and CW keying with various >>> software and radios and I have never come across this. Normally if >>> the rig is switched on when the computer starts up the RTS (PTT) is >>> briefly toggled three times during the startup procedures but it is >>> always left on the off position. It seems an unlikely thing for Dell >>> to deliberately do, so I wonder if you have some program or driver >>> that tries to scan the serial ports at start-up and leaves RTS / DTR >>> in the wrong state afterwards. >>> >>> There is one program I find that leaves RTS on when it closes and >>> very annoyingly it is Fldigi for Windows which I use rather a lot. >>> But apart from WSJT there is WSPR and the AGWPE packet engine that >>> all use simple PTT control so I really need to leave that K3 option >>> enabled. >>> >>> While typing this I had a stroke of inspiration. If you type the >>> command: >>> >>> mode com1 rts=off dtr=off >>> >>> in a command window that should turn RTS and DTR off. So if you >>> could put that command into whatever the Windows XP equivalent of >>> autoexec.bat is (assuming there is one) that should solve the >>> problem. ----- >>> Julian, G4ILO. K2 #392 K3 #222. >>> * G4ILO's Shack - http://www.g4ilo.com >>> * KComm - http://www.g4ilo.com/kcomm.html >>> * KTune - http://www.g4ilo.com/ktune.html ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
