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From: VanguardLH <
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Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support
Subject: Re: Serial Port (USB)?
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 14:56:10 -0600
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Ron Hardin <
rhhardin@mindspring.com> wrote:
How do I send and receive ascii on a USB serial
port?
It's to and from a Drake R8B shortwave receiver,
and just to set the time of day etc, twice a year.
It would be nice if it just appeared as a device
like an external HD that I can write to and read
from.
I'm using Cygwin under XP, so if it has a device
name presumably I can just send text to it and
read text from it, but I have no idea how it comes
up.
Maybe I need what's referred to as a terminal
program, but I don't know what that means.
The R-8 model came out in 1991 followed by the R-8A and R-8B models (but
I don't know their production years). Production was discontinued in
2005 but that does not mean they changed the design in those 14 years.
USB (Universal Serial Port) didn't exist back in 1991. The USB 1.0 spec
was released back in January 1996 but it would've been a while after
that before commercial devices showed up with a USB port.
Does the case actually have a USB port? USB also stands for Upper Side
Band which is a feature of the R-8 series (as is LSB = Lower Side Band).
Do you have the radio or are you thinking of buying one and the seller mentioned USB?
I found pics of the R-8A which has a 9-pin Dsub (DB-9) port for an
RS-232 serial connection. RS-232 dates back to 1962 so it existed and
was employed in commercial devices before and during when the Drake R-8
series showed up.
From an online ad of someone selling a Drake R-8 (found at
http://antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=192671&view=previous),
the case looks like:
http://i45.tinypic.com/15hihx2.jpg
http://i46.tinypic.com/bi402a.jpg
http://i50.tinypic.com/vy1bvt.jpg
http://i50.tinypic.com/11c5dnq.jpg
http://i47.tinypic.com/2q2log3.jpg
http://i47.tinypic.com/2d15cx.jpg
http://i45.tinypic.com/35am2yp.jpg
http://i45.tinypic.com/2mi3kw2.jpg
There is no USB (Universal Serial Bus) port shown for that model. There
is a RS-232C port which matches up with the era for this shortwave
radio. At
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/commrxvr/r8.html and
at
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/commrxvr/0082.html (which is
for the R8B), the specs and features are listed. USB is mentioned in
the sentence:
Multi-mode reception (AM, FM, *USB*, LSB, RTTY and CW) is featured
throughout the range of the receiver (100 kHz to 30 MHz).
So USB means Upper SideBand (just like LSB means Lower SideBand), not
Universal Serial Bus. I found a manual for the R-8 at:
www.wb4hfn.com/DRAKE/DrakeManuals/PDFDOCS/Drake_R8_Owners_Manual.pdf
USB is not even found as a string in that document. Do you actually
physically possess the unit and see a USB port on it? I finally found a
site via online search that mentioned Drake's web site, which is:
https://www.rldrake.com/
Looks like they long ago (11 years ago) dropped shortwave radios.
https://www.rldrake.com/technical-support/summary-of-drake-models/
doesn't list any of the R-8 series. I did some FAQs listed at
https://www.rldrake.com/faqs/world-band-shortwave-radio-products/ where
R-8A and R-8B were mentioned but those articles are of no help to you
and they do not mention USB.
I happened up
http://rigreference.com/en/mfr/drake. Nope, a USB port is
not mentioned there, just the same RS-232 port back in the R-8 model.
http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/494 doesn't mention USB, either. It
had a link to
http://www.rldrake.com/swl/R8B.html (Drake's own site) but
that page does not exist. That product was discontinued too long ago.
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/commrxvr/0082rear.html shows the backpanel of the R-8B. No USB port.
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