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In: Amateur Radio, Computer
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Driver Install. The SiLabs CP210x USB to UART (Serial Port) bridge chip inside the IC-7300 needs a driver. This driver is automatically installed when on Win8.1 or Win10. No need to install the Icom supplied driver. The Audio CODEC inside the IC-7300 does not requires a separate driver install. It is so-called class-compliant. There is nothing Icom specific in the USB part of the IC-7300. Actually, when you analyze the schematics, you’ll see that the build-in interface does not differ from most external interfaces: the decoded analog audio is actually converted to digital again in the USB Audio CODEC. From a practical point of view,Read More →

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OSX makes me happy. A professional desktop with Unix under the hood. Too bad Linux never made it to that level and is still stuck on X11. Unfortunately, our current IT world requires you to be able to run Windows applications. Be it your Tax program, or your favorite Amateur Radio logbook. You can use Wine, and many applications run under Wine. But what does that mean, run under Wine? Does everything work? That requires you to test every functionality of an application. I thought that when the main stuff works, the rest also works. Wrong. My favorite logbook program works 99% under Wine, onlyRead More →

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Operating your radio equipment from a remote location is a hot item nowadays. There is the no-PC solution using Remote-Rig with a transceiver with detachable display. Remote-Rig is a smart configured controller with a closed software VoIP system. A perfect solution for K3 or FT-857 owners, but not for me. My TS-2000 is connected to a PC already, and it’s display isn’t detachable. Furthermore I don’t like carrying my transceivers display around. A TS-2000 is 100% controllable via the serial port (remember the TS-B2000 black-box version). 100% means for example that the volume control actually sends a variable voltage to the processor and the volume is digitally set. SoRead More →

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I love my Baofeng. Not because it’s cheap. No, I love it because it’s smart and so different from my FT-60 that I sold some time ago. The FT-60 is considered by many to be superior to the Baofeng. I’m convinced that these people have never used both. NiMH battery technology is outdated. The FT-60 drains the battery completely, after that no reception is possible anymore. A Baofeng disables transmit so you can continue receiving some some time, that’s smart… I know that this is required in order to save the Lithium-Ion battery, but it would benefit NiMH as well. Baofeng’s two channel reception is very practical.Read More →