Having suffered a recent lightning strike, most of the ports on my radio computer no longer function.
 
As such, does anyone have a recommendation for a good motherboard with perhaps one serial port onboard.  Or is that asking too much these days?
 
Please let me know directly.
 
Thanks & 73, Doug W4OX
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On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 16:51, w4ox <> wrote:
> Having suffered a recent lightning strike, most of the ports on my radio computer no longer function.
>
> As such, does anyone have a recommendation for a good motherboard with perhaps one serial port onboard.  Or is that asking too much these days?
>
> Please let me know directly.


No! Put out suggestions here since i plan to update my Radio PC Real
Soon Now, too.

AFAIK, MoBos all ... well, probably not *all* ... still have the
"headers" for serial ports. You just have to supply the connections
from the board to the case, including the physical DB9 (DE9).


--
Peter Laws | N5UWY | plaws plaws net | Travel by Train!
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I recommend you buy a multi serial card that plugs into an expansion slot on
your new PC. Make sure the drivers are available for your new OS.

Also be sure the card will fit into the slots you have in your new mother
board.

I use the Equinox but Digi makes one along with many others. The USB type
seem to work but can be problematic at times.

73
Jim W7RY


On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 2:51 PM, w4ox <> wrote:

> Having suffered a recent lightning strike, most of the ports on my radio
> computer no longer function.
>
> As such, does anyone have a recommendation for a good motherboard with
> perhaps one serial port onboard. Or is that asking too much these days?
>
> Please let me know directly.
>
> Thanks & 73, Doug W4OX
> _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

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Just get a motherboard with one extra PCI slot & I put this card in my computer giving me 4 serial ports all working great.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124070&cm_re=pci_serial_port_card-_-15-124-070-_-Product

73,
Tom, KE1JF



Having suffered a recent lightning strike, most of the ports on my radio computer no longer function.

As such, does anyone have a recommendation for a good motherboard with perhaps one serial port onboard. Or is that asking too much these days?

Please let me know directly.

Thanks & 73, Doug W4OX
_______________________________________________
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I looked at Newegg but did not see this card. Looks like a good one. And
Newegg is great to deal with.

Thanks Tom
73
Jim W7RY


On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 5:30 PM, KE1JF-Tom <> wrote:

> Just get a motherboard with one extra PCI slot & I put this card in my
> computer giving me 4 serial ports all working great.
>
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124070&cm_re=pci_serial_port_card-_-15-124-070-_-Product
>
> 73,
> Tom, KE1JF
>
>
>
> Having suffered a recent lightning strike, most of the ports on my radio
> computer no longer function.
>
> As such, does anyone have a recommendation for a good motherboard with
> perhaps one serial port onboard. Or is that asking too much these days?
>
> Please let me know directly.
>
> Thanks & 73, Doug W4OX
> _______________________________________________
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On 6/30/2010 3:51 PM, w4ox wrote:

> Having suffered a recent lightning strike, most of the ports on my radio computer no longer function.
>
> As such, does anyone have a recommendation for a good motherboard with perhaps one serial port onboard. Or is that asking too much these days?
>
> Please let me know directly.
>
> Thanks& 73, Doug W4OX

I'm going to go against the crowd on this one. Maybe it would be a good
time to ditch the serial port and get a "modern" USB interface like the
microHAM or West Mountain Radio units. Sure, USB 3.0 is coming down the
line, and eventually USB will be replaced by another bus. I just don't
see the point of holding on to something that was common over 20 years
ago. It's like going into Best Buy and asking for a stereo that still
has a turntable and cassette player.

73 - Jim AD1C

--
Jim Reisert AD1C, <>, http://www.ad1c.us
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Thanks Jim, however I do already own several MicroHam interfaces.  In fact, the strike took out my MK 2 which is on the list to be replaced.
 
I am looking for a MB with one serial port so that I can run my DXP38.
 
73, Doug W4OX

--- On Thu, 7/1/10, Jim Reisert AD1C <> wrote:


From: Jim Reisert AD1C <>
Subject: Re: [RTTY] Motherboard Recommendation
To: "w4ox" <>
Cc:
Date: Thursday, July 1, 2010, 12:47 AM


On 6/30/2010 3:51 PM, w4ox wrote:

> Having suffered a recent lightning strike, most of the ports on my radio computer no longer function.
>
> As such, does anyone have a recommendation for a good motherboard with perhaps one serial port onboard.  Or is that asking too much these days?
>
> Please let me know directly.
>
> Thanks&  73, Doug W4OX

I'm going to go against the crowd on this one.  Maybe it would be a good
time to ditch the serial port and get a "modern" USB interface like the
microHAM or West Mountain Radio units.  Sure, USB 3.0 is coming down the
line, and eventually USB will be replaced by another bus.  I just don't
see the point of holding on to something that was common over 20 years
ago.  It's like going into Best Buy and asking for a stereo that still
has a turntable and cassette player.

73 - Jim AD1C

--
Jim Reisert AD1C, <>, http://www.ad1c.us
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A GA-G41M-ES2L is a good cheap board (1-2 years) equipped with 2 serial
ports (one straight out on the back panel, another on board via a 10 pin
flat
cable) + 2 PCI slots + one PCIe slot at high speed ( X16) + 8 USB ports. It
has audio & video on board, and is small in size.

As a "2010-2015" Ham shack desktop it's a winner.

Bottom line: MSI , Gigabyte, G31 G41 generation are cost effective,
reliable, suitable and like RF... (no USB 3.0 though - so what?).
73, Isaac 4Z4TL

> Having suffered a recent lightning strike, most of the ports on my radio
> computer no longer function.
>
> As such, does anyone have a recommendation for a good motherboard with
> perhaps one serial port onboard. Or is that asking too much these days?
>
> Please let me know directly.
>
> Thanks & 73, Doug W4OX
> _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

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ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

>
> Maybe it would be a good
>time to ditch the serial port and get a "modern" USB interface like the
>microHAM or West Mountain Radio units.

REPLY:

MicroHam, Rigblaster, etc. = $$$

Homebrew serial cable = $

I homebrewed my serial port cables in the mid-90s and have been using
them ever since. Several Kenwoods, several Icoms, one Yaesu, countless
computers, but always the same serial port cables. Full details and
schematics in the MMTTY help files.

And you don't need that little audio isolation transformer either. If
you are getting hum, you have a ground differential of several
millivolts AC between your radio and computer. Bond the two chassis
together with a heavy strap and plug both of the AC power cords into
the same outlet and the hum will go away.

73, Bill W6WRT
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I used to have a RIGblaster Plus and a Pro but used the simple/cheap
transistor/resistor serial interface on AA5AU's web site for several years
instead since it worked, was simple, and was cheap.

In April, I suffered a big lightning strike to my antennas and tower, which
also had a Motorola Canopy wireless internet unit on it. The Canopy module
was connected with CAT5 cable through an arrestor on my grounding panel and
then to my wired router. Being lazy, I didn't disconnect because I thought
the storm wasn't very close.

The Canopy unit and the router were destroyed, as were the motherboard NIC
and a ByteRunner 4-port serial PCI board in the computer. The lightning got
into the shack via other control lines (rotator, remote antenna switch, and
SteppIR) too, despite arrestors, and they were connected to the serial card.

My K3 was damaged (now totally repaired and perfect), and yesterday I
realized that the transistors in the RTTY/PTT interface were damaged too. I
don't know if the current continued through the interface to the K3 or not.
I also don't know if the optoisolators in a RIGblaster or a MicroHAM would
have prevented that or not, but I'm wondering.

I repaired the computer with a new, 4-port SIIG serial card and an Ethernet
card, but ended up using a new, very fast, Dell Studio XPS 8100 i7 PC with
Windows 7/64 and 8M of RAM in the shack instead. (My wife got the old
Pentium 4 XP computer.) I added a 2-port PCIe serial card in the new PC,
which I will use for firmware updates to the K3, but I'm again thinking
about a USB MKII instead of repairing the transistor/serial interface.


Jim N7US

-----Original Message-----


ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

>
> Maybe it would be a good
>time to ditch the serial port and get a "modern" USB interface like the
>microHAM or West Mountain Radio units.

REPLY:

MicroHam, Rigblaster, etc. = $$$

Homebrew serial cable = $

I homebrewed my serial port cables in the mid-90s and have been using
them ever since. Several Kenwoods, several Icoms, one Yaesu, countless
computers, but always the same serial port cables. Full details and
schematics in the MMTTY help files.

And you don't need that little audio isolation transformer either. If
you are getting hum, you have a ground differential of several
millivolts AC between your radio and computer. Bond the two chassis
together with a heavy strap and plug both of the AC power cords into
the same outlet and the hum will go away.

73, Bill W6WRT


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