On Feb 20, 7:23 pm, Barny wrote:
John,
Dave Nadler's site explains this is detail, and Paul Remde (Cumulus
Soaring) has good advice also, including suggesting to visit Dave's
site:

"Connecting to PCs that Don't Have RS-232 Serial Connectors
Most flight computers and flight recorders connect to PCs using RS-232
communications. However, most new PCs do not have RS-232 serial
connectors. These are usually DB-9m (9-pin male) connectors. There
are several ways to work around that issue. My recommendation is to
use an RS-232 serial port PCMCIA Card. You can see an example he
Socket Serial I/O PC Card Another solution is to use a USB to serial
converter. However, many of these units to do work as well as one
would expect. David Nadler has compiled a very nice list of devices
that have been tested and work well. You can see his page hehttp://www.nadler.com/sn10/SN10_USB_Serial_Notes.html"

Paul, hope it's okay to paste your info here as a plug.
~Bruce

In my business, I have a few industrial instruments that use RS-232
for communications. My experience with USB converters has been very
mixed. The Belkin has worked best, but I find conflicts. Some
instruments that use USB actually have a built-in RS-232 converter and
this has led to conflicts with other converters, including the
Belkin. Even modern versions of Windows don't always handle these
conflicts very well.

In frustration with converter conflicts, I acquired a refurbished IBM
T30 laptop, which is one of the last to still have an RS-232 port, but
still runs Windows XP and has built-in wifi. This has never let me
down with any connected instrument (including the SN10 and
Volkslogger).

The USB converters can work quite well, but don't expect it to be as
easy as a dedicated RS-232 or even a PC card converter.

Mike