USB Question. Ham radio related

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JohnLL
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USB Question. Ham radio related

Post by JohnLL »

I have been trying to get ARC8 software talking to a Uniden BT8 scanner under wine. The scanner uses a DB9 connector and all my equipment now has only USB ports. I have a Startech USB-DB9 cable that was used in the PK232 setup many years ago. It uses the Prolific PL2303 chip. Now if I do the following :

ve3sjv@Optiplex780 ~ $ dmesg | grep tty
[ 0.000000] console [tty0] enabled
[ 0.662552] 00:03: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4, base_baud = 115200) is a 16550A
[11443.626718] usb 2-1.3.3.2: cp210x converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[12331.889941] cp210x ttyUSB0: cp210x converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0 ---- WSJT-X turned off, Radio on
[129925.595714] usb 2-1.3.3.2: cp210x converter now attached to ttyUSB0 -- WSJT-x on, Radio on
[132700.756566] cp210x ttyUSB0: usb_serial_generic_read_bulk_callback - urb stopped: -32
[132700.756932] cp210x ttyUSB0: usb_serial_generic_read_bulk_callback - urb stopped: -32
[132700.886262] cp210x ttyUSB0: failed set request 0x12 status: -19
[132700.886265] cp210x ttyUSB0: failed set request 0x0 status: -19
[132700.886313] cp210x ttyUSB0: cp210x converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0---- WSJT-X turned off, Radio on
[157761.914884] usb 2-1.3.3.2: cp210x converter now attached to ttyUSB0 -- -- WSJT-x on, Radio on - from this point no communications with radio
[172798.945327] cp210x ttyUSB0: cp210x converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[249829.695325] usb 2-1.3.3.2: cp210x converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[259064.407848] cp210x ttyUSB0: cp210x converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[704145.436344] usb 1-1.3: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[704605.929851] pl2303 ttyUSB0: pl2303 converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[841248.570688] usb 2-1.3.3.2: cp210x converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[845696.219736] cp210x ttyUSB0: cp210x converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[849331.260971] usb 2-1.3.3.2: cp210x converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[864271.767841] cp210x ttyUSB0: cp210x converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[927103.943043] usb 2-1.3.3.2: cp210x converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[946304.406917] cp210x ttyUSB0: cp210x converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[995822.689188] usb 2-1.3.3.2: cp210x converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[999130.418327] cp210x ttyUSB0: cp210x converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[1022455.339700] usb 2-1.3.3.2: cp210x converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[1035579.837118] cp210x ttyUSB0: cp210x converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[1089697.518806] usb 2-1.3.3.2: cp210x converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[1122129.233590] usb 2-1.7: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB1
[1124437.758377] cp210x ttyUSB0: cp210x converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0 --- Up to this point I was having communications problem with my IC-7600, tried resetting radio/wsjt-x still no communications (audio was working ok all the time though)
[1180939.992381] pl2303 ttyUSB1: pl2303 converter now disconnected from ttyUSB1---- Here I disconnected the USB-Serial cable
[1180974.120158] usb 1-1.4: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[1187179.023236] usb 2-1.3.3.2: cp210x converter now attached to ttyUSB1 -- so now I tried setting the Radio setting to TTYUSB1 and the radio and wsjt-x started communicating properly.
[1187430.889899] pl2303 ttyUSB0: usb_serial_generic_read_bulk_callback - urb stopped: -32
[1187430.890279] pl2303 ttyUSB0: usb_serial_generic_read_bulk_callback - urb stopped: -32
[1187430.947061] pl2303 ttyUSB0: error sending break = -19
[1187430.947213] pl2303 ttyUSB0: pl2303 converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0 -- USB-Serial cable removed.
ve3sjv@Optiplex780 ~ $


Basically what I'm looking for is a way to tell the computer that it is to use TTYUSB0 for wsjt-x - radio permanently without regards to what ever else is plugged in? It's annoying when I start wsjt-x and it is not displaying the frequency properly and it requires a change of port setting.
My equipment is -- Dell optiplex 790 running Mint 18.3. Radio is Icom IC-7600. Program WSJT-X ver 1.8.0

I also read in a post from jimallyn about looking for a FTDI cable which is the next thing I will be looking into to resolve a "not seeing scanner" problem I am having with the prolific cable.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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jimallyn
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Re: USB Question. Ham radio related

Post by jimallyn »

JohnLL wrote:Basically what I'm looking for is a way to tell the computer that it is to use TTYUSB0 for wsjt-x - radio permanently without regards to what ever else is plugged in?
I would think there would be a setting in wsjt-x to tell it what port to use. No? (Haven't used wsjt yet, so just guessing.)
“If the government were coming for your TVs and cars, then you'd be upset. But, as it is, they're only coming for your sons.” - Daniel Berrigan
JohnLL
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Re: USB Question. Ham radio related

Post by JohnLL »

You are correct in your statement regarding wsjt-x. However if I plug something else in while wsjt-x is NOT active then that item I just plugged in will take TTYUSB0 (which is what I normally set wsjt-x to) and when I launch wsjt-x it does not 'see' the radio and I have to go into settings and select the correct port. I am looking for something that will force TTYUSB0 exclusively to wsjt-x regardless if I am running the program or not. The IC-7600 is permanently attached to a USB port on my computer but wsjt-x is not always on. When I ran a computer with serial ports the serial ports were dedicated to which ever device was attached regardless of what program was running (if I remember correctly -- I find the older I get the more I remember I have forgotten!!!!).
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jimallyn
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Re: USB Question. Ham radio related

Post by jimallyn »

I think the solution is to make a ttyUSB0 group, and only add wsjt to that group, or something along that line. Some ideas here:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... thout-root

https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... privileges

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2293337

Almost certainly somebody here has done this before!
“If the government were coming for your TVs and cars, then you'd be upset. But, as it is, they're only coming for your sons.” - Daniel Berrigan
JeremyB
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Re: USB Question. Ham radio related

Post by JeremyB »

While I do not think it is possible to guarantee that the one USB-serial converter can be set to ttyUSB0, it is possible to use udev rules to assign it a static name, similar to https://txlab.wordpress.com/2016/06/14/ ... b-devices/
JohnLL
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Re: USB Question. Ham radio related

Post by JohnLL »

Thank you jmallyn and JeremyB for the links. I'll read them and try some of the suggestions and see what transpires.
JohnLL
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Re: USB Question. Ham radio related

Post by JohnLL »

Just a further update. It appears the prolific USB-Serial cable causes issues on my system. I purchased a FTDI cable, installed the appropriate driver (from the mini-cd containing required drivers) and everything worked as expected.
Case closed!!!!!
JeremyB
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Re: USB Question. Ham radio related

Post by JeremyB »

You shouldn't have needed a driver from a disk as FTDI cables are supported in the kernel
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