[Xastir] Tnc, connection choices

[ad7gt at qwest.net]

Hi Jason,

I read on Keyspan's site that they were not supporting Ubuntu due to licensing issues.  I'd have to recompile my kernel to get the driver loaded, if I understand correctly.

I had heard that folks had used the FTDI chipset with success, but it's challenging to find what chipset a given adapter usesan from the listings I've found so far.

I'll be real interested to hear how the bluetooth adapter works out.  All other things being equal, that would be my choice.

I already have my GPS talking to xastir over bluetooth.

Chris p
W7clp
-----Original Message-----
From: "Jason KG4WSV" <kg4wsv at gmail.com>

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:30:19 
To:xastir at xastir.org
Subject: Re: [Xastir] Tnc, connection choices


USB/RS232 adapters are of varying quality/flakiness (depends on the
driver, really).  I've had the best luck with FTDI chipsets and
Keyspan.

The KPC shouldn't know or care if you use bluetooth, as it's a serial
port replacement.  I've actually got one of these on the way;
hopefully by the weekend I'll see how well it works with my TNC-X (as
I have currently broken my T2).

The TNC-X USB model just has a USB/RS232 adapter built in - it's not
like you have specific USB drivers for a TNC.  Unfortunately he chose
to use a custom vendor ID (at one time, at least), so you must get
customized drivers from him, instead of using the generic driver for
that chipset.  Not sure how that works out with linux.

Getting a linux based soundmodem interface to work correctly was the
toughest APRS task I've encountered.  YMMV.

If you go the USB/RS232 route, I'd make sure that the USB/RS232 device
I chose had a unique identifier, so that I could set up udev rules to
give unique names to each device - it makes diffrentiating between
TNC, GPS, second TNC, etc much easier.  I know FTDI devices have this
down quite well, and the the SiLabs CP2102 fail miserably.

-Jason
kg4wsv
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