Review Details

4-Port USB to Serial Adapter COM Retention FTDI Chipset 920K Baud Rate

Product Review (submitted on October 15, 2011):

The USB "jungle" under my desk was becoming a nightmare & I was quickly running out of ports on my USB hub to connect my ham radio equipment to, so I went looking for a good multi-port USB~RS-232 adaptor. Between my 2 main ham transceivers, the packet TNC and the internal TNC I needed 4 RS-232 ports that did RTS/CTS handshake correctly (Kenwood radios are kinda picky in this regard {especially the TM-D710A in EchoLink sysop mode}, as is my TNC). I had been told by numerous fellow hams that USB~RS-232 adaptors that used the FTDI ICs where the only way to go, so I limited my search to these. I saw this item on Amazon & read a review from a fellow ham that had dealt with this same issue, and he praised this unit highly, so I decided to purchase it.

I'm VERY pleased with the results. I've hooked up the adaptor to my Toshiba laptop PC (my "shack computer") and to the Kenwoods and everything works just like it is supposed to. There where no issues with the adaptor operating correctly with the radios running full power output (100W on the HF bands & 50W on 2M/70CM) - no "glitches" at all. One thing that had concerned me was possible interaction between the 4 ports when 2 or 3 of them are active (actually passing data) at the same time, which is the situation when running packet. However, no such interaction had been observed.

I would HIGHLY recommend this USB~RS-232 adaptor to any ham that is running multiple radios and/or aux. items like a TNC that wants reliable data transfer when you've got a bunch of RF floating around the shack on multiple bands. Gearmo makes a fine product in this item & I WILL personally recommend it to my ham friends.

NOTE: I would recommend that anyone that uses this product go to FTDI's web site & download the ComPort Reassign utility - it makes Com Port assignment of the ports on this device much easier than using Device Manager in Windows.