4-Port USB DB-9 Serial Adapter Solution

18 reviews for 4-Port USB DB-9 Serial Adapter Solution

1. Rated 5 out of 5

   Dan Zeitlin “Radio Addict” – March 14, 2012

   I installed this cable on a machine running XP Pro/SP3. I did a Windows Update prior to the installation. I let the OS find the driver on the provided CD ROM, rebooted, and the new COM ports were there. I redefined the ports using the Hardware Manager and the designations have “stuck” so far after about a dozen re-boots.

   FWIW, I tried the cable with CTWin, Logger32, and N1MM. All worked fine, correctly communicating with two radios on two different COM ports and a Rotor-EZ equipped rotator on a third COM port. I have not tried it with WinKey as my LPT keying works fine (ergo, I do not use WinKey).

   I experienced no RF susceptability problems on 160m-10m at 100W and 700W power power levels.

   The “octopus” cables are conveniently long so that I do not need any extensions from the compuer which sits to the side of the radios.

   The price of this quad converter is about half of another alternative that was recommended as being proven with Ham applications.

2. Rated 5 out of 5

   Aedbarnard – February 10, 2012

   Just works with the FTDI drivers. Tested on MacOS X 10.7 Lion and the four ports show up as /dev/tty.usbserial-FTUJPJ7ZA through /dev/tty.usbserial-FTUJPJ7ZD . Cables are quite long.

3. Rated 5 out of 5

   H. Stratton “cstulsa” – February 10, 2012

   Nice product, works just fine on my 64 bit Vista notebook, letting me use 4 serial devices simultaneously. I did have to force the drivers to use com port assignments that my computer says were already in use (though they really weren’t).

4. Rated 5 out of 5

   William Bowen “Engineer & Radio Collector” – October 16, 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.

5. Rated 5 out of 5

   jabit – April 21, 2011

   I was using a couple of individual usb-serial converters in my ham shack, and acquired two more pieces of equipment that needed serial ports. I ran across this item and decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did. Installation was a breeze on my Win 7 Pro 32-bit system, and the product functions extremely well, even in a strong RF environment. Each serial connector in the octopus cable is marked (A,B,C,D) and windows assigned Com8,Com9,Com10,Com11 respectively. These assignments remain across reboots, so there is no reconfiguring of application software. No muss, no fuss. This product uses the latest ultra-reliable FTDI-4232 chipset, and the drivers are Microsoft certified. As the title states, money well spent!