RFI kills USB-Serial drivers

RUMlog, the Next Generation. Completely rewritten.
Pa3cw
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun 9. Sep 2018, 20:36

RFI kills USB-Serial drivers

Unread post by Pa3cw »

Hi all,
After many years of being non radio active, i picked up the hobby again recently. I am mainly interested in CW and as i live in an apartment with almost no antenna possibilities i have to rely on my indoor MLA. I bought an FT991A and recently build a NAnokeyer based on Arduino. The set and keyer are connected to my imac and i have installed the proper drivers for both the keyer and the radio.
I am amazed how wonderfull the Rumlog NG software looks! I was used to Hamradio deluxe many years ago on windows but this is much better!

But...
I have an issue i was till now not able to solve. It seems that as soon as i have an RF output from the radio, both the usb serial drivers fail. The khZ and Mode indication changes from green to red. After stopping transmitting sometimes the software recovers. Sometimes the drivers disappear from the pull down menu's and i need to restart the mac again. Also the number of the Silicon Labs driver changes number after the fail.

Looks like HF getting in the mac but strange is it only kills the drivers, no other consequences. Also found out that it does not happen when i use MacWin keyer with the same driver. Using this software is stable and does not kill the driver.

So my humble conclusion is i get some unwanted RF in the mac. I tired ferrite chokes on the usb cabling without succes. Some software can handle it however. Maybe by less tight timing parameters?

Anyway, i would love to continue Rumlog NG with my radio and keyer. Help appreciated how to solve the issue and how to avoid getting RF in the imac.

Thanks!
Dick PA3CW
Pa3cw
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun 9. Sep 2018, 20:36

Re: RFI kills USB-Serial drivers

Unread post by Pa3cw »

Solved with higher quality USB B cable
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