Right on, Tom!

mark

Art,
There is a device called an iMic made by Griffin Technology that can be used on computers that have no audio inputs - it is a USB device.

http://store.griffintechnology.com/imic

Mark

Here are my two cents concerning EMI//RFI based upon my experience just for your information.

I doubt there any routers that are RFI free out there, but I agree that the quality or lower impact the device has upon its environment may be directly proportional to cost i.e. commercial routers may be less noisy and expensive versus the ones we can buy at BestBuy made for a house which are cheap and radiate a lot and may be affected from your signals as well.  The difference between these devices is the specification that they are tested against of which there are as many as their are blades of grass in the universe.

Devices are tested to particular standards for EMI/EMC conducted and radiated emissions of which are based upon their intended end usage.  As an example, devices used in the marine environment have specific requirements for EMI transmission within the areas of frequencies that other devices operate such as marine radio bands.  A typical specification is the ABYC P-24-07 which indicates that between 156MHz and 165MHz a device can not radiate more than 24 uV/m of energy, protecting the marine VHF band.  There are other levels within that specification between 150kHz and 30MHz, also, although the radiated levels are not as low as for the VHF.  The ABYC spec is primarily used with respect to marine radio interference and I doubt that routers are tested against that standard.  So routers we purchase for cheap may not be tested with reference to ham radio frequency spectrum so unless you can see the results and know the standards said routers are tested to--most likely relates to other commercial devices on the premise of which ham radio gear most likely is not on the list, then you have to resort to trial and error to reduce their effects on your radios - a spectrum analyzer is handy for experimentation as long as you know what the noise level is of the environment and work from that reference.  Not sure if those can be found at a hamfest or not .

Just so you know, every electronic device that operates in automotive, marine, and medical environments are tested for EMI/RFI to any host of governing bodies with respect to specifications.  Specifications range from those developed by automotive suppliers, SAE, IEC, IEEE, DOD, and others with most of these referencing back to some larger regulatory standard such as IEC.  I work with many of these and part of the challenge is to find one that works with all of them within my industry of transportation.

Radiated emissions are influenced by many things and primarily with anything of course that "vibrates" such as power regulators taking Vbat down to 3.3 or 5VDC levels.  A typical fix for a noisy regulator on the board level may involve moving components away from noise producing devices and/or adding very tiny chokes on conductors or adding guard traces to the board.  Placement of the devices with respect to other pieces of hardware (and its wires) that may be affected by it can be an easy way to reduce a radiating devices effects (remember those notifications on the back of electronic devices?) plus one can add chokes to lines, reduce lengths, and all that.  Even how the wires are bundled outside the device affect how much/efficient it can radiate.

mark

Mike,
Welcome to the world of weirdness in interfacing radios to software.

First thing I am assuming you are running the latest free version of HRD which is 5.24.0.38 and that you are plugged into your turned on TS-590S which is attached through the serial port to your computer.  This setup would be your previously assumed functioning setup with HRD.  If not, set it up that way. I am also assuming that you have a store bought TS-590S with default settings.

If you are running this version or something close to it AND it is working with your TS-590S, do the following:
Start HRD using the HamRadio Deluxe shortcut.
The radio tuner interface should pop up asking you which radio to connect to.
In this case, you should see the following lines:
  Dem-o-Matic
  Kenwood  TS-590  COM# (where # is the port number) and a large number indicating BAUD rate like 9,600 or 57,600.  If this number is 4800 there are other things to consider below.

The line noting the TS-590 tells you what port settings and baud rate that you are functioning with to the TS-590S.  Write this down - and test it with HRD.  If it still works, then you have the numbers you need for the N3FJP programs.  At this point you show write down COM# and the Baud rate. If it is not working - then try other settings that you had working before.  If you need to walk back though this, we can talk about that on the phone.

SIDE NOTE:  Go to the TS-590 manual (p. 57) to read about the BAUD rates on the lower right of the page.  Note that there are settings for this number for the COM port (menu 61) or the USB port (Menu 62).  I suggest that these two numbers should match only to make it easy to connect in the future to some BAUD rate number that you can remember.  Since you had successful luck with HRD and the COM port, most likely the COM port BAUD in menu 61 number matches that of the HRD. Note that there is a difference between the BAUD rates for MENU 61 versus MENU 62.  The manual notes that in the writing.  You need to remember this if your using COM or USB for communicating with outside programs. As an FYI, COM defaults to 9600 and USB to 115200.  Note N3FJP programs cannot go over 56000 so if you are going to use USB with N3FJP you should set MENU 62 to a lower value such as 9600, 19200 or other as long as it is not over 57600 (which is 56 in N3FJP).  Lot's of stuff there for sure.

Now you must exit the HRD radio interface program to successfully connect with the N3FJP programs because the N3FJP program will need to use the port that HRD uses - and they don't share nicely.

NOW after you have shut down a successful run with HRD and the TS-590S, start the N3FJP program.  Make sure the radio is ON for this setup.  Very important that it is online BEFORE you start the program.

After starting the N3FJP program, under options menu pick RIG INTERFACE.

The rig interface screen pops up.
From the RIG INTERFACE screen, choose KENWOOD form the left column
Choose the COMM PORT from the value you wrote down from HRD program.  These values are from 1 to 10.
Choose the BAUD rate from that from the HRD program.  If the BAUD rate is anything but 4800, pick the button for the rate that is a decimal value i.e. 9,600 would be 9.6, 19,200 would be 19.2, 57600 would be 56.
If your BUAD rate is 9.6 or over, then choose Parity as NONE, DATA BITS as 8, STOP BITS as 1, Connection power as RTS, and RADiO POLLING as 500ms.

IF your BAUD RATE is 4.8, then choose BAUD rate as 4.8, Parity as NONE, DATA BITS as 8, STOP BITS as 2, Connection power as RTS, and RADiO POLLING as 500ms.

Hit the TEST button and the radio's frequency should pop up on the screen in red letter.  Mode should also POP up.

Press DONE here if successful.  If not then, let me know if you have a fail and e-mail me at my QRZ e-mail address in lookup or back here if you can't find that.  We will then resort to phone conversations.

good luck,

mark
w4mmr