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Reviews For: BuxCom Rascal

Category: Interfaces, Radio to computer, amp, rotor, coax switch, internet

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Review Summary For : BuxCom Rascal
Reviews: 121MSRP: 49.00
Description:
Computer-radio interface
Product is in production
More Info: http://buxcommco.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
001214
WA4PGM Rating: 2003-02-13
Plug and Play, Awesome! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I have two of these units and they work great! No jumpers to change, No wall-wart to worry about, just plug and play.
KC0W Rating: 2003-01-27
Plug & play (really!!) Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I ordered the RASCAL along with the FT4RY cable setup to allow for operation of RTTY with WriteLog & MMTTY. Radio is a Yaesu 1000d running RTTY FSK.

This is TRUE plug and play.....I was on the air in less than 2 minutes & had my first ever RTTY QSO at the 5 minute mark.

It really helps if you take the time to learn your RTTY program before you order the cables from BuxCom. Program all your canned messages into the buffers, etc.

There is no tech help via telephone should something go wrong, only by email. That should not be an issue though.....If you can plug in a few cables, you can operate RTTY.

Again, LEARN YOUR RTTY PROGRAM before you order your RTTY or other digi mode interface. It will speed up the time you get on the air by 10 fold.

If you are going to use MMTTY with WriteLog for RTTY, you must check out this site: http://www.geocities.com/writelog/index.html This site is run by Don AA5AU, one of the top 5 RTTY contesters worldwide. He addresses any question you could ever have about MMTTY & WriteLog.


Good luck,

Tom kcØw



N8CDN Rating: 2003-01-23
Works Well For Me Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have a Rascal MK V I ordered in November. The order arrived promply and I was on the air in a matter of minutes. I use the Rascal for PSK31 as well a for RTTY using the FSK Cable into the Acc jack of my Icom 718 along with Mtty software. I get good reports on both modes and I am very pleased with the Rascal interface.

73, Terry
N8CDN
W2DSX Rating: 2003-01-21
Great resource for parts and info... Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I don't have a Buxbox or it's predecessor the rascal, but I have used that website www.buxcomm.com often for TNC cables, packet questions and pinout diagrams. The service is quick, fast and very reasonable. Excellent source for rare TNC/MBO jacks or connectors.
KG4PIL Rating: 2003-01-21
A Great Product Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I've been using the Rascal interface for about a year now with my Icom 746 and not one complaint.It was very simple to setup and it worked perfectly right out of the box
W8UR Rating: 2003-01-21
Works fine Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Any ham who's not an appliance operator should be able to build a sound card interface. The Buxcom kit provides a convenient source for everything you need to put one together, plus the connectors and pinouts specific to a particular rig.

Up and working in about an hour, works great with MixW.
N9DLI Rating: 2003-01-02
The best... almost! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
As for the interface itself, it is small, simple, and works great (as advertised - plug and play). As for the cord that connects it to the radio, the one that came with this interface is a piece of garbage that has a short in it and a plug that doesn't even fit into my radio! Because of the poor communication I had with Bux, I chose to simply fix the short and modify the plug myself. I would still buy another before the competition!
K9TRW Rating: 2002-12-20
Great Buy! Highly Recommend Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Yes, you CAN build your own soundcard to radio interface. I'm 1) too impatient, 2) a perfectionist, and 3) I want it put together right. I'll never profess to be good at building kits.

I bought the new Rascal V and have had it now almost 2 weeks. I had it up and running in a matter of minutes. It couldn't have been any easier. There weren't a bunch of cables to turn into a rats nest like with MFJ (sorry, the MFJ interface stinks, don't buy it). It connected to my icom radio simply and without any fuss. It interfaced with my old 133Mhz laptop without any fuss. It only had to cables into the computer, no fuss! What more could you ask for? Great bargain, pre-built and tested. I've used this on 80M, 40M and 20M with no problems what-so-ever.

Ted, K9TRW
N2VHV Rating: 2002-11-01
A Good Buy Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Having seen birthday number 60 I have vision problems regarding seeing tiny parts and running jumper wires like you have to do with the RigBlaster and MFJ units. The Rascal is "Plug-and-Play" with none of the jumper junk.
So I bought it.
It worked as advertised - took it out of the box and connected it to my trusty Icom 745 after reading the included documentation and off I went on PSK-31 with Digipan 1.6d.
I was actually making contacts within 10 minutes.
The only thing extra that you should consider buying is a "Y" connecter for the computer sound card OUT port. This way you can use your speakers and the radio without playing cable games.
In short I am very happy with my purchase and want to thank the Rascal people for doing such a nice job.
Good "Bang for the Buck" - Thanks and 73 de Jeff
NN2KC Rating: 2002-10-23
Great starter unit Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The Rascal costs lest than 1/2 of the competition's units and it works.

It is the "hardwired solution" -- set up for your specific radio. It gets you up and running immediately on zero knowledge of the sound card world.

Now that I have gotten my feet wet and know a bit more, I would do it differently -- except for the isolation which is OK as is.

PC sound card software uses three COM port signals, but there is no convention. In general, RTS is used for PTT, DTR is used to hard key CW, and TXD is used to shift RTTY. The ideal unit, then, has three "relays" with LED's and lets you easily manually jumper (or leave open) any of those three signals to any of those three radio controls. It only needs a DB-9 jack (COM in), three RCA jacks (PTT, CW, RTTY), and four 1/8" mono (or stereo) phone jacks (2 to radio, 2 to PC).

The Rascal comes with a maximum of two of the three relays and one LED. You can do all the sound card modes, but not in every way that the general solution would readily and cheaply provide.

For reasons obscure to me, the handling of paddle input is not satisfactory in this whole area. The programs that accept paddle input expect it from a joystick port or an LPT port. It would be nice if it could come in via a COM port and there was a jack for it on the interface. If there aren't enough pins on a DB-9, then maybe there are on a DB-25. Someone should figure it out and make an interface that works with all the radios, all the software and you.