Hi

FIRST OF ALL - ONLY BUY PROGRAMMING CABLES THAT ARE

MADE BY THE ORIGINAL MANUFACTURER (CALLED THE ''OEM'')

OTHERWISE, THE BELOW WILL PROBABLY APPLY TO YOU

AND CAUSE YOU HOURS OF FRUSTRATION

Many times we get complaints from customers that no matter what they try, the
cable just won't work. Changing driver etc doesn't help either, recently a
customer sent me one of those cables, He had bought it off Ebay, and even had
it exchanged for a new one. Nothing worked.

When it got "here" same problems, even though both of OUR cables worked on
several computer with different windows versions......  So then you say "what
the heck" ?

Something occured to me that makes more sense than anything else. The cables
are in essence a bidirectional voltage converter. I recall a few years ago
some radios - especially the ones that used the headphone jack as the data
input - didn't work with the USB cables, but worked just fine with a SERIAL
ported cable.

Serial Ports are 12V levels, but almost all the radios are 5.5 Volt. The
"Convertor" changes `12 to 5 going to the radio. And conversely raises the
level coming FROM the radio from 5 to 12v.  The USB cables didn't work with
those older radios that wanted MORE than the 5.5 volts, such as supplied by
the older Seral ported cables.

If I recall correctly, The dealer you took your radio to used a "serial port
cable", not a USB. And it "worked". I'd be willing to bet it worked because
the Level at the radio end was HIGH ENOUGH for the radio to "see" the data,
but the USB YOU have doesn't supply a high enough voltage at the radio end

Hence that explains why the data FROM the radio to the computer works, but
going TO the radio from the computer doesn't..... the electronics in  "your"
cable isn't supplying enough voltage level for the radio to "see it".

So to me, it's a design flaw in the cable, and may affect any NUMBER of radios
that need the "full 5.5 volts" to see the data. The ones giving the most
trouble are what I term as "Chinese knock offs". Most of the cables that are
giving problems come from Ebay sellers who are not selling the "real thing".

These cables sell  because of two things. The buyer's can't find a real OEM
cable ( such as from Radio Shack etc), or they are attracted by the cheaper
price, thinking they will all work... and many times they don't. Mainly
because their design is "flawed", or are made of Fewer, or inferior
components. There's a REASON they are cheaper. <GG>

Jim