I had been unsuccessful communicating with these units using the RS232 to RS422 cable hack that Stewart Cobb described in his original post (https://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2014-October/087274.html). I was able to see, via a scope, the data coming out of the REF 1 unit, but it was never picked up on the PC. I finally bought a USB to RS422/RS485 cable. That didn't work out of the box - I needed to use the supplied breakout board to remap the pins to a DB9-M connector as follows (Tx- to pin 8, Tx+ to pin 4, Rx- to pin 9, Rx+ to pin 5, Gnd to pin 7). All 4 wires were needed for this to work. Thanks to Bob Camp and Tom Van Baak for their help on this Anthony

Yes indeed for a real RS232 to RS 422 all 4 wires are required. Its a balanced communications protocol. The RS232 trick has been around many years. It ha sa low noise margin and does work with most modern RS232 3.3-5V type adapters. Its simple and generally works as it did for me. Regards Paul WB8TSL On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 12:15 PM, Anthony Roby <aroby@antamy.com> wrote: > I had been unsuccessful communicating with these units using the RS232 to > RS422 cable hack that Stewart Cobb described in his original post ( > https://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2014-October/087274.html). I > was able to see, via a scope, the data coming out of the REF 1 unit, but it > was never picked up on the PC. > > I finally bought a USB to RS422/RS485 cable. That didn't work out of the > box - I needed to use the supplied breakout board to remap the pins to a > DB9-M connector as follows (Tx- to pin 8, Tx+ to pin 4, Rx- to pin 9, Rx+ > to pin 5, Gnd to pin 7). All 4 wires were needed for this to work. > > Thanks to Bob Camp and Tom Van Baak for their help on this > > Anthony > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. >