Apparently I need help...

OK, so I admit I am not a brain surgeon, but then again this is not brain surgery.

I have been trying for a week or so to get a DVK (Digital Voice Keyer) of some sort to work with the equipment I have.

I thought I had everything I needed as far as equipment goes:
Yaesu FT-100D
MD-100 Microphone
MH-42 BJ6S Hand Mic
MH-36 BJ6S DTMF Hand Mic
RigBlaster Pro
Astron RS-50M Power Supply
PwrGate & Battery Backup
RigRunner 8-Port
Various USB to Serial converters
IBM T-60 ThinkPad (no serial port) running XP 32-bit
DELL D630 Laptop (COM1 serial port) running Vista 64-bit

I thought I had all the software I needed as well…
N3FJP Field Day Logger v.2.8
N1MM Logger v.9.5
Ham Radio Deluxe v.4.01

Apparently, every piece of software that I have uses a different method of rig control and PTT keying.
All I want to do is press F1 and have it key the rig and play a .wav file, and then repeat after 4-5 seconds ‘till I press escape or key the mic.
Do any of you have any experience with this? Any tips that can help?

Anyway – I have tried 2 different laptops, and both act differently. Get this – I tried to record a .wav file with the Dell running Vista. Simple task. Except for the fact that Vista no longer records things with Sound Recorder in .wav format any longer. It now records in .wma format, which logging programs won’t play. You have to start Sound Recorder from the command line with a /recordfile .wav modifier in order for it to do this with Vista…

But on to Serial port issues… WestMountainRadio had a link (http://lists.contesting.com/pipermail/writelog/2004-April/019714.html ) to a forum article I found interesting… Anyway it is becoming apparent that all serial ports are NOT created equal. The IBM T60, with NO serial port whatsoever needs a USB to Serial converter in order to interface to the RigBlaster Pro, and seems to work well as far as rig control goes. Problem is, the IBM ThinkPad T60 is a piece of crap I lifted from school. No wonder why we were getting rid of it… Next thing I wanna do is try the DVK aspect of things, I have not explored this yet. The Dell running Vista 64 is a bit more complicated, only certain USB to Serial converters will work, because of the ‘Vista 64-bit’ thing. Still looking for drivers for one Serial to USB device, I think I have another that will work but haven’t tried it yet.

My main concentration has been on the Dell D630, really nice laptop, 8G RAM, 9-pin COM port and 64-bit OS. You would think this would be adequate for logging at Field Day… Well you thought wrong. N3FJP won’t do rig control, it won’t even read the frequency and mode from the FT-100D, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get the DVK to work, as it won’t even recognize the COM1 device (RigBlaster Pro / FT-100D) attached to it. Ham Radio Deluxe (HRD) works just fine, rig control is great and I can key the rig fine, except there is no DVK built into HRD. I don’t even know how the logger works, as I haven’t got to that yet… Add to that the lack (seemingly) of support for .wav files on the Dell and it appears hopeless. N1MM Logger keys the rig, and seems to read the frequency and mode, but when you push F1 to initiate the DVK the rig keys OK, but the .wav file stutters and spits and goes real slooooow thru everything. Frustrating at best…

At least when I attach one of the 3 microphones to the rig, and then attach an antenna to the output, I can press the PTT button and speak and it actually works. I worked a special event station from Ukraine on 40M like shooting fish in a barrel. I know Ukraine on 40 barefoot is no big deal, but it fuckin works!

Why can’t the rest of this crap be as easy?