Registered: Nov 2000
Location: Florida
Posts: 9

Re: Re: How I built a cheap cable to connect a Visor to a Motorola/SprintPCS phone

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Originally posted by MarkEagle
... once I connect it to the Visor, what next? Does the Visor recognize it as a standard modem attached to the serial port? ...

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location:
Posts: 13

I'm having trouble connecting at any speed other then 300. I'm using a timeport phone. I have tried adjusting the speed, flowcontrol and country setting.

Any ideas????

Mike

Registered: Nov 2000
Location:
Posts: 3

CDMA Cell Phones and Visor SB's

Ok,

There is some interesting stuff within this thead. Most of it though doesn't mean much to me so maybe someone can give me an answer in the simplest way possible.. please don't use codes like RS232 ect...

Are there any SB's either announced or available that I can use with a CDMA cell phone ( my phone is a Qualcomm 2035a used on Verizon's network ) ? I know Xircom has 2 springport modems but they both seem to be designed for GSM/PCS phones . It seems to me the bulk of cellphones in the USA are most likely CDMA compatible so there must be something out there.

I originally bought my V. Deluxe so that I could access maps and traffic conditions over the internet and I have been faced with dissapointment at every turn when a product comes out that doesn't seem to quite work with what I have.

SO, is there hope in the VERY near future that I will be able to use my current CDMA cell and Visor Deluxe to access the net , or is it time to buy a Palm or TRG Pro?

Thanks in advance for a simple answer that will make sense to the technically ignorant ; )

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Burlington, VT, USA
Posts: 127

So, Verizon has finally gotten digital coverage here in the wilds of Vermont, and I'd like to get a phone that will tie in to my Visor with the Mark/Space cable, both for personal use and for doing a "how-to" article.

Locally Verizon is selling:
Startac 7868
Timeport (they don't specify which model)
Nokia 5185

Anyone gotten any of these to work with a Visor?

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Posts: 2682

Re: How I built a cheap cable to connect a Visor to a Motorola/SprintPCS phone

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Originally posted by a3r
Phone TX pin 6 ---> Visor RX pin 1
Phone RX pin 7 <--- Visor TX pin 8
Phone Signal Ground pin 10 --- Visor Ground pin 4

- Pin 1 on the Visor is at the far left (when looking at the visor battery door).
- Pin 1 on the phone is closest to the "End" button.
- All the pins (Visor and Phone) are 0-3v (TTL) not +/-12v RS-232. Neither unit has flow control, but at 14.4Kb max, this should not be an issue.

...

If the assembled cord works correctly, then when the phone and visor are connected together, the phone will "beep" once (the visor must be on for the "beep")

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a3r, if you're still lurking out there, can you help shed some light on all this?

I cheated and bought a standard Motorola Data Cable from ePhones. It arrived today. I also made an adapter cable with an ATL HotSync connector on one end and a D9M on the other. It is wired as follows:

HS Conn ---> D9M
1 (RXD) ---> 2 (RXD)
8 (TXD) ---> 3 (TXD)
4 (GND) ---> 5 (GND)

I connect everything up, get the "beep" from the phone, configure my Modem Prefs as a3r outlined above, go to Network, tap Connect, wait..., nothing!!! I get an error that the modem can't be found.

I double- and triple-check everything (hardware and software). It all looks ok... try again... nothing!!! So I whip out my trusty multimeter and start testing the data cable. I find that the only pins that appear to be connected are #10 and #15 on the phone end connected to #5 (GND) on the serial end. I assume at this point that the cable must be defective (even though the charger pass-through seems to work) and call ePhones to get a replacement (very responsive customer service, BTW).

Then I go and connect the cable to my wife's laptop, setup a modem profile and DUN client. Lo and behold, it works!!! I surf the net (on a 14.4 connection) through my StarTAC and SprintPCS!!! The cable is not defective!

So what gives? Here are my conclusions:

1) The StarTAC ST7867W phone must not be using TTL signals (the direct serial connection to the laptop would indicate this).

2) I need a self-powered or Visor-powered serial cable (Mark/Space DataCord?) to connect to the data cable in order to use this configuration.

3) The data cable possibly has a TTL-RS232 converter in it that is powered off the PC serial port (???).

Or am I missing something else here?

a3r, since you don't have your email visible to the forum, could you respond and/or email me at [email protected] with any thoughts you may have about this?

Anyone else that might have any insight, feel free to post it here or send me an email as well.

I thought this would be easy!

__________________

God bless America, my home sweet home...

Registered: Dec 2000
Location:
Posts: 2

Kyocers QCP 2035a and Visor

This seems to be the time to ask about this phone. I just purchased this CMDA phone fron Verizon in Central New York. I would also like to connect to my Visor Deluxe. Kyocera Tech Support stated that: The DCK (Data Connectivity Kit) does not work with the Handspring Visor when attached to their RS-232 version cradle and our null modem adapter.
So does anyone know if the Mark Space cable with work?

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Posts: 2682

First of all, I've moved this thread to How-To/Troubleshooting as that is a more appropriate home for it.

Now, I think I've figured this out. The Motorola data cable must have the conversion circuit built-in. And it appears that the phone supplies the necessary power since it shows DSR with a (+) voltage when connected to an RS232 tester. ar3's simple cable design makes sense to me. Both the StarTAC and the Visor use TTL level signals, so no conversion is necessary. My adapter cable doesn't work because of signal level incompatibility.

So, my choices now are 1), obtain a gender-changer and try my ATL sync cable, or 2) hack up a perfectly good $50.00 data cable and replace the D9 connector with a HotSync connector (the conversion circuit is most likely within the D9 housing).

I've been unsuccessful thus far in trying to locate a source of Motorola StarTAC connectors (and the charger accessories I've seen don't have all the pins in them). Maybe by the end of today I'll muster up the courage to cut this data cable

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God bless America, my home sweet home...

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 25

Re: QCP-2700 to Visor - it's a

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Originally posted by ThunderRay

Okay, here's another Visor to PCS success.

I have an older PCS phone, the QCP-2700. I believe Sony marketed it as the 1920 at one point.

Hardware:
Sprint (Qualcomm) QCP-2700 phone
Data to Go phone cable
Serial cradle
Gender changer (null modem?) (included with cable package)

Software:
AvantGo
Palm OS modem setting in Preferences
Palm OS network setting in Preferences
Your own internet service provider (ISP)


ThunderRay

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Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Posts: 2682

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkEagle
So, my choices now are 1), obtain a gender-changer and try my ATL sync cable, or 2) hack up a perfectly good $50.00 data cable and replace the D9 connector with a HotSync connector (the conversion circuit is most likely within the D9 housing).

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Update: The Motorola Data Cable for the StarTAC phone contains the TTL conversion circuit in the phone connector, not the serial connector! I gently pried the cover off of the connector which revealed a fully shielded circuit board. There's no way to see exactly what's on the board since the metal shield is soldered to it... but there's definitely something under there. Since no continuity can be seen at the pins (yeah, I went ahead and cut the cable! ), my assumption is that, without power, the conversion circuit isn't "live" (therefore, no continuity).

I'll salvage the cable (shortened by about 12") by soldering a new D9 connector on the end.

Time to hack open the lighter plug charger for the connector!!

__________________

God bless America, my home sweet home...

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Posts: 2682

StarTAC connection works!!!

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkEagle
Time to hack open the lighter plug charger for the connector!!

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Ok... it's working!!!

Following a3r's advice from earlier in this thread, I've made a data cable for my Visor/StarTAC combo. Seems to work like a charm. There is one small problem: when connecting, the Visor consistently shows a connection speed of 300 while the phone shows 14,400. Based on the speed at which email is retrieved, etc, I'd have to say that the 300 is wrong... it's much faster than that. Next, I'll try browsing the web and see if I can post a reply...

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God bless America, my home sweet home...

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Posts: 2682

Wireless!!!

This is being posted wirelessly using the Visor/StarTAC combo.!!!

One drawback to this setup: I can't use my Stowaway at the same time

Other than that, it's not bad. The speed hasn't been a major problem, either. I'll surf some more to test it out.
[edited back on earth: I did an AvantGo modem sync through the StarTAC connection. It too approximately 4 minutes to upload and replace 105 pages, a process that takes 1-2 minutes on the desktop. The speed really isn't all that bad, considering.]

I guess what I want now is a cellular Springboard with SprintPCS service!

__________________

God bless America, my home sweet home...

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 25

Has anyone tried connecting the Visor to a Sprint PCS phone using the QNC setting as explained on this web site? -

http://www.geocities.com/bobstro/sprint_pcs_qnc.htm

I would be interested to know how well it works.

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Posts: 2682

quote:

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Originally posted by affirm
connecting the Visor to a Sprint PCS phone using the QNC

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Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Posts: 2682

Sprint PCS / QNC

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkEagle
I just tried it and can't get it to work.

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UPDATE:

Doh!!! I re-checked everything and realized I had the phone number wrong! I changed it per the instructions and got it to work, just as advertised!

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God bless America, my home sweet home...

Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Boston, MA
Posts: 13

am I dense?

Okay, maybe I'm dense, but I don't think I have a 'connections' prefs screen on my Visor. I don't have a modem attached right now (waiting on Mark/Space) but that won't make the difference, will it? How do I get to this screen???
Thanks
Jesse

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Posts: 2682

Re: am I dense?

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Originally posted by jcmccain
I don't think I have a 'connections' prefs screen on my Visor.... How do I get to this screen???

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Go into the Prefs app. In the upper right corner, there's a pull down list... tap it and select Modem. The Modem Prefs screen will be displayed.

p.s. this is where the Network Prefs are, too

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Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Boston, MA
Posts: 13

I guess I had been looking for a way to name my connection 'profile' like the author of that page did. I also didn't see 'connection method' as a setting. I guess that's just a Palm/Visor difference?

Registered: Dec 2000
Location:
Posts: 2

Startac/Visor data cable

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkEagle

So, my choices now are 1), obtain a gender-changer and try my ATL sync cable, or 2) hack up a perfectly good $50.00 data cable and replace the D9 connector with a HotSync connector (the conversion circuit is most likely within the D9 housing).

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Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Posts: 2682

Re: Startac/Visor data cable

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Originally posted by jamespe
Was your sucess (posted later than the quote above) using the Motorola data cable? Has the test been done without the Motorola circuit on the phone connector?

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I ended up making a custom cable as the Motorola cable has the TTL-RS232 circuit in the phone connector itself (my assumption about the circuit being in the serial end was wrong... I hacked up a perfectly good data cable but was able to salvage it by soldering a new serial connector on the end. Ok, so it's only 18" long now but who cares? ).

Since both the phone and Visor use TTL, my cable provides a direct connection as outlined above with no need for the converter. Works great, too!

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Registered: Feb 2000
Location: SW Virginia
Posts: 290

Re: Re: Startac/Visor data cable

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkEagle
I ended up making a custom cable[...]

Since both the phone and Visor use TTL, my cable provides a direct connection as outlined above with no need for the converter. Works great, too!

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