possible reasons of cryptic characters in Minicom output

Martin T m4rtntns at gmail.com
Fri Sep 16 09:31:23 UTC 2011


I'm using Minicom 2.3:

[root@ ~]# minicom -v
minicom version 2.3 (compiled Oct 22 2009)
Copyright (C) Miquel van Smoorenburg.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version
2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

[root@ ~]#

..under FreeBSD:

[root@ ~]# uname -a
FreeBSD  8.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE #0: Sat Nov 21 15:48:17 UTC
2009     root at almeida.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC
i386
[root@ ~]#


The problem is that if I try to connect to one specific radio device
over it's console port, I see only cryptic characters in Minicom
output:

Example 1:

<<<<<
Welcome to minicom 2.3

OPTIONS: I18n
Compiled on Oct 22 2009, 15:57:59.
Port /dev/cuaU0

               Press CTRL-A Z for help on special keys

AT S7=45 S0=0 L1 V1 X4 &c1 E1 Q0

>>>>>

Example 2:

<<<<<
Welcome to minicom 2.3

OPTIONS: I18n
Compiled on Oct 22 2009, 15:57:59.
Port /dev/cuaU0

               Press CTRL-A Z for help on special keys

������������������������������������������������AT S7=45 S0=0 L3 V1 X4
&c1 E1 Q0

>>>>>

I have tried with every baud rate under "Serial port setup". According
to documentation this radio device has 19200 8N1 "no data flow
control" RS232 setup by default. The pinout is correct because I see
the DE9<->USB adapter Tx and Rx LEDs blinking if a press any key on my
keyboard.

Are there any other reasons/situations other than wrong speed that one
can see a cryptic characters in Minicom output?


regards,
martin



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