Amazon Basics USB 3.0 Extension Cable for Digital Modes

My Icom 7100 is not on my desk – its on a shelf closest to where its most convenient to route the HF and VHF/UHF antennas located in my attic.

This led to a dilemma. When I’m at my station, my desktop computer (27″ iMac) is too far from the icom to connect to the sound input for use with FT8, JT8, etc. using wsjt-x, fldigi, and js8call.

I keep the icons control panel on my desk via its long cable connection. Its great that you can use the control head to plug in your mic, or headphones, or speaker, (and CW key but I don’t CW yet). Unfortunately the only thing missing is a USB connection from here (at least provided but I have my suspicions).

Anyway, I considered using the headphone out to put into my computers mic input but I thought this was too old fashioned and Windows-like. So Instead, I got a USB extension cable.

It literally is a USB port that hangs off a USB port. The USB spec limits how long a cable should be due to signal losses above certain lengths, I guess.

Now, my Icom is from a different time. It came out nearly 10 years ago so I didn’t know if it would have issues using a USB 3 port (which in retrospect is the only thing I’ve ever plugged the supplied USB cable into since all my computers are USB3. Anyway. So I bought a, Amazon Basics USB 3 extension cord after looking at all the shiny ones that cost 2x as much and probably made in the same Chinese factory using the same counterfeit FTDI chips.

I plugged it into the back of my Mac, routed it way too close to other RF sources and wires, and plugged the Icom’s supplied USB cable into the end.

The only thing I had to change in my Amateur Radio software was telling it to..

HOLY CRAP! CAT CONTROL CAN TURN ON MY RADIO! The Icom 7100 is WAY ahead of its time! Wow.

Ok back to our discussion.

Before, I had to select 1 of the 2 “usbserial” ports (I usually chose /dev/cu/usbserial-xxxxxx) and the worked. No clue what the difference is.

Now I have to choose one of the “SLAB_USBtoUART” port – probably since I’m accessing the Icom over the extension cord which isn’t really an extension cord per se but another USB port that acts as a repeater due to the cord length.

The reason I got excited above was due to my need to take a screenshot of the ports, I opened up fldigi and my Icom came to life. Crazy! Considering Yaesu’s that are still made that require an extra ugly device to route audio for digital modes, I’m really impressed that Icom was smart enough to include a USB port that can be used for nearly any function (amongst a myriad of other ports) on the back of the 7100.