However, as I said, I have the RT Systems CT-29A, which was also *very widely* sold for a number of both Icom and Yaesu radios, before people started using USB. I bought it years ago to work with the IC-7000. With some serial ports, it works fine with both DTR and RTS high. However, on the Digi serial port box I'm using (another widely sold product), the CT-29A requires RTS *high* and DTR *low*, probably due to serial port loading (why is why some cables work on some computers and not others).
A lot of laptop computers and many USB-to-serial adapters actually just swing +5V and 0V for the two states. It's a real problem for gear that is strict about the standard, and may be why you have problems powering that device there. Maybe the Digi box will swing to -5V for low, and that gives you 10V to power it? I've not seen any adapters that are only doing 5V that actually go to -5V on the low side, so this may mean that box wouldn't work there anyway.
If you don't want to do it, that's fine. I use RumTrol for saving memories on the IC-7000, so I don't need Chirp to do it; the only radio I use Chirp with, is the Yaesu FT-897D. However, this isn't a pipe dream of mine; both RumTrol and Ham Radio Deluxe have seen the need for quite some time, and it certainly wasn't me who prodded them; my first exposure to both programs came with the feature already there, so there must have been some demand other than my crazy idea. Further, the feature is not hidden; it's there with the serial port selection.
I know that it's exposed widely in those apps, but it's far more relevant to them, IMHO.
You already have a menu list with "Enable Developer Functions"; you could always enable it there. Or, you could create an additional item in that menu list titled "Advanced RS-232 Options".
Yeah, certainly could do that.
What do other people think? I see the options as:
1. Expose it on the clone dialog unconditionally 2. Expose it on the clone dialog if the radio selected is one of a set likely to need this (i.e. HF rigs) 3. Expose it either if developer options is enabled or if an additional toggle is set (i.e. Advanced stuff) 4. Allow for it to be set in the config file only and document it on the wiki 5. Do nothing
I don't think I want to do either #1 or #2, but I'm open to the others. Thoughts? Marco, you do a lot with the Yaesu HF rigs -- any comments on this?