Indoor Control Unit Serial Information Port Required Equipment: Complete Winegard 2-Way VSAT Antenna System Null Modem Cable Computer capable of serial communication using a terminal emulator program such as Hyper Term or Tera Term. Purpose and Scope The purpose of this paper is to explain the proper way to connect a serial cable to the Winegard 2-Way VSAT Indoor Control Unit’s Serial Information Port (SIP). Connecting the serial port to a computer will provide a method to capture output messages which can be a valuable troubleshooting tool. Messages are output to this port during operation that show the state of the system. This file can be saved and sent to Winegard in order to quickly determine failure mode Null Modem Cable In the simplest terms a Null Modem cable (crossover cable) connects the transmit port from one device to the receive port on another device. The Winegard Indoor Control Unit (IDU) does not use handshaking protocol and will function with 3 wires. The simplest cable is shown below. Commercial cables with full handshaking capabilities will also work. 1 |Revised 4/2/2015 Connection to the Winegard Indoor Control Unit (IDU) A standard Male DB9 connector is located on the back panel of the Winegard IDU. Connect a null modem cable between this and a computer. A serial to USB adapter may be required if the computer does not have a DB9 serial port. DB9 Serial Port + Example using Tera Term and a USB to Serial Adapter Connect the null modem cable to the IDU serial port. Connect the other end of the null modem cable to a USB to Serial adapter. Plug the USB adapter into the appropriate USB port on the computer. If the computer has a DB9 serial port the USB adapter is not needed. The communication settings for the serial port should be: Baud rate = 57600 Data Bits = 8 Parity = No Stop Bits = 1 Flow Control = No 2 |Revised 4/2/2015 Turn The IDU on and wait for approximatly 1 minute. Information should automatically start scrolling from the IDU. Saving Serial Data The most straight forward way to capture serial data is simply highlighting the text and copying it to a file using Notepad or other word processing program. This is not the best way to capture large amounts of data over a long period of time. Most terminal emulator programs have a method of saving the serial data directly into a text file. 3 |Revised 4/2/2015 If you are using Tera Term select the File drop down menu at the top of the screen and then select Log. This will bring up a pop up box that will allow you to name and choose where you would like to save the file. 4 |Revised 4/2/2015 If you are using Hyper Term select Transfer from the drop down menu and then select capture. This will bring up a pop up box that will allow you to name and choose where you would like to save the file. 5 |Revised 4/2/2015 .