I just bought a digirig and the USB ground loop isolator in hopes of using it for portable FT8.  I have a little 10 windows computer/tablet I bought years ago that can run WSJT-X.  The trouble with it is there is only a single USB port.

I tried using it with a Signalink USB, but that requires a powered USB hub, which in turn further complicates portable operation.

The good thing about the Digirig is it is supposed to run audio and CAT off a single USB port.  But I still want a free port for GPS or other devices.  I use GPS to sync my PC clock.  I know there are other options for that, but I just like the GPS sync for reasons.

So can anyone confirm if digirig will work on a passive USB hub with another device connected?

If not, are there any compact 12V powered usb hubs?

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I have one and paired it with my Yaesu FT-891 along with a MS Surface Pro 4. Let me dig out my USB hub and check when I get home from work. I recently bought a GPS dongle for use POTA for time sync and would need 3 USB ports also.

If not I would plug in the GPS dongle and sync my PC clock and the remove it, as it doesn’t really loose time. YMMV

Ah, good idea!  Just need it when you first set up unless you will be there a long time.

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I tested it with my Anker 4 port USB hub and have the Digirig, GPS Dongle, trackball mouse dongle, and USB cable for FT-891 rig control all attached. The Anker USB hub is unpowered and runs everything with no issues or glitches.

I am using a program called Eterlogic VSPE to create one virtual COM port that allows me to share the with JTDX, the Digirig, and GPS dongle all at the same time. It helps me solves the issue with using multiple programs that need rig control data at the same time with minimal effort and best of all it just plain works.

All I have to do to make everything happy is to start VSPE first before starting any of the other programs. I've been using VSPE for years for all kinds of ham related software and have yet to find a program that it doesn't work with.

A USB device should be powered by you computer, if not powered by a powered USB hub.


However, it drains your laptop battery.

Link to powered USB hubs which are set up for various DC power. Which you probably have for your radio anyway.


https://www.coolgear.com/product-category/hubs-2/?pa_ports=4

Is that sort of like OmniRig?

Good news is I got a chance to test it out today and I have the digirig, GPS and wireless mouse dongle all working through a passive hub, so no worries.  I just got an FT8 POTA contact with the little FT-817 using my home antenna setup so proof of concept works.  I did order a newer laptop to use since my current little one is pretty old and takes a long time for decodes even when set to "fast" decodes.

I am pretty impressed with how much smaller and more compact the digirig makes everything.

With the new computer I expect it will have USB C so I will set it up with a dock that allows pass through charging and then I'll be able to keep it topped off through a USB QC3 port on an eventual battery box build.

I will say that the internal battery on most laptops probably has enough capacity to keep me out longer than my wife would like.  Same for the windcamp battery in the FT-817.

No. VSPE is virtual serial port software and drivers. It is like the Swiss army knife of moving serial port data around between devices and other software. There are two other very popular competitors: com0com and VSPM. But IMHO VSPE is the best. It is the most stable and the most capable. It does cost $25 for a 64 bit license, though.

Unfortunately the link given was only for download. See also:

http://www.eterlogic.com/Products.VSPE.html

and

http://www.eterlogic.com/help/vspe/index.html

One of the most basic things you can do with VSPE is have it share one port among many software app's simultaneously. The other most basic thing is to have one app talk to another via serial without actually having any hardware serial ports in the PC.

Okay, the reason I ask is that some of that functionality is covered by OmniRig.  For instance OmniRig handles the CAT control through a single COM port, and I can connect multiple software programs to OmniRig simultaneously.  

In my case, instead of using the FT450 CAT profile in WSJT-X, I use OmniRig instead and I can have HDSDR connected to OmniRig and running at the same time.  Then OmniRig passes the CAT data from the radio to both apps and vice versa.  If I change bands in WSJT-X, the radio changes and HDSDR changes too.