Lately I’ve been having issues where my CAT commands from Omnirig would time-out or vice-versa. (Notably the dreaded “Rig is not responding”) I had been looking high and low why or who was to blame. Factory resetting didn’t change a thing, nor did changing the serial cable. The settings in Omnirig didn’t matter – nor did serial speed. Hmm, maybe RFI is to blame? – Nope.

Turns out – the issue is in the driver for the CP210x dongle! If you use the latest version (at the time of writing – v6.7.5) then you’ll experience these mishaps. (I’m betting other rigs using this chipset will be affected too!).

In short – you want to revert to a previous version. I got hold of v6.7.3 and the time-outs are 100% gone. Seeing it’s hard to find this version – here’s a link to it.

Edit 2018-apr-27: It’s better to select the FT-450D model, even if you’re using the FT-450 (original..). The “D”-profile will return the TX/RX status as well.