Connecting to an Aircable Serial Port in Windows XP

Connecting your Windows XP computer to an Aircable via Bluetooth is fairly straightforward. This article gives step-by-step instructions to get you connected in just a few minutes.

First, make sure that your Bluetooth adapter is connected and/or enabled. You should see an icon representing your Bluetooth device in your system tray, next to your clock:



If the center section is white, your Bluetooth adapter is enabled. If it's red, then it's not installed (are you using a USB dongle?) or not turned on.

Next, make sure that your Aircable has power. The green light should be on, and the red and blue lights should be pulsing/flashing occasionally.

After you've made sure that your Aircable is powered up and your Bluetooth adapter is enabled, open up "My Bluetooth Places" by either double-clicking the icon in the system tray (image above), or double-clicking the icon on your desktop:



Alternately, you can locate it in "My Computer".

You should be looking at a screen similar to this:



If you don't see the Aircable, click the "Search for devices in range" link. If it still doesn't find the Aircable (shown as "AIRserial3X 01400" in this example), ensure that the Aircable is has power applied and that your PC is within range of the Aircable.

Double-click on the Aircable icon. Your PC will take a few moments to scan the device to see what services it offers, then it should present you with a screen similar to this:



Double click on the "SPP" service. The PC will begin to establish the connection:



Your PC will pop up a security notice / password request balloon from the system tray area of your desktop:



Click on the balloon. You will be prompted for the Aircable password, which is 1234.



Enter the code and click "OK". Your PC will complete the connection and assign the virtual serial port a COM port number.



The COM port is displayed in the status bar of the window. In this example, the COM port is COM 6. This is the port you should configure your software to use when communicating with your telescope.