Nexstar Remote help! Unable to communicate with telescope?

[euphony]

Hi all,

I've connected my pc to my CPC telescope, and all the connections are correct. I have Nexstar remote installed, my pc recognises the telescope, but everytime I try to connect it to the Nexstar software, it tells me that it is 'unable to communicate with the telecope'.

I have checked the FAQ's on the Celestron site and they state:

" The "Unable to communicate with telescope" message is displayed when NexRemote is not able to send/receive data to the telescope. Try the following remedies for this situation.

Make sure your telescope switch is on and your 12V power supply connection is good. When connecting via the PC port, there is no visual indication that the telescope is powered up, and so it is easy to overlook.

Check that the PC port selection on the settings screen is configured for the serial (COM) port you are using to connect to the telescope.

Check your PC COM port(s) validity. If there are no low-numbered COM ports, there are lots of COM ports or high-numbered COM ports, it usually means your computer needs to have COM ports reassigned to correspond with currently existing real ports or the computer needs maintenance.

The firmware selection on the settings screen should be for the model of telescope that you are using. Incorrect firmware selections will either fail to connect or result in incorrect behavior once connected.

Try the real hand control and make sure that it works.

The PC-to-telescope cabling is the most important aspect of establishing the connection and you should make every effort to verify that your cabling is correct and the connections are good."

All of my connections are fine (although I am having to use a USB to RS232 adaptor, but my pc knows the telescope is there), all the selections nexstar asks me are correct, but it won't do anything.

I run windows 7 and even checked some other help topics on websites about re-assigning COM ports, but their instructions are all about printers and the options on their help pages don't correlate to what I see on screen. The only thing I noticed was one site mentioned something about USB not being able to be assigned a COM port which confused me even more, as I connected the telescope via USb and the pc recognised it and assigned a COM port 5 (and then 6, 7 and 8 as I kep unplugging it and then plugging it back in again in case that helped).

I have no idea what to do, is anyone able to offer sny suggestions? Has anyone else had this problem before?

Chris

[euphony]

Right, I think I've finally sorted it. I rewired the connection part of the cable that came with the telescope that fits into the hand control and now it works. I guess one of the wires must have been loose. Thank gawd for that, I had exhausted every other option, so something to do with this cable was the only thing left that could be wrong!