There are a number of specialty keyboards which can be add-on to your PDA. A few PDAs, including the Palm Treo-650 series and the HP 6500 series, even come standard with built-in keyboards. 

While most PDAs have several COM ports, there is only one wired COM port. The keyboard and the wired XM Weather box or wired GPS need this wired COM port to communicate with the PDA. As a result, you cannot use the keyboard and your wired device simultaneously.

Most of the software which comes with these keyboards lock the wired COM port exclusively for the keyboard, even when the keyboard is not connected to the PDA. Therefore, when the wired XM / GPS device tries to access the PDA, the port is locked and no communication will occur.

In some of the keyboard’s configuration software, there is an option to disable the keyboard, which releases the wired COM port. When the keyboard is disabled, it allows the wired XM / GPS device to connect and properly operate with the PDA. Thus, you must disable the keyboard before using your wired device and then re-enable the keyboard before inputting data again.

To improve software reliability, we recommend doing a soft reset before every flight. Please keep in mind that when a soft reset occurs, the keyboard software will default back to the enabled mode. As a result your wired device will not work until the keyboard is disabled again in the configuration software.

Unfortunately, certain keyboards didn’t have this disable option and the software had to be uninstalled, before the wired COM port was released.

Please note this article only applies to wired devices, and doesn’t apply to Bluetooth devices.  If your XM box has a steady or flashing blue light on the top of the box, your XM box is Bluetooth and this article will not apply.

Questions applicable to this article:

- Why did my wired GPS stop working?

- Why did my wired XM box stop working?

- Can I use a fold out keyboard with your software?

- Why can’t I download weather, after I added a keyboard?

- Why did my wired GPS stop working after I added a fold-out keyboard?

Product applicable to this article:

- XM – Wired Weather Box

- Garmin 35 GPS

- Tracker GPS / Wired Tracker

- Satellite Packs / Globalstar

- All Other Wired GPS