I have not used a second PC which I suppose could expose a usb timing issue. Is that a thing that can happen? After a 2 weeks of testing Pactor 3&4 and VARA HF with both Barretts I have had good speed and connectivity while running audio into the Barretts hot enough to go well into ALC on the lower frequencies and less so on higher frequencies (14mhz up).

I've used 2 different usb/rs232 adapter cables. Whatever the issue(s) the 2nd radio seems more sensitive to it than the 1st radio for some reason. This in itself does not prove lack of issues with the 2nd radio's rs232 port but does suggest it works (with every other serial connection I've tried). The second radio seems to work fine with programming software or commands from AirMail or a terminal program. Now I connect my new to me 2nd Barrett 2050 same as first and this radio has maybe 10-20% success of accepting frequency data via USB direct from PC. If I made a USB connection from PC to this first radio (rs232 adapter) then I had near 100% radio frequency control.

My expectation was either work or fail but this intermittent behavior is intriguing. Configured this way occasionally the frequency would transfer but usually only once after initialization of modem. In this configuration there is no connection between PC and radio which is preferred especially if your Dragon has BlueTooth which eliminates all the pesky USB cables. My initial problem with my 1st Barrett was that the radio could not be controlled by the Dragon7800 while under Winlink control-the pass through function where frequency data is passed from PC to Dragon which in turn passes the data to the radio.

I now have 2 2050's to play with and I thought I'd mention my problems so far with them and Winlink express or whatever they are calling it at present.

Barrett 2050 programming software