Linux, serial devices that aren't modems and modemmanager / 2021-09-15

I always noticed that I had to plug in the USB cable for the remote radio with the radio switched off, otherwise the Kenwood TS480 would switch into transmit mode and stay there until I powered the radio off.

Annoying, and I thought it was something in the serial initialization. Recently I was thinking about this and remembered something about query sequences on serial devices triggering weird behaviour in other devices. From what I read about the Kenwood serial protocol the chance of a few stray characters changing something in the radio is quite possible.

So I considered what Linux software could do a query as soon as a serial port is added to the system. Well, modemmanager was the ideal candidate for this:

Package: modemmanager
[..]
Description-en: D-Bus service for managing modems
 ModemManager is a DBus-activated daemon which controls mobile broadband
 (2G/3G/4G) devices and connections. Whether built-in devices, USB dongles,
 Bluetooth-paired telephones or professional RS232/USB devices with external
 power supplies, ModemManager is able to prepare and configure the modems and
 setup connections with them.

And indeed, simply removing modemmanager made the problem go away. I can now plug in the USB cable when the radio is on and nothing happens.