Connecting Baofeng HT to my Macintosh

Setup that works from the a Macintosh but should work on a PC as well.   Might not be the prettiest setup, but it works.

On the Macintosh I plugged in a USB to Audio in/out dongle to break out the audio Send and Receive  (Headphone and Microphone ports)

The Baofeng HT uses a Kenwood style spkr/mic 2 pin plug .

I connected them together as follows:
MIC  port                  -   Shielded Cable  - 3.5mm to 2.5mm adapter   - radio
HEADPHONE  port -   Shielded Cable  - Ground Loop Isolater   -   radio

Without the Ground Loop isolator (which is just an isolation transformer) every time I would try and transmit I would get all sorts of noise and nothing would work.  Breaking the ground loop fixed it.

Parts:
Ground loop isolator was from amazon - PAC Ground loop isolator for 3.5mm applications  $12.29
3.5mm shielded cables from Junk Box
3.5mm female to 2.5mm male adapter (mono)   - Radio Shack

Now that they were together, the question was how to key the mic.  So I turned on the VOX in the radio.   It seems to have a 1/4 to 1/2 second delay, but not too bad.

Baofeng was set up set up where VOX=2

I set this up and it worked both transmit and receive.  No problems.

In the next version I would probably put a ground loop isolator on both wires.  In talking it over with a more knowledgable friend he suggested I could also have a loop if the devices were connected to the same power supply and that would just eliminate all possibilities.

The other concern I have is how well the HT will work with the amount of transmitting digital transmissions usually do.  After playing for 5-10 min I noticed when I finished, the base of the antenna was warm.  I was not transmitting all of the time, but it just surprised me it was warm.  Not going to scare me off since I will try it with an external antenna next time and see if that helps.  It might just be the poor antenna that comes with the HT.