So he tried his hand with some really small SMD parts by building this USB to serial Arduino programmer. The chip he went with isn’t the FTDI part we’re used to. Instead of using an FT232RL ...

[Ted] has demonstrated using a common USB to serial adapter as an SDR transmitter. That’s right, using the cheap little UART adapter you’ve almost certainly got sitting in your parts bin right ...

Learn what a USB to Serial adapter is used for, when you might need one, and whether installing a driver is required for it ...