Curiouser and curiouser...
I'm pretty sure is an Astronics cable (from the Netherlands), and yes, Peter, they are the drivers I downloaded that haven't helped...
I notice the Astronics website is currently unavailable (under construction it says).
The PC is connected wirelessly to the internet so windows has already done its best... but I just noticed on the EQDIR page of EQMOD they advise a driver is necessary i.e. the windows driver won;t do the job (presumably something to do with allocation of the COM port?)
Hmmm... smells like something stupid... or a failure.
Al.