I have a pair of PIC's that are using the software RS232, one is a transmitter, the other a receiver.

When they are hard wired (serout to serin) they work flawlessly.

I also built 2 boards that uses xbee's to transmit wireless RS485, and I hook up my 2 pics to an SN75176 rs485 to rs232 converter.

That also works perfectly.

BUT --

If I try to connect RS232 (pic software generated, not usart), directly to the data in and data out of the XBEES, I get zilch. ? !

I have level conversion 5v to 3.3 and vice versa and have tried everything but it won't work.

Doesn't make sense because the very same rs232 data is going in (and out) of my SN75176b chips and they work fine.

any ideas?