That really doesn't sound right. In fact, you should be able to open the port (ie click connect in Serial Communicator) without having anything what so ever connected to the dongle. And you should still be able to open the port even if the baudrate in your PIC program is different from the one you setup in Serial Communicator - it won't work of course but you should still be able to open the port.

But OK, if that is the case I'm afraid I don't have the faintest idea what's going on :-(

/Henrik.