this was the very first connection i made. but nothing seemed to be transmitted. I figured the error was because, as you have mentioned, the arduino rx(0) and Tx(1) pins are taken up by its Bluegiga WT11 module and so cannot transmit serially to the sc16a on these pins. this is what drove me to look for an alternative pin for serial communication (i.e softwareserial) as you can see in the codes...is this thinking wrong?