Bill, Nigel, & Atom,
Thanks for the information. I will search for the application notes now I know it is possible. I had looked at the PIC24HJ datasheet and got lost with all the different possibilities.
Nigel, I had considered a USB to serial converter then going into the PIC with serial data, but I was going to have two RS-485 networks also on the PIC24HJ among other things and ran out of UARTs (unless I went to a higher pin count device which I want to avoid if possible). The USB to RS-485 converter I found (as an alternate to USB to RS-232) required loading a driver on the PC, which I want to avoid. I just want to plug and play so the PC can be anyone's PC and not have to keep track of a driver to load.
Thanks,
Dale