I think I know the solution to your problem.

I think the problem is the cable.  You said that you bought a cable.  The
cable must be short since the programmer is subject to noise problems.  My
cable is only 3 ft long.  The other issue for the cable is that the
connector shells must be grounded.  A friend built one and till he did
this, he could not program chips, he could read them fine but could not
program them.  When we connected the shells to ground, everything worked
great.  ITU says to use a cable no longer than 6 feet.  I recommend using a
cable as short as you can live with.

Funny that ITU is not willing to help, I have never had a problem with
thier support.  They were always prompt in responding to my problem.  They
didn't allways have the answer but they did get back to me quickly.

Hope this gets you going.

Norm

At 09:50 PM 3/20/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi there.  I am a student who just began using Microchip PIC
microcontrollers.
>I've purchased a pic programmer kit from ITU Technologies.
>

<snip>

>  I'm pretty sure the
>soldering job and the DB-25MF cable (which I had to buy individually!)
must not
>be the problem.  I have e-mailed ITU representative, and it seems like
they are
>not willing to help much,

<snip>