This problem has been resolved. It appears my ANKER 10 port USB Hub is the problem. It's associated with the lower 4 ports of the hub. The remaining 6 are OK. I'm not sure what the actual problem is yet. The hub has a 60W power supply attached so I doubt it's a power issue...maybe noise? I now have a 10 port Amazon Hub which works well. As for the DTR signal, I've always used it and have seldom used the reset buttons. Also, I think most of the Arduinos and clones have it implemented through the serial convertor chip as well. It's also on all the ESP32 and ESP 8266 clones I've used. Again, thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions.

I tested the Advanced Web Server Sample with this setup. Works fine. I tried the GatewayESP8266 on this setup and another setup with a WEMOS Pro mini. Same results, nothing out the serial port. I also tried the gateway app on an esp8266 with no radio attached and got no serial at 115200 at all. Is this normal? Shouldn't I get some kind of error message.
I'll try setting up an app to talk to the RF24 directly and see how that goes.
Is the GatewayESP32 working for the RF24 radios? If so, maybe I'll try that. I'm quite puzzled.
This assembly worked at one time a couple of years ago on another system.

@mfalkvidd Thanks, I'll try that.

@mfalkvidd Hi. My system here is using a RPI4B running Domoticz, one 433MHz RFXCom gateway and one 2.4 gHz ESP8266 WIFI gateway. I know I can add a 915MHz gateway, but could I add another 2.4G gateway? (I mean a nRF24l01 based system, or are there other radios MySensors uses for that frequency?). If this is possible, why would someone want it?...and how would the two gateways differentiate the traffic? Obviously, I'm not a radio guy.

@OldSurferDude Thanks for the reply. So you're going straight to the MQTT broker itself and basically bypassing a gateway? I'm using My Sensors and Domoticz and I like them. I see Domiticz is compatible with Tasmota. I'll have to do some research.
Thanks much

@mfalkvidd Sorry, I guess I'm dense. I didn't think you necessarily needed a radio connected to the MQTT gateway. I thought the MQTT gateway was to be used in addition to the other gateways in the system, and used to send data to the broker. If that's not the case, is there a point to having one, if I already have an esp8266 WIFI gateway with a nRF24L01. If a radio is required on the MQTT, does that mean another nRF24L01 can be connected to the system? Is that possible? I guess what you're saying is that you only need one 2.4G network, be it wifi, mqtt or serial. True?
Again thanks.

@mfalkvidd Thanks, I'll try that.

Th purpose of the mqtt gateway with an NRF24L01 is, I assume , to collect data from RF based sensors and pass the data through to controller. In my situation, I create a temperature node using an esp8266 and a nRF24L01. The MQTT gateway handles the data just like any other gateway. Goes anyone have an example of a sensor node that posts a mqtt message to the gateway? The GatewayESP8266MQTTClient.ino example doesn't show me much. Sorry to be a pain. just saying...

@dpcons I built the Time Display example and after a little futzing, I got it to talk to my NRF24L01 system but the receiveTimez() function looks broken. It appears to respond with data that's read, but function never executes.
Looks like I'll punt for now.

@mfalkvidd Thanks for the response. I once built the 'Display and Time' sensor and I remember it working...but that was about 3-4 years ago and I no longer have the device. Maybe I build it back up again and give it a shot!

@nagelc Thanks for responding. The response from the controller seems to be very quick. The problem is the 'receiveTime' routine never gets executed. mfalkvidd stated that the response in the serial output looked reasonable so I'm assuming the controller is responding OK. I tried adding the delay(1500) but same issue.
Again, thanks for your response.

@dpcons sorry...esp8266 wemos mini is the actual device.

@mfalkvidd
Thanks for your response. Yes, that's the question. Did I neglect something in my code? Do I have to register the "receiveTime" routine? Is there any workaround to use the response data? This node is an ESP32 D1 mini...if that makes a difference. Does the operation depend on an interrupt?
Again, thanks