Confused About Implicit Data Conversion Error

Good Afternoon

Hope that somone can shed some light...

I am using the HitSoftware driver to pass data to an AS400 from a SQL 7 database. Data makes it fine to 2 of the 4 tables but I cannot get the syntax correct to even get out of the S/P edtitor in SQL for the other 2.

I have fields in the SQL S/P defined as VARCHAR. The target fields on the AS400 are ALPHA. So I figured the insert statement to look like:

INSERT INTO CALICOTOTESTAS400.S105Z1NM.ORDTALIB.itmrva0# (TRID30, ITNO30, ITDS30, ITYP30, INVF30, UMST30, ITAC30, UUCA30, EGNO30, RTID30)
VALUES (@v_action, @v_modelNumber, @v_modelDesc, '1', 1, 'EA', @v_acctClass, @v_modelyear, @v_engRevision, @v_spectype)

However, when I try to close the S/P window I get the error:

Error 257: Implicit conversion from data type varchar to binary is not allowed. Use the CONVERT function to run this query.

So, I changed the insert statement to this:

INSERT INTO CALICOTOTESTAS400.S105Z1NM.ORDTALIB.itmrva0# (TRID30, ITNO30, ITDS30, ITYP30, INVF30, UMST30, ITAC30, UUCA30, EGNO30, RTID30)
VALUES (CONVERT(binary, @v_action), CONVERT(binary, @v_modelNumber), CONVERT(binary, @v_modelDesc), CONVERT(binary, '1'), 1, CONVERT(binary, 'EA'), CONVERT(binary, @v_acctClass), CONVERT(binary, @v_modelyear), CONVERT(binary, @v_engRevision), CONVERT(binary,
@v_spectype))

Now the S/P closes without the error. But when I send it to the AS400 I get unrecognizable characters in the fields.

Then I started thinking...I am not trying to do anything with binary fields.
So I am really lost. Please help.

Thanks,
Ed 330-273-7521