Thanks Guys, I did find these on the internet. I did try the Modbus.Link program and I am able to get it to request and receive response from my Modbus slave, and I am able to paste link a DDE link in excel which does not error, but its value remains at 0 even when the input is changing. Tried the Excel refresh data function, but no change. I tried various configurations but always a non responsive number in Excel. The console Modbus.Link showed messages without error.
The VBA method seems to be the only other option - I hesitated since it is a bit of a process but I will give it a shot.