Please can anyone offer advice on 're-configuring' minicom, or its dependents ?

I have been successfully using minicom to connect via USB/Serial from a laptop to an embedded system running FC3. Minicom now fails to respond to its own commands, for example, Ctrl-A-Z calls up the main menu but any sub option menus simply close when an up/down arrow key is pressed
I have been progressively developing an application for the embedded device (programming in C) using ncurses for the user interface. Everything has been working fine until recently, I read somewhere the use of some ncurses functions (nobreak(), noraw(), nodelay(). . .) may cause problems but I can't find solutions.

Is this something to do with TERMINFO or TERMCAP, and if so any suggestions for fixing as I cannot get into send/receive files via minicom.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.