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All things radio related, with emphasis on ham radio.
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I finished the initial version of my  perl script that will link FreeSWITCH to a radio device.  While I am primarily doing this with amateur radio in mind, you could use this to connect a FRS, GMRS, or other similar type of radio.

Using the FT-897 PTT control circuit, you can control PTT by connecting the various connectors to virtually any radio.  Some will not be compatible, some will require hardware modification (removal of the mic/speaker and replacing them with headphone wires and connecting the PTT button to the serial port).  I will not be discussing how to do that here.  If you can’t figure that out you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

An in depth installation and configuration guide can be found on the FreeSWITCH wiki.

In my never ending quest to rule the galaxy, I have gotten the pinout information for the VX-8r radio.  While it is pin compatible with the FTM-10 radio, it is not identical.  Minor differences do exist.

Using the CT-M11 cable you can interface this to anything you may need.  I will modify my FT-897 PTT control circuit for this radio as well as future exploration into the radio’s capabilities in terms of cloning the radio, and seeing if there are any secret commands to control the radio similar to the CAT interface.  Getting this pinout was only the first step.

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Update: August 29, 2009 – I added some undocumented commands, their syntax is at the end of this page.

This is a perl module that extends Win32::SerialPort or Device::SerialPort depending on what platform you run it on.  This means that it should work in Windows, Linux, BSD, OSX, Solaris and probably elsewhere.

The idea is to be able to let people quickly develop cross platform tools without having to know anything about serial ports, the CAT protocol, or any of that.  Fortunately, since I dont know much about it, and got really lucky  by closing my eyes and randomly pressing the keys on the keyboard.

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The Yaesu FT-897/FT-857 ham radios come factory tuned for better performance. This is not uncommon, most radio manufacturers do this. The electrical components have tolerances, meaning that the sum of the parts is different from one radio to the next. This calibration data is radio specific to cause the output to be more or less uniform across their entire model line.

My recommendation is to back up those settings, since I am lazy I did not want to write them down and hope that I could read my writing at a later date, so I wrote a little tool that will let you back them up in a way that is easy to print out and keep with the manual or taped to the radio itself, or whatever you choose to do.  This would let you easily restore them if you ever need to.

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I am writing some tools to dump the eeprom data from my Yaesu FT-897. I have heard many people argue that this is not safe to do. That I can brick my radio, and these comments are spread out all over on different forums and to different people.

These assertions are largely spreading FUD.  There is some basis in fact, but the claims greatly exaggerate the risks all to tell people not to do something with their own equipment.  I do not understand why they are doing this, other than they have not fully thought through their assertions, but I will address the most common claims they have made.

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In my never ending quest to waste time and do little that is actually productive, I decided to go through the memory dump I made with my Yaesu CAT EEPROM Dumping program.

The first thing I did was to write down all of my configuration settings.  These are the factory alignment variables that allow the radio to perform better than it would if it were at generic settings (usually anyway).

This made it easier for me to locate where those are in the EEPROM and rule that section out for further exploration.  By looking for a pattern in my options I can look for that same pattern in the dump and isolate it.

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I am starting to interface a bit more with my FT-897.  To this end, I needed to know the contents of the EEPROM.  I am able to get this via an undocumented CAT command and the CAT cable. I wrote a simple perl script ft897dump.pl that will dump the EEPROM contents of the radio.

This works for more than the FT-897, many Yaesu CAT capable radios will support this, such as the FT-817, FT-817ND, FT-847, FT-857, and the FT-857D. The CAT protocol is documented in the manual, however not all the commands that work are documented there.

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Last night I finally got around to making a computer interface to let my laptop, with the help of soundmodem, do packet radio with my FT-897.  This simple circuit (mostly stolen from here) lets me do just that.  I connect this to the DATA port not the CAT port on the back of the radio, allowing me to still use the CAT port to control the radio itself.  My additions to this schematic are largely adding the correct pin numbers, really trivial.

I have set this up, used xastir, and it was fully working.  To emulate a hardware TNC I used soundmodem, which lets me use my soundcard to encode/decode the data.  I was able to directly solder the components to a DB9 connector, which means they can hide in the DB9 hood.  I also have to use a USB->Serial converter, which is a PL2303 based chip (the most common serial/usb chip).  With my eeepc and this dongle I was more than able to generate the requisite power to switch the PTT, and my desktop radio talked to my VX8R HT (built in TNC).

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I have been asked by a few people to explain how you can tell the distance of a transmitter with only a scanner.  I have explained this a few times, and feel that it would be better to write it once more, and then just refer people to this page and be lazy about it

The only thing that you need to determine the distance is a scanner or other radio receiver with a signal strength indicator.  The finer the resolution of the signal strength indicator (or RSSI meter) the more accurate you can be.  While this method is not 100% it will get you fairly close.  If you take samples in a few different locations you can even estimate where the transmitter is to know better where to look.

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My base/mobile radio is a Yaesu FT-897. This is an all mode transceiver covering HF as well as 2m and 70cm. I have the optional batteries so I can go out in the sticks and still have a usable radio.

I also got the remote mic, which lets me control just about every radio function without having to mess with the radio itself, and as a bonus this mic also works as a morse keyer.