Tuesday
22
July
2008
FT-817 and the blocked transmit
- Posted by David at 18:46:16 // Read 192 times //
- Ham Radio, Transmitters, Receivers, QRP, Modifications
I recently bought one of these handhelds on steroids, you know the Yaesu ft-817nd.
The little cutie is well known for the wide coverage (0,1-56 / 76-154 / 420-470 MHz), and for the old ones (non-nd’s) there are many mods floating around on the net. But not that many touches the differences of the ft-817nd’s.
However I stumbled upon this piece of useful information, originally published by Philip Nowland - G4NVS (that should have all credits for this) and I just can’t resist to share it further
NOW DON’T USE THIS INFORMATION UNRESPONSIBLY! I share it because I believe that the radios capabilities should be avaliable fully, and not restricted so that the responsibility for the usage is on the operator and not decided for her/him by someone else.
Extended (or Wide-band) Transmit Coverage
Original FT-817 models may not cover the “new” section of of 40M (i.e. 7.1 to 7.2 MHz), or 60M (5MHz). As a result you might consider it necessary to extend the transmit coverage of this transceiver. The FT-817ND model comes configured for the new section of 40M, so this advice is unnecessary to use the newer frequencies in that band. However, you wish to transmit on the 60M band (i.e. 5MHz) if you have been issued with the notice of variation (NOV) to your UK license to allow you to do so. This can only be achieved by a fiddly modification which requires going in to the rig behind the front panel and changing the configuration of the six configuration links, or linking pads, i.e. solder-blob technology. This should not be necessary on earlier FT-817 transceivers (i.e. prior to the introduction of the ND series model).
There is a program (called Softjump) which which works with earlier FT-817 transceivers, and is used in conjunction with the CAT cable to change the configuration without making or unmaking the solder pads. Softjump is available for download from a number of sources, and has been provided free of charge from Peter May (VK2JCG, now VK2IT). His website is http://www.vk2it.net. This is a much preferable solution, with the only downside being that you have to re-run the program again if you ever do a reset on the transceivers micro, which should not happen to often, especially if you stay away from the transceiver’s hidden service menu.
This software works with earlier FT-817 transceivers, but … Softjump does not work on the current versions of the FT-817ND (it might have worked with some of the earlier ND models, but it does not now). I have spoken to VK2IT regarding this, and his explanation is, that when Yaesu introduced the D models of the FT-857 and the FT-897 (along with the FT-817ND), they changed the location of the address that holds the data copied from the solder pads, and made it inaccessible via the CAT cable. So the solution for these more advanced models of these three modern transceiver models, is to go inside and change the configuration of the solder link pads. That’s progress …! The same is true regarding later models of the FT-817ND, with respect to the Widebander program from M0BMN, which was used to wide-band earlier FT-817ND. It seems that Yaesu were placed under pressure from the FCC in the US to hinder the ability to obtain wide-band transmit facility via external software programming.
If you do need to obtain extended transmit for your UK model FT-817ND, then you could follow the modification information tech sheet issued by Yaesu UK, to achieve wideband HF settings, and make one amendment.
This modification information sheet is very clear, and describes what is necessary to get to, and change the configuration of the solders pads (J4001 to J4009). This information sheet was issued prior to the introduction of the FT-817ND model. On the basis of the configuration of these solder pads as found on current (2006 to 2007) models of the UK specification FT-817ND, the information effectively suggests opening the solder link J4005, which will extend the amateur band transmit facility wider than the UK bands, but not full transmit capability in the HF band (i.e. it does not give transmit capability on 5 MHz frequencies).
However, if you also close the solder link J4009, your transceiver will have full HF transmit (i.e. 1.8 MHz to 33 MHZ), and thus the FT-817ND can be used to transmit in the 60 metre (5 MHz) UK NOV frequencies. This final piece of information (regarding J4009) is not included in the Yaesu tech sheet, it is provided by me, but you should take note of the warnings (etc) made by Yaesu in their information, and should exercise every care to ensure that you do not transmit outside of the band limits as presented in your radio amateur license (or any notice of variation).
In short you do the following: Open J4005 and close J4009. This is very different to the information being published to achieve the same end on the FT-817 as found on mods.dk and Ham DMZ sites (which will not work on the current FT-817ND).
To download a copy of the Yaesu tech sheet - click here. This is a PDF file, so Adobe Acrobat Reader (or similar) is required to open and view this file. If your browser crashes out when downloading the PDF file, it has nothing to do with me, it is most likely because Internet Explorer currently seems to have problems picking up PDF files. Try Firefox - t should give you less problems!