I haven't managed to find the originating correspondence but the CAT commands and their structure (at least?for the publicly available commands)?is no secret.?The first port of call is the FT-857 manual commencing on page 113.? The protocol is described in detail on page 114 with the commands detailed?in pages 115 & 116.
Also, a quick google search reveals:
1.?A FT-857 Arduino library (which appears to simulate the radio end of the connection) - .
2. A FT-857 Arduino library -
3. Arduino based S-meter (and a lot more) - GBP10 to get access to the source code -
4. The Hamlib library for the FT-857?-
As for seeking out 'undocumented' commands - extensive reverse engineering was done many years ago however the outcome was not placed into the public domain.? At least one piece of software used these extensively however that software no longer does so.
As Leszek Jakubowski? writes at
Disclamer
Doing anything but the documented actions through the CAT interface can ZEROIZE your radio. This does not mean factory reset, this means your radio will be UNUSABLE. That's why you're doing all this on your own responsibility.
Yaesu FT-8x7 radios keep their calibration data in the same EEPROM as other settings like TX Power, Frequency, beep volume etc. If a write to EEPROM corrupts the data it may cause a panic mode in the radio which will then erase the whole EEPROM.
73,
Cameron - VK2CKP/VK2RA
??
?
----- Original Message -----
To:
<[email protected]>
Cc:
Sent:
Wed, 01 Jul 2020 16:37:55 -0700
Subject:
Re: [FT-857] CAT reverse engineered ? #cat
Yes, when EEPROMS came to be their spec would often included "number of write cycles ".
Usually in mid 100000. To my knowledge nobody? ever seriously tested that limit.
Of course today's embedded EEPROM technology may have bigger "life span" then the hardware using it.
I am no mathematician nor password hacker , but it woudl probably be easy to find? out right combination of 5 bytes to come up with valid unpublished commands in a hurry.
In the meantime I'll? keep looking for open source code for basic / standard CAT operation for FT857.
