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- FT-857
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Remote operating FT857 ?
A "friend of mine " posted an interesting question / request .
He wants to operate , not just control via CAT , FT857 remotely. Specifically using Windows 10. So the question to ponder - what hardware to use on FT857 side of the wireless connection to connect PC to FT857 so you can talk or push a Morse? key. PC side should not be a big issue.? Would appreciate any comments ON THE SUBJECT. Keep in mind modified Newton's 2 law - for every action (post ) there is? a reaction - so AGAIN comments ON THE SUBJECT please. |
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Re: "repeater directory loader " ?
Dennis Yard
What Buzz says..... I have RT Systems for 6 different radios.? ?Spreadsheets are portable from one radio to another.? Dennis N1TEN ========================
On Friday, July 3, 2020, 07:27:05 PM PDT, Robert Castellow via groups.io <emtbuzz@...> wrote:
You don't actually download the directory to the radio. It is downloaded or imported to a program you use to program the radio. RT Systems is one. You can get cables and a program for most any modern radio. Once loaded into the program, you can organize any way you please. I have RT Systems cables for all my Yaesu radios. Once programmed?into one, I can import the info into all y other radios.?? Buzz KD4CXI |
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Re: "repeater directory loader " ?
You don't actually download the directory to the radio. It is downloaded or imported to a program you use to program the radio. RT Systems is one. You can get cables and a program for most any modern radio. Once loaded into the program, you can organize any way you please. I have RT Systems cables for all my Yaesu radios. Once programmed?into one, I can import the info into all y other radios.?? Buzz KD4CXI |
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Re: CAT reverse engineered ?
#cat
"to use the link for 857 and 897"
This is well done piece of work, kudos. Any hacker should read ! What is interesting - it is relatively old. Joseph, I am not sure about the "link to 857"? - can you clarify ? I did get chirp to work, was missing stuff. I do understand that people publish their "hobby work" voluntarily, but this is not first time "install" did no go well due to missing and "unadvertised " dependencies. Even simple "chirpw" was not mentioned. Perhaps Linux flavoring is not the great property of OS. It got little scary deleting and reinstalling packages. As soon as my Bluetooth FT857 gizmo arrives I am ready to "connect" PC to FT857 using it. There must be? C/C++? BT program to work with FT857 CAT.? Cheers Spoke too soon. It looks as 'CHIRP"? requiring? python? bombed my "terminal" application? - it will no longer execute / run on Ubuntu.? I am busy learning to use xterm instead. Bummer. |
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857 cost
I've just taken my 857 out of a car I'm selling, I've hardly used the radio
in five years+ and had forgotten what a great radio it is. I bought this 857D in Nov 2005 and paid A$999 from Andrews in Sydney (Australia). Andrews are currently selling the 857D for A$1799! Perhaps I should have bought 50 of them? :) In any event it is a clear indicator of what a well designed radio the 857 is. |
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Re: Rigblaster Plug n Play problem
John Geiger W5TD
Hi Larry, Might be RF getting into the radio/computer.? I have had issues like this before.? Do you have torrids you can wind the cables around?? That fixed the problem for me. 73 John AF5CC On Thu, Jul 2, 2020 at 7:23 PM larry fields <n6hpx1@...> wrote: ? ?Hello, I am trying to connect my FT857d to a Plug n Play, all the cables and connections are right and? I just spent 2 days doing this. I have most of it working and been trying to use it with the WSJT-X, the main problem is when I attempt to get it to transmit on the program a large audio tone comes out of the radio. it continues to keys it but the tone is like I was sending a cw morse code tone.. |
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Rigblaster Plug n Play problem
larry fields
? ?Hello, I am trying to connect my FT857d to a Plug n Play, all the cables and connections are right and? I just spent 2 days doing this. I have most of it working and been trying to use it with the WSJT-X, the main problem is when I attempt to get it to transmit on the program a large audio tone comes out of the radio. it continues to keys it but the tone is like I was sending a cw morse code tone..
Does anyone know if there is a setting to keep this from doing this My computer is a Laptop Dell windows 7.? Larry du1/n6hpx |
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Re: CAT reverse engineered ?
#cat
Yes it was one of the popular windows based rig control programs that was hitting the EEPROM all the time and caused damage. They disabled the features that were at fault in later versions of the program. Use caution when rolling your own. You can make the CAT interface equivalent to operating the radio by hand as far as EEPROM write cycles. That's what I did. 73, Joseph W6JHP On Thu, Jul 2, 2020 at 2:48 PM Dave AA6YQ <aa6yq@...> wrote: + AA6YQ comments below |
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Re: CAT reverse engineered ?
#cat
+ AA6YQ comments below
Actually I would encourage people to use the link for 857 and 897. It is almost identical and I was able to figure everything out on an 857 and 897 using this amazing reference. I think one notable difference is how VHF and UHF power levels are stored since they allow up to 50W and 20W respectively. If you change settings in the radio and then dump out the EEPROM contents you can see what's changing and where. Off the top of my head I think everything else is identical. I ended up having to come up with my own technique to set ATT and IPO over the CAT interface. It involves writing to EEPROM and switching bands to get them loaded correctly as there is no direct way to do that via the CAT interface on the back of the radio. I don't know if there is a better way, but it works. I don't write to the EEPROM often but I've probably cycled ATT/IPO hundreds of times now. Every time you toggle ATT/IPO/change the frequency and then switch bands your settings get written to EEPROM. That's how the radio remembers your last frequency on each band. Also the CAT interface for the Yaesu MH-59A8J mic allows more direct control of the microprocessor in the radio. You can do things like override the volume/squelch levels from the knobs on the radio which I always wanted to do. I never had time to set up an analyzer and reverse engineer that interface, but there's a project for someone savvy enough. + Similarly enthusiastic posts described exploiting the KA7OEI information to provide better control of the FT-817. Warnings that that the EEPROM write budget is fixed were recklessly disregarded. Years later, some EEPROMs have stopped functioning, and there's no pin-for-pin compatible replacement part; those radios are bricked. 73, Dave, AA6YQ |
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Re: CAT reverse engineered ?
#cat
Actually I would encourage people to use the link for 857 and 897. It is almost identical and I was able to figure everything out on an 857 and 897 using this amazing reference. I think one notable difference is how VHF and UHF power levels are stored since they allow up to 50W and 20W respectively. If you change settings in the radio and then dump out the EEPROM contents you can see what's changing and where. Off the top of my head I think everything else is identical. I ended up having to come up with my own technique to set ATT and IPO over the CAT interface. It involves writing to EEPROM and switching bands to get them loaded correctly as there is no direct way to do that via the CAT interface on the back of the radio. I don't know if there is a better way, but it works. I don't write to the EEPROM often but I've probably cycled ATT/IPO hundreds of times now. Every time you toggle ATT/IPO/change the frequency and then switch bands your settings get written to EEPROM. That's how the radio remembers your last frequency on each band. Also the CAT interface for the Yaesu MH-59A8J mic allows more direct control of the microprocessor in the radio. You can do things like override the volume/squelch levels from the knobs on the radio which I always wanted to do. I never had time to set up an analyzer and reverse engineer that interface, but there's a project for someone savvy enough. 73, Joseph W6JHP On Thu, Jul 2, 2020 at 1:18 AM Dan <yo3ggx@...> wrote: Front panel use a special communication interface/protocol with the main |
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Re: CAT reverse engineered ?
#cat
Wow, thanks.
Ton of stuff. Even in my favorite - C code. This will take some time to digest. I'll start with making sure I do not write / access ANY calibration data. I am surprised somebody actually used Arduino for something more than "flashing LED". My last attempt to use "Due" was a big flop. Today my choice of frustration is Raspberry Pi ( 3B)? HI HI HI 73 Vaclav AA7EJ |
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Re: CAT reverse engineered ?
#cat
Front panel use a special communication interface/protocol with the main body, as most or the processing is performed in the front panel. Is not a standard CAT type link.
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Regarding CAT (over CAT connector in the back), the most advanced investigation was performed for FT817 by KA7OEI () Unfortunately similarities with FT857 are minimal, even if the protocol looks almost the same. 73 Dan YO3GGX On 02-Jul-20 12:57 AM, Dave AA6YQ wrote:
+ AA6YQ comments below |
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Re: CAT reverse engineered ?
#cat
¿ªÔÆÌåÓýIf you want to start searching for "hidden" FT857 CAT commands, I've developed a Java application named FT8x7 EEPROM Analyzer.You can download it from my web site here: Online user guide (multilingual) is available here: And the offline (PDF) user guide here: ? This app does not write to the EEPROM, just read. If you discover some new commands, please publish them here. 73 Dan YO3GGX On 02-Jul-20 2:37 AM, vaclav_sal via
groups.io wrote:
Yes, when EEPROMS came to be their spec would often included "number of write cycles ". |
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Re: CAT reverse engineered ?
#cat
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
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Re: I am "loosing" repeater offset
Cheers to Chuck... and thank you for your service!? On Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:46 PM w6jhp <falcongsr@...> wrote:
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Re: 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. |
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Re: CAT reverse engineered ?
#cat
+ AA6YQ comments below
I do understand that FT857 CAT has LIMITED sets of commands. I have run into "external CAT display" hardware. IMHO - for using tiny iPhone display it seems overpriced. What interests me - I noticed "scan ' display on one of the pictures. Looks as not a "standard" CAT command, but I may be wrong. So the question of the day - did anybody actually reverse engineered the factory standard CAT commands and in the process "discovered" some of not published commands? + Yes, years ago. Many of the undocumented commands involve writing to the transceiver's EEPROM, which has a fixed write budget. The exhaustion of this write budget by applications that exploit these undocumented commands coupled with the unavailability of replacement EEPROMs has evidently resulted in the premature retirement of several FT-817s, and a "stop doing that!" warning from Yaesu. 73, Dave, AA6YQ |
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Re: I am "loosing" repeater offset
¿ªÔÆÌåÓýJust my two scents, I am using CHIRP to deal
with memory with my 857D and 897. Le 01/07/2020 ¨¤ 15:10, Eric a ¨¦crit?:
-- Thierry, F-14314, JN38JK, Delta Loop Antenna ~83m |
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Re: I am "loosing" repeater offset
You can use CHIRP instead. Not as fully functional as FTBasic but will program the memories and backup the memories.
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Leonard K. Pennock AD7AS Those who walk bravely through life, unafraid of loss or failure, find that they very rarely lose or fail. On 7/1/20 8:29 AM, vaclav_sal via groups.io wrote:
On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 06:22 AM, Leonard K. Pennock wrote: |
Dan
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