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FT-980 Operating Quirks
I thought I would start a topic on operating quirks of the FT-980 that we have found.?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'll start it off with one for operating with a non-QSK Linear Amp: WIth a non-QSK linear you don't want the linear's clunky mechancial relays trying to replicate the dits/dahs on the FT-980 output stream which is what will happen if the PTT out mirrors the CW stream. The typical fix/method is to use a PTT "delay" function on either your Keyer or Rig. The FT-980 has such a delay function, but in order to make it work you have to turn on the VOX. This isn't well documented, is perhaps non-intuitive (at least to me), and took a bit to figure out. The reason is that the FT-980 internal delay is actually shared by both the VOX circuit, and the CW circuit (all the non-PTT internal functions). There is a mention on this on page 29 of the manual for QSK tuning, but you need to extrapolate for non-QSK operation. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- -Mat Breton, N8TW |
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Re: FT=980 boards and accessories on EBAY.
... not much fun, and also... boards may be incompatible between vintages. Dave's radio that I was working on had, among other problems, no CW sidetone. It was keying up OK but gave no feedback to the operator.? I traced the problem to the FSK board where CW functions are also processed.? I thought I would take a shortcut and use the board from Dave's parts radio.? Well, not so fast.? The parts radio was an older vintage and that FSK board had different connectors!? So I ended up fixing the defective board where I found a cold solder joint on the trace side. Yaesu placed there a spaghetti of diodes and jumpers.? One of them was just tucked in.? Took me a while to figure that out, as I had no schematic for this board version. 73, Wald N4PL
On Thursday, February 25, 2021, 7:34:38 PM EST, Mat Breton <i.m.n8tw@...> wrote:
... but for some of us maybe not as much fun! :)? The hardest repair I did on the FT-980 was tracking down a broken wire inside of T04 on the AF board. I was able to remove it, repair the hairthin wire, and reassemble it somehow. Since it was an intermittent connection, I spent weeks prodding around before I discovered that pressure on part of the AF board would flex the transformer and cause it to open: once open it was easy to track down to T04. Ugh ... maybe not so much fun after all ... -- -Mat Breton, N8TW |
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Re: FT=980 boards and accessories on EBAY.
... but for some of us maybe not as much fun! :)?
The hardest repair I did on the FT-980 was tracking down a broken wire inside of T04 on the AF board. I was able to remove it, repair the hairthin wire, and reassemble it somehow. Since it was an intermittent connection, I spent weeks prodding around before I discovered that pressure on part of the AF board would flex the transformer and cause it to open: once open it was easy to track down to T04. Ugh ... maybe not so much fun after all ... -- -Mat Breton, N8TW |
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Re: Still Kicking after 40 Years ...
Hi Mat, OK, thx for the update.? If you had any problems with the character truncation you would have known that right away... I did figure that out the hard way.? My first QSO with the FT-980 was ZL2AIM who replied to me as I4PL and turned his beam to EU HI.? I quickly realized what was going on and switched to MOX. As far as the Curtis keyer board... you have nothing to regret for not having it.? That IC requires a perfect paddle timing otherwise it immediately cancels the current character and starts a new one.? It is an art to master this keyer, especially if your expectations were set by, say, WB4VVF and later versions that had the "last character memory".? FYI, I ended up ordering the Pico-keyer kit and built it on my own PCB that mounts inside the radio.? Connects via the same header.? I added a DC switching circuit so when the rig powers up the keyer uses the +9V internal supply line and cuts off the Lithium battery.? The front panel pot wiring required a small surgery though.? I have it all documented.? If you are interested I can upload it all to the server. 73, Wald N4PL
On Tuesday, February 23, 2021, 8:32:45 PM EST, Mat Breton <i.m.n8tw@...> wrote:
I was operating barefoot for the contest, so no QSK. My Henry linear doesn't have QSK capability natively. I've thought about adding it, but it would be expensive and a good-sized project. I use an external keyer (K1EL). I don't even own the FT-980 curtis keyer pcb. I'm so used to the K1EL that it would be issue to swatch, I think. WIth the K1EL I've never received any feedback on a shortened initial dit, and I haven't noticed any miscopies that would indicate it. I also suspect it might be a curtis interaction with the FT-980. I note that it looks like the board was upgraded for later radios (FT-902, etc), and maybe they fixed this issue. The PCBs are backwards compatibile I believe. -- -Mat Breton, N8TW |
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Re: Still Kicking after 40 Years ...
I was operating barefoot for the contest, so no QSK. My Henry linear doesn't have QSK capability natively. I've thought about adding it, but it would be expensive and a good-sized project.
I use an external keyer (K1EL). I don't even own the FT-980 curtis keyer pcb. I'm so used to the K1EL that it would be issue to swatch, I think. WIth the K1EL I've never received any feedback on a shortened initial dit, and I haven't noticed any miscopies that would indicate it. I also suspect it might be a curtis interaction with the FT-980. I note that it looks like the board was upgraded for later radios (FT-902, etc), and maybe they fixed this issue. The PCBs are backwards compatibile I believe. -- -Mat Breton, N8TW |
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Re: Still Kicking after 40 Years ...
I can chime in to this conversation... while Mat was operating ARRL contest I did some work on Dave's faulty FT-980.?? Dave has one that is fully operational and I took his second 980 home for a repair.? I can report quite a bit of progress.? I think Dave's radio qualifies to be buttoned up and returned to him soon.? This radio had several problems like no CW sidetone, no FSK tones (related), bad HAM/GEN relay and non-operational APF/NOTCH controls.? That part donor radio that Dave mentioned came in really handy. As far as the Morse character truncation... I have never positively confirmed that my keyer board fixed the problem. This issue was present when I got the rig from Dave and then disappeared when I replaced the Curtis board with the Pico-keyer (also mounted inside the radio).? Maybe the keying device (FET) works better with the 980 QSK circuit.? But this is just my speculation... Mat, I hope you did not have such issues with QSK.? Or, maybe you have not used it.? Congrats on having this radio put in such a good use! .? I myself usually shy from contests and prefer chasing DX.? My FT-980 has proven itself to be a competitive rig despite the age!? Check out my video clip that I recorded after having worked JT1CO, barefoot: I have two 600 Hz filters in this radio (low and high IF). 73, Wald N4PL
On Tuesday, February 23, 2021, 10:42:22 AM EST, Dave Thompson <thompson@...> wrote:
Mat, Great on running the FT-980 in the ARRL CW DX.? I have had a 980 since 1983.? My first is now at N4PL.? Have you run into the first character truncation.? I found this years ago and never got it fixed.? K7JA chip was the VP for Yaesu worked with me on this.? Wald N4PL fixed this by installing a?? keyer in place of the old curtis keyer. I worked and confirmed 167 DXCC on 160 SSB with the original FT-980.? My second FT-980 was one converted to GEN TX by Phil K4DPK.? I ran this on 60 meters.? This one died and N4PL and I use this as a parts radio.? I was gifted 2 more by a silent key family and N4PL who is a great tech has gotten fully working for me.? BTW K7JA said the 980 had a great receiver. 73 Dave K4JRB -----Original Message----- |
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Still Kicking after 40 Years ...
I ran my FT-980 through the recent ARRL DX CW Contest. No sweat, Primary fan never came on, no issues. Love that. Used a K1EL keyer, drove it with my ACLog contest software (logger was the keyer memory, not the K1EL) via USB. I used a signalink USB to capture the audio out and ran it into MRP40 as a decoder. With most of the contestors running at 35-35 wpm, I was in over my head without it. I could get the exchanges, but the MRP40 really helped with the call signs.
I have the optional 300Hz 8-pole xtal filter (XF-455.8MCN) in the FT980 as well as the 600Hz filter. The300 Hz filter makes all the difference in a contest: I can switch that on and listen to everything else fade out. -- -Mat Breton, N8TW |
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Re: CAT Interface: Hamlib Library Interface
The hamlib team moved the FT-980 backend from Alpha -> Beta status.
The next thing I have tried to do is add the clarifier functions. These actually consist of five routines: 1. Set (Turn on/off) the TX or RX Clarifier 2. Get the on/off status of the TX or RX Clarifier 3. Get the RX/TX Clarifier "offset" (same routine for both) 4. Set the RX Clarifier frequency 5. Set the TX Clarifier frequency (it is possible that 4 & 5 may be combined ... not sure yet) The first three work fine. But when I try to set either the TX or RX Clarifier frequency, the FT-980 sets op_freq = HAM_vfo_freq = vfo_clar_freq = the new freq. Basically, instead of just changing the vfo_clar_freq, it sets all of them. My procedure: ? ?i. turn on RX Clarifier ? ?ii. Set the operating frequency to the new value Any thoughts from anyone? -- -Mat Breton, N8TW |
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Re: "Hidden" Capabilties of the FT-980
I can't see any way of directly "activating" the AUX bands via CAT ... I was a bit too optimistic.
I'll wait until I crack open the FT-980 again to tap those lines ... perhaps combine a few projects together (TXCO, etc). What I will do is drop the latest ft980 backend files in (just accepted by the github master), as well as a test file called "ft-980_test.c". Instructions to compile are in the top of the file (make file not required), but you need to put it into "Hamlib\tests" directory to compile to avoid having to add some paths. This file was designed as a test-vector, to automate the ft-980 backend testing a bit. It should be easy to modify to do whatever you want ;) I will actually be doing a version to optimze the serial timing parameters (running lots of loops and playing with the parameters). -- -Mat Breton, N8TW |
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"Hidden" Capabilties of the FT-980
While working on the Hamlib CAT interface improvements I've come two items that are "new" to me and are not documented/well-documented:
1. 4 "Hidden" Memories only accessible via CAT 2. 3 "Aux" Bands, only controllable via CAT The four hidden memories bring the total from 12 -> 16 ... but you can't access 13-16 via the front panel ... only through the CAT interface. Page 1 of the operating manual clearly states that their are only 12 memories ... not 16. The 3 Aux bands are shown as "VFO"s: AUX1, AUX2, AUX3 in the CAT manual. I believe that it isn't a coincidence that their are 3 AUX band spaces on the RF board. It will be interesting to see if these can also be activated via CAT control ... meaning we might not need to have/make an "AUX Band Data ROM" to add 30M, 60M to the rig ... just the RF board components. I think the only way to tell for sure is to give it a try ... unless anyone has tried (or knows of someone who tried) this before. I'll add this as a follow-on project after I get the Hamlib interface done. -Mat -- -Mat Breton, N8TW |
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Re: CAT Interface: Hamlib Library Interface
You have to download the entire Hamlib structure (all the rig backends, the support routines, etc), as the various libraries are all cascaded dependencies. But you really only need to do it once.
Note: If you download the "release", I believe all the makefiles are already generated. If you download the "daily" scrum, then you need to autogenerate them (at least I had to). There are 3 ways to compile once you have the files/makefiles downloaded: 1. You can compile the makefile in ./rigs/yaesu. This is where ft980.x is. I do this as a periodic quick check, as I don't fully trust the linter I'm using yet. However, this ONLY compiles the yaesu backends locally 2. You can compile the entire hamlib by doing a "make" in the "root" directory. I do this after I complete a series of changes ... just to make sure my local changes don't break something somewhere else. 3. You can compile and install (usually in your /usr directory) with a "sudo make install" You are correct that the only files I think that we need to worry about are the ft980.x ones ... but we can't compile/test them by themselves. The only files I'm currently working on are ft980.c & ft980.h (new). So, once you have it compiling I can send them to you, you can replace them in ./rigs/yaesu. Note: at some point I will modify or make a new test-vector binary in ./tests ... after the VFOs are proven out maybe. -- -Mat Breton, N8TW |
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Re: CAT Interface: Hamlib Library Interface
That is awesome!
There are a number of "test programs" included with the package. The specific one designed for testing the back ends is "rigctl".? The command to make it work with the FT-980? (using a USB serial driver) would be "rigctl -m 1031 -r /dev/ttyUSB0", where 1031 tell hamlib we are using an FT-980 rig. You can use it like this interactively, send commands to execute via the command line, or direct a setof commands into it via "<".
Note: I plan to also make an automated test vector routine (to avoid the potential of screwing up something already working with a later change) ... but that won't work for first time testing, and examining corner cases. Versions: The "release" version on github is the one with the bug where you can't access memory 16.
The "daily" version on github has the memory fix in it, but you'll need to set it up to compile (I put instructions in dropbox).
The one on my computer has the VFO fix since I haven't pushed it upstream to github yet.
-- -Mat Breton, N8TW |
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Re: CAT Interface: Hamlib Library Interface
Just a quick update: I'm continuing the FT-980 Hamlib development effort. I've completed testing/fixing the existing code, and have now started to add functionality.
First up was "targetable VFO": previously you could only change the "active" settings (ex if you were operating GEN, you could only change the GEN mode, frequ). Now you tell the API which VFO you want to modify. This was first because I need it to do other stuff, like program memories, run test scripts, etc. I'll add a more low-hanging fruit and will push this "Alpha-2" version up to the root Github repository. Since this is a low-priority hobby effort, I expect it to be a couple months before I have all the FT-980 functionality? Please please please: we need beta testers! I can help get you set up (easy if you have a Linux box), but we need more eyes, more PCs, and more FT-980's than just mine to ensure a robust work-product. -- -Mat Breton, N8TW |
Mat Breton N8TW
N4PL