Hi.
<snip>
There are 2 reasons why I have used the FT-817 data connector. One is
the receive audio level is independent of the volume control.
Secondly, it avoids having to plug and unplug the microphone when
switching from phone to digital mode.
And the 817's data port isn't all that bad, if you approach it from
a different perspective. I hate soldering anything around DIN-like
plugs, so I bought a cheap PS/2 mouse at a local electronics store
(Fry's Electronics - for $4.99). I cut the mouse off the cable, and
then put a DB-9 on there in place of the mouse to work with my
KAM98 TNC. I threw together this cable quickly the Friday night
before ARRL Field Day, and had no interference problems when operating
in the forest with my radio, TNC, laptop, etc. Sometime I will make
some time to get a Linux PSK program working on my laptop but for
now even RTTY with the 817 is not bad at all!
If you wanted to use the narrow CW filter for digital modes, you
have to be in the DIG mode (RTTY, USER-L/U, PSK-L/U) to get to
it. This may not matter for PSK but could be something to consider
when working older digi-modes like RTTY.
Back to work.......
73! Patrick WD9EWK/7 in Phoenix AZ
