Yaesu 450D CAT Control

CAT Control on Yaesu 450D

Equipment needed

A PC, RS232 cables and luck..

Nothing special on the PC is needed. A simple USB->RS232 adapter and a CAT audio interface to connect to the data port. I used a Line In/Out audio interface to connect as I didn't have get the quality I wanted from a Microphone input on a cheap-n-nasty interface.

Audio Interface (PC)

 

The Behringer UCA202 from Ebay was picked as it used Line input and output levels. The interface is more suited for 600 Ohm line terminations that the Yaesu prefers.

For the Radio, I used the diagram at this site to connect to two RCA plugs. I tried with and without 600Ohm audio transformers but I didn't see any performance difference.

Digital interface

Nothing special here... a 1:1 straight through cable is needed. Pins 2,3,5 and 7,8 are wired 1:1 on a Female to Female DB-9 and that's all

PC Software

As most of the time I am on FT8 or WSPR, I will be showing how WSJT software setup works. I have had very ropey results with the CAT software and things go bad quite often.

To setup the PC, (WSJT-X)

I originally left everything at DEFAULT but that seemed to be the cause of randomness. I ended up adding an oscilloscope trace to the serial port and noticed that data was not being received properly - and thats when I realised things were not good.

Playing with numbers, I managed to get it all working again using 8 Data Bits, 2 Stop Bits and no handshaking

I set the baud rate to 4800 baud to give the best chance of good data over the link. 

The Radio

On the radio, using the (F)unction menu, The option CAT TOT was set to 1000 (its defaulted at 10) and CAT RTS/CTS was disabled

HF Noise Generator

HF Noise Generator

One of the tools needed for building a HF receiver is a noise generator. I can go in to the physics of revered biasing transistor components - but I just wont. 

The usage of the noise generator is to test Band Filters - and to see how well the perform to white noise. 

I built a quick one based on KB8OJH's practical examples and it works a treat. The dead-bug style construction.

The Spectrum analyser shows some good results.

From 1Mhz to 30Mhz its not quite flat, but it has lots of frequency components in it.


from 1Mhz to 200Mhz, there is a large drop from 56Mhz onwards, but I don't care too much about that side.

For a sim

Adventures in Antennas (The Random Wire)

Adventures with Antennas

The Random wire

From my previous post, I was experimenting in a random wire antenna. The first thing I needed was a 9:1 UnUn to get the antenna impedances to a range the autotuner can handle. I followed the blog entry Magnetic Longwire Balun which worked out very well. 

The main ingredient was 10.6Mtrs of wire,a 6M telescoping fiberglass pole and some bungee straps to fix the pole to the fence-post.

Right next to the antenna is a metal fence, which I dont like! so I opted to elevate the base of the antenna to the top of the fence post. It was convenient as the counterpoise was the actual fence. 

You will notice that the black pole is leaning forward as I wanted the the last 4 meters to be a pseudo-V shape.

The antenna analyser shows that the antenna being quite poor in the frequencies I want to use; which is good.

Surprisingly it show that it will work okay from 18Mhz.. well barely!

The performance

Connecting to the LDG Z-11 Pro tuner, it had no problem of reducing the SWR to 1.5 and below. 

Firing up WSPR and running the radio at a massive 2 watts - I was impressed with the spots; considering it was made in 10 minutes at my dismal skill level.

The random wire will not win any awesome propagation awards, but as a compromise antenna it does the trick.

Adventures with Antennas - Dipole [Previous]

Adventures with Antennas (the Dipole)

Adventures with Antennas (the Dipole)

(playing with wires)

As all the HF radio equipment I use is QRP, I tinkered with the usual inverted V configuration. Mine is constructed using scaffolding poles, aluminum sections and lots of concrete with a pivot base. Just cos it pivots, doesn't mean it is easy to lower and raise. 

There are 2 antennas in the picture, the inverted V is the silver one. The apex is 10mtrs and it has a 20M and 40M HF dipole elements attached.

Its pretty much tuned for the 2 bands I want to use, but the LDG Z-11 Pro autotuner I use will make a match of a wet piece of string. 

The other antenna shown is a random wire experiment as it was the first time I have ventured in to the world of the UnUn.

But first, the Dipole; from the antenna analyser, its tuned for the frequencies I want. -perfect-

showing the HF spectrum from the analyser, the two resonant frequencies where tbe impedance is 50ohms or there about is shown.

Watch out for 2E0GRU on the Airwaves.

Next [Adventures with Antennas - Random Wire]
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