Milt, N5IA recently asked about making the FT-980 work with either CT
or NA. The FT-980 is one of Yaesu's earliest radios which had the
CATS computer interface. While I am not familiar with the specifics
of the FT-980, in recent times I have been asked to support the FT-767
and the FT-736, two radios of roughly the same vintage. In studying
the data protocols between these radios and the computer, I found that
while commands were provided to control virtually every front panel
function, Yaesu failed to provide a protocol to read ANYTHING from the
radio (frequency, mode, NADA!). Without this capability (without
which the computer cannot follow the radio band-wise) the rest is not
worth fooling with. Apparently CT and TRLog felt the same.
Yaesu has proven to be the most difficult of all the radio
manufacturers with regards to the computer interface. Many of you
might not be aware that the early FT-1000's would lock up for four
seconds while sending data to the computer. As a result, none of the
contest logging programs would support it and sales of the radio
languished until this was fixed. Furthermore, experience has shown
that data coming out of certain Yaesu radios often does not match what
the manuals say, which means that many times I have to have an actual
radio to make Yaesu radio support work. BTW, Kenwood has hands down
and far away the best radio data protocols that are constant from
radio to radio. I wish all the manufacturers would copy Kenwood...
73,
Dave/K8CC
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