I’ve re-released my FT-817/818 iPad/iPhone/Mac interface cable and will be using these on park and summit activations in the near future. The cable has been confirmed as working with the FT-817/818/857 & 897 – in theory it should work with any Yaesu radio with the 6 pin mini-din data connector. Let’s revive PSK-31 & SSTV …
Read More
Author:josh
New toy! FT-950 finally arrived!
A few weeks ago I went on the hunt for an FT-950. I/’ve always wanted one and believed it would make a nice home rig for my activities – mainly chasing WWFF and SOTA activators when I’m at home. I scoured the second hand websites, Gumtree, Facebook and eBay and found two. One on eBay …
Read More
FT-817/818 Interfaces Delayed – Again
I got a delivery notification this morning. It was that my 6-pin mini din cables were in the post to arrive today. One of the components of the interfaces that have been tough to track down have been these cables which are needed to interface to the “data” port on the back of the radio. …
Read More
I got my first 44, but not before it all seemed lost.
I headed back up to Wambool Nature Reserve today to finish off my activation I started earlier in the week. On my first outing here I managed 17 QSOs, which qualified me for VKFF but I wanted to head back to finish off the WWFF. I planned to camp out over the UTC rollover again …
Read More
UnUn Kits available in the store
Just a quick post to say that the clip-on UnUn kits are now available for purchase in the store. If you need a custom size then let me know and we can make it happen!
3D Printed Radio Repairs (FT-50R Knob)
I picked up an FT-50R recently in a “box of random cables”, the battery was flat, it was missing an antenna and one of the knobs was missing. I borrowed the antenna from my Baofeng UV-3R original that I won in a raffle at the SERG convention I can’t remember how many years ago, and …
Read More
A cheap speech compressor for the FT-818ND and an expensive DSP.
Shortly after acquiring my FT-818ND I had a bunch of mods for it that I wanted to perform. I’ve had one once before and wasn’t really happy with the speech output on SSB, and the lack of DSP was annoying. So I had a look to see if the “One Big Punch” mic mod was …
Read More
My first WWFF Activation, VKFF-2015 – Wambool Nature Reserve – VK2MES
Now that my license has come through, I was looking to get out and start using the FT-818 for what I bought it for – QRP work. Looking at the various offerings for QRP, there’s a little bit more available compared to what was on offer last time, SOTA, POTA, WWFF, just to name a …
Read More
I got my license!
WOOHOO! So yeah, I got my license, I’m now officially VK2MES, formerly VK3XJM and VK3HGI. I ended up getting the invoice early in the morning of Easter Friday which I found a little peculiar, but I paid it via the ACMA portal and within half an hour I had my license in my inbox and …
Read More
A loaded EFHW Antenna for 40/20/(15)/10
UPDATE: In a previous revision of this post, I posted results on my VNA that showed this antenna gave a good SWR on virtually all the bands from 40-10. Further experimentation has shown this NOT to be the case. I believe the issue that was leading me to believe the “too good to be true” …
Read More