KM1NDY

A Secret Little Adventure Ham Radio Blog

Waffles & FT-8 (A Non-Sequitur): Programming The Yaesu FT-857D To Play Nice With WSJT-X

by KM1NDY

Few things scream lazy brunch more than a rainy Saturday of a long holiday weekend. And a homemade stack of butter and honey waffles segued quite nicely into figuring out how to operate the FT-8 digimode on my Yaesu FT-857D battlehorse. At least that’s what I told the OM!

I was ready for this moment! I had all of the hardware needed to get on the air, including:

  • https://shop.tigertronics.com/SignaLink-USB-p-n-SLUSB6PM-SLUSB6PM.htmYaesu FT-857D transceiver
  • Power supply (Bioenno 15AH Lifepo battery) and power cable
  • LDG Z100 Plus Autotuner with Y-ACC interface cable
  • 40M OCF dipole with ample RG-8X coax
  • Windows 10 PC running WSJT-X software
  • SignaLink USB interface (Part #SLUSB6PM). Note: Consider getting the special “plug & play” jumper to make life a bit easier.
  • Signalink 6-pin mini DIN Data / Accessory Port Connector (Part #SLCAB6PM) Note: This comes with the SLUSB6PM purchase.
  • RT Systems USB-62C Programming (cat control) cable
  • A USB Type A to Type B cable

I found this youtube video and this website and this wonderful document very helpful in setting up the FT-857D for FT-8. It took a combination of these instructions to get FT-8 to work. So here are my FT8 menu settings on the 857D, Important ones are bolded. Also note that “DNR”, “DNF”, “DBF”, “SPL”, “NB”, and “CLAR” should be off. AGC should be set to “AUTO”. The “IPO” may staff on.

001 EXT MENU ON
002 144MHz ARS ON
003 430MHz ARS ON
004 AM&FM DIAL ENABLE
005 AM MIC GAIN 50
006 AM STEP 5KHz
007 APO TIME OFF
008 ARTS BEEP RANGE
009 ARTS ID OFF
010 ARTS IDW YAESU
011 BEACON TEXT 1 “1”
012 BEACON TIME OFF
013 BEEP TONE 880Hz
014 BEEP VOL 0
015 CAR LSB R 0Hz
016 CAR LSB T 0Hz
017 CAR USB R 0Hz
018 CAR USB T 0Hz
* 019 CAT RATE 38400bps (Note: Make sure this matches settings in WSJT-X software.)
* 020 CAT/LIN/TUN CAT
021 CLAR DIAL SEL SEL
022 CW AUTO MODE ON
023 CW BFO USB
024 CW DELAY 250ms
025 CW KEY REV NORMAL
026 CW PADDLE ELEKEY
027 CW PITCH 700HZ
028 CW QSK 10ms
029 CW SIDE TONE 10
030 CW SPEED 12wpm
031 CW TRAINING A:
032 CW WEIGHT 1:3.0
033 DCS CODE T:023
034 DCS INV Tn-Rn
035 DIAL STEP FINE
* 036 DIG DISP 0Hz
* 037 DIG GAIN 50
* 038 DIG MODE USER-U (I think this means “user defined, upper side band. I believe all digimodes use USB regardless of band.)
* 039 DIF SHIFT 0Hz
* 040 DIG VOX 0
041 DISP COLOR MODE: 32
042 DISP CONTRAST 10
043 DISP INTENSITY 3
044 DISP MODE AUTO2
045 DSP BPF WIDTH 240Hz
046 DSP HPF CUTOFF 100Hz
047 DSP LPF CUTOFF 6000Hz
048 DSP MIC EQ BOTH
049 DSP NR LEVEL 1
050 EMERGENCY OFF
051 FM MIC GAIN 50
052 FM STEP 5KHz
053 HOME→VFO ON
054 LOCK MODE DIAL
055 MEM GROUP OFF
056 MEM TAG (blank)
057 M/V/SEL DIAL MODE = MIC GAIN
058 MIC SCAN ON
059 MIC SEL NOR
060 MTR ARX SEL VLT
061 MTR ATX SEL PWR
062 MTR PEAK HOLD ON
063 NB LEVEL 50
064 OP FILTER 1 FIL1
065 PG A MONI
066 PG B Q.SPL
067 PG C MONI
068 PG ACC MONI
069 PG P1 Q.SPL
070 PG P2 TCALL
071 PKT 1200 50
072 PKT 9600 50
073 PKT RATE 1200 bps
074 PROC LEVEL 50
* 075 RF POWER SET 10 (This is important because it turns the power down on your radio.)
076 RPT SHIFT 0.60Mhz
077 SCAN MODE TIME
078 SCAN RESUME 5
079 SPLIT TONE OFF
080 SQL/RF GAIN RF GAIN
081 SSB MIC GAIN 60
082 SSB STEP 1KHz
083 TONE FREQ 88.5
084 TOT TIME OFF
085 TUNER/ATAS ATAS (ALL)
086 TX IF FILTER CFIL
087 VOX DELAY 500 MS
088 VOX GAIN 50
089 XVTR A FREQ 14.074.00
090 XVTR B FREQ 14.074.00
091 XVTR SEL OFF

The WSJT-X software settings under “Radio” tab are:

RIG: YAESU FT-857
SERIAL PORT: COM4 (Note: check Device Manager to see what port the USB-62B Radio Cable is using)
BAUD RATE: 38400 (Note: This needs to match Menu Item 019 Cat Rate programmed into Yaesu)
DATA BITS: Default
STOP BITS: Default
HANDSHAKE: Default
POLL INTERVAL: 1 s
PTT METHOD: CAT
MODE: Data/Pkt
SPLIT OPERATION: None

Click the “TEST CAT” button; if it turns green you are good! Try the “TEST PTT” button; if it caused your radio to transmit you are good!

When I take a look at the wattmeter, set up between the autotuner and the antenna, I can see that 10 watts are getting out of my transceiver with this set up. Seems reasonable?

And you can see above, I made my 2nd ever FT-8 contact on one of my own radios with W3YNI using the settings I documented here. And the first ever with the Yaesu FT-857D. He will definitely be getting a QSL card! The only other FT-8 QSO I made was last year on the Yaesu FT-891. This was the only FT-8 contact I made today which is a bit disconcerting, but I run a very compromised system in the middle of South Boston, so not overly surprising, The importance of getting this system up and runniing is so that I can use it at Field Day. Our plan is to put the 857 on a 6M beam for FT-8, i.e., using it as our “free” vhf station. And since I am actively looking into acquiring a 6M yagi, there will probably be more on that to come!

73s as always!
KM1NDY