[SD-User] FT-817nd and SD

[Allen Wootton]

Hello:

I am trying to get my FT-817nd to operate properly with SD's rig control.  I would like to be able to have both rig control and keying operating from a netbook computer.  So far I have not been totally successful in achieving this, although I suspect the problems I am experiencing may be relatively easy to solve.

I  first began with a Yaesu CT-62 cable connected between the serial port of my old PC (running XP) and my FT-817.  I found that if the FT-817's narrow filter is turned on when switching the rig between SSB and CW, the SD screen does not switch to CW.  As soon as the narrow 
filter is switched off (on the rig) SD changes to CW and SD follows the changes CW-->SSB or vice versa without problem.  SD doesn't change the rig between SSB and CW, i.e. on typing SSB into the SD entry there is no change.  Also, I haven't been able to achieve direct frequency entry from SD to the rig.  The rig's frequency is read out on the SD screen, however.

Since I want to use SD running on a netbook computer to control my FT-817, I constructed a USB to TTL interface cable that uses an FTDI RS-232 to TTL cable.  This cable gives the same results as the Yaesu CT-62.  My homemade cable also provides an RTS line which I hope to use for keying the FT-817.  At first I had trouble getting the USB virtual com port shared between rig control and keying.  I found that the SHARECOM command fixed that.  In spite of com port sharing, however, there is still no keying of the RTS line of the USB to TLL converter.  RTS remains high continuously.  The TUNE command brings RTS low as does keyboard keying and the memory keys (but no 
characters are sent from memory or keyboard - just a continual low).  

I checked through the SD manual and saw that deleting the init file and restarting the computer and SD might solve these problems so I tried this.  The result was some new unexpected behaviours - for exmple, now an SSB to CW change on the radio didn't show up on the SD screen.  I went back to the original init file.

I don't think that the problem I'm experiencing is caused by my homemade USB to TTL cable because I tried using this cable with Ham Radio Deluxe and it works perfectly and provides exactly the same operation as the Yaesu CT-62 cable. 

For most of my testing I used my old PC running Windows XP, but I also tried it on my new netbook computer (Windows 7 starter ed.) and there I get the same results. All of these findings suggest to me that there may just be some minor configuration error(s) in my settings.  I would certainly appreciate any suggestions as to what I should try next so as to make the rig control and keying operate correctly. 

73,

Allen, VE7BQO