Yaesu FT-450D one year anniversary

Well it is coming up to the 1st anniversary of the purchase of the FT-450D from Haydon Communications. In that time I have had occasional lockups of the rig requiring a power off reboot. I'm not sure why this happens. The connection to HRD via the CAT connector ceases and the front panel becomes non responsive requiring a reboot of the rig.

Other than that I have been extremely pleased with the radio. It is very sensitive and I have worked stations literally all over the world with it on no more than 35 watts.

Ham Radio Deluxe Macro Management on the Yaesu FT450D

HRD is capable at some powerful macro management. Consider this:
You want to program HRD to set your rig to your favourite repeater. This is not difficult IF you work out the logic.

Here are the steps:

• Set the operating frequency
• Set the operating mode
• Turn CTCSS encoding on - this will be needed on transmission but may also be needed on reception too.
• Set the repeater shift
• Set the repeater offset frequency
• Set the CTCSS frequency
• Set squelch

So on the FT-450D here's how I do it with the correct CAT commands:
Consider setting the rig to 6m repeater GB3SX in Stoke On Trent, England.

Yaesu FT-450D not broken

I thought my FT-450D rig had developed a fault but I was wrong.
Essentially I was mid QSO with an Australian station both of us operating low power JT65A (I was transmitting 5 watts). I use HRD and JT65HF HB9HQX to control the rig. All of a sudden the PC started making beeping noises (the one when you unplug a USB device) and the rig was powering off and on by itself.

I disconnected everything and the rig would not power on. When I put the CAT cable back into the D9 on the back panel it powered up. However it would not TX and kept rebooting when I tried.
Thinking that it had developed a fault I emailed Yaesu customer service in the UK. A shortwhile later Sam Ruddy, the Yaesu Service manager, replied. One of the things he suggested was try the fuses in the power lead.

"Fuses?" I thought. "Are there two?"
Sure enough there are and the one in the negative lead had become loose in its holder. I don't know how but it had. Basically the rig had been powering on through the PC ground connection. When trying to TX the high current ground was going through the PC causing the rig to become disconnected from power and rebooting it. Fortunately there was no damage to either the rig nor the PC.

So when both fuses were reseated and everything reconnected all is working again. It just goes to show - get back to basics when you fault find.

Thanks to Sam Ruddy at Yaesu UK

Tuning out QRM on datamodes using the Yaesu FT-450D with DM-780 and Ham Radio Deluxe

The standard way of operating a datamode such as PSK-31 is to leave the filter width as wide as you can and tune to the operating frequency. The software, in my case Ham Radio Deluxe running the DM780 module, then uses software filters to narrow reception down to whatever audio frequency you have selected in the waterfall. This works well 99% of the time but you do get occasions in the middle of a QSO when a very strong station starts transmitting in an adjacent audio frequency. That station probably can't hear your contact so doesn't know that it is generating QRM.
This can sometimes result in swamping the signal coming from your contact.

The two useful filters on the FT-450D highlighted in yellow

The radio then comes to the rescue. From very early days it has been possible to engage IF filters, notch filters and such like on communications equipment. When somebody is tuning up close to your listening frequency engage your tunable notch filter. If somebody is transmitting on SSB a few KHz up then engage your IF Shift. The ways of getting rid of QRM are very wide ranging and easy to do.

Yaesu FT-450D using the internal ATU at the same time as an external ATU

I have an external ATU made by LDG, The Z-100Plus Autotuner, connected to the rig with a short section of 50ohm cable (500mm long). I use this as the internal ATU inside the FT-450D will not tune my end fed dipole on any band.

Following on from a query by a local ham I need to explain I have been experimenting using the internal ATU within the Yaesu FT-450D at the same time as the external ATU and am having good results. I have the Yaesu internal ATU set to be in circuit both on transmit and receive (out of the box as a default the FT-450D is set to be in circuit just on transmit).

It must be stressed that I don't tune both ATU's at the same time.

The way I do it is tune up on the desired band and frequency using low power through the Z-100 Plus. This gets the load presented by the antenna to the rig within range. Then I press and hold the tune button on the rig and let it do its stuff too. A further tune on the Z-100 retains exactly the same settings. In other words the external ATU is still tuned so doesn't go through its tuning cycle again.

 When I take the internal ATU out of circuit while receiving a fairly stable signal I do see the S meter drop 1 or two points. I have also switched it into circuit and found that I get a noticeable improvement in reception on very weak signals.

My belief is that both ATU's compliment each other and the only thing in the manual says "Yaesu recommend keeping the ATU in circuit all the time". My view it that the internal ATU just sees a load to match to the power amplifier and doesn't know or care that there is another ATU between it and the antenna.

I am aware that there is debate whether both ATU's should be used and certain manufacturers rig operating manuals say not to do it. I only present the results that I am seeing and that is part of what amateur radio is about - experimentation. I take no responsibility for what you do in your own shack.

Adjusting ALC on the FT-450D

The ALC meter on the FT-450D is a little confusing. The manual is not much help either. However I think I have worked out how to set the levels with an soundcard connected to the digital data socket on the rear.

Your setting will be different than mine but here is how I set mine.

I am using the DM780 module of Ham Radio Deluxe to operated the digimodes. The output of a cheap sound card is connected to the rig via a dedicated data lead.

• Set the rig at 35 watts power output
• set the rig to D TYPE
• Set this to USER-U and exit
• Tune the rig up to a digimodes frequency (21.070 MHz for instance) on USB Data

• Press the F key for more than one second to enter MENU mode
• Rotate the DSP/SEL knob until D TYPE appears
• Press the DSP/SEL button

DM780 on 10m

DM780 is the audio module part of Ham Radio Deluxe. It decodes digital modes and morse. It also is used to transmit too. I was playing around with it on 10 metres yesterday and the FT-450D rig was not showing anything on the S meter. I also was listening on the audio feed and couldn't really discern anything. However DM780 was displaying loads of stations on the PSK-31 section of the band around 28.120 MHz

The computer display was showing South American stations (28/04/2015) at around 15:20 UTC. The 10m band was open,
I managed to work a few stations in Argentina and Brazil around 7000 miles away using just 25 Watts into my end fed dipole.

I think this software is astonishing.

Digimodes on the Yaesu FT-450D

This is how the rig is connected to the computer:

• The rear panel has a 6 pin data socket that I have connected to the PC using a custom cable. The cable has 2x 3.5mm jacks and a USB connector (this has a serial port inside) - COM3 but this is not used to control PTT in this implementation. HRD does all the PTT switching via the CAT connector below
• The rear panel also has an RS232 connector for the CAT control (including PTT) that I connected to the PC using another custom cable. This one just has a USB connector with another serial port inside - COM5
• The jacks are fed into a USB sound card. - The transmit I have labelled in Windows as "TX to FT-450D" and receive is labelled "RX from FT-450D"
• I fed the output from the front of the rig (headphone connector) into another sound card using a 3.5mm jack to jack cable - this time a video capture card with audio inputs.

FT-450D set in datamode on 20m ready for PSK-31

1st QSO on PSK-31 using Yaesu FT-450D

I've had Ham Radio Deluxe for a while now and decided to give PSK-31 a tryout.
My HF rig, the Yaesu FT-450D has a data port on the rear. This is connected using a bought cable to a USB sound card. There is also another cable used to connect the CAT interface to the computer via a USB COM port. It sounds complicated but it's not and I will write something about the connections in a later post.
After much configuration I still couldn't get the rig to transmit the audio is was being fed. I listened to output of the sound module to make sure that audio was coming out - it was.
Then I got out my very old FRG-7 receiver and tuned to the 20m frequency I was supposed to be transmitting on.

When transmitting the rig was putting out about 5 watts as I thought on upper side band but it also had a carrier wave that I could distinctly hear. I put out a number of CQs with no response. The waterfall of DM-780 sound module of Ham Radio Deluxe showed the correct waveform. I was mystified.

So I resorted to reading the Yaesu FT-450D manual - we all do that when something doesn't work don't we? Anyway I found the problem. You first of all have to set the rig into a "User Mode". Essentially this instructs the rig what to do when put into datamode. In my case I wanted to transmit audio through the rear socket in upper side band. You have to go into the rig menu by pressing F for 1 second then follow the next sequence:

• rotate the DSP/SEL knob until D Type appears (this is Data Type)
• press the DSP/SEL knob - then menu text flashes and RTTY will probably be selected (it was on mine)
• rotate the DSP/SEL knob until USER-U is selected
• press the DSP/SEL knob -the menu text stops flashing
• press the F key for longer than one second
• Next select the mode you want (USB Data mode) using the mode up or down buttons
• Select the frequency of transmission - in my case 14.070.00 MHz on the 20m band

Then you are all set for transmitting data.

When you set the mode to data mode the rig only takes audio from the data socket and the microphone PTT switch is disabled. The microphone is also disabled so you don't run the risk of transmitting expletives along with the data whilst transmitting - it happens apparently when things get heated in the shack during data transmission mode.

What a fantastic rig the Yaesu FT-450D is - once you have read the manual!

I called CQ again and after 2 minutes my first contact was with a station in Konetspol, Ukraine followed by another station in Lyon, France - 1486 miles m and 588 miles away from G8YPH respectably. Not bad from 5 watts into a long wire partially running through the shack!