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Speaker 1: SIQ parks on the air from Keilocharlie five Hotel Whiskey Bravo.
Speaker 1: Today we're doing FT eight with the brand new DR
Speaker 1: eight ninety one cables from Digirig. I'll put a link
Speaker 1: in the description below. It basically makes your yazoo FT
Speaker 1: eight ninety one a plug and play radio for digital modes.
Speaker 1: I wanted to show you this today, so let's go.
Speaker 1: Today's video is sponsored by ham Radio Prep. Save a
Speaker 1: twenty percent discount on everything that they offer all courses
Speaker 1: with the coupon code of Jason twenty. If you want
Speaker 1: to learn how to Ham radio, if you want to
Speaker 1: learn how to HF M Radio Prep is an excellent
Speaker 1: resource for that. Thank them if you contact them, thank
Speaker 1: them for sponsoring this channel. All right, while I'm working
Speaker 1: this right here, I'm able to record a video and
Speaker 1: work FT eight at the same time. I just worked
Speaker 1: one QSO at a time, and then it pops up
Speaker 1: and it has me acknowledged the QSO into the logbook,
Speaker 1: and then I move on with the enable transmit button.
Speaker 1: I'm calling back to this guy right now, Kilo seven
Speaker 1: Papa Delta Whiskey, and I'm sending him Roger, Roger, Roger,
Speaker 1: but he's stopped replying to me. So that is how
Speaker 1: it is. So you got to go through some settings
Speaker 1: in the FT eight ninety one to get it set
Speaker 1: for digital modes. But I wanted to show you this setup.
Speaker 1: This is the bag from the Tech Prepper. Unfortunately you
Speaker 1: cannot buy these bags anymore. I'm always on the lookout
Speaker 1: for other bags that will hold radios in Armlock cages.
Speaker 1: This is the TPA eight ninety one cage from Armlock.
Speaker 1: You can see how far it comes off of the
Speaker 1: radio right here. These guys were in the Huntsville Hamfest
Speaker 1: just a short time ago at the time of this recording.
Speaker 1: But I've had that cage for about a year. I
Speaker 1: took this entire setup before I put the digirig cables
Speaker 1: on it. I took this entire setup to Utah, Bryce Canyon, Zion,
Speaker 1: Yellowstone National Park, several other places did some a lot
Speaker 1: of activations with this. But this is your digi rig
Speaker 1: eight nine DR eight ninety one set up here. It's
Speaker 1: the radio interface cable and the USB B cable that
Speaker 1: go into the back. Both of these cables have built
Speaker 1: in Faireite beads right there and again right here, so
Speaker 1: both of them have double Fairiite beads built into the cable.
Speaker 1: Very cool setup from Dennis there. And then they go
Speaker 1: into the top of that digirig that you see right there,
Speaker 1: but they go into to the back of the digirig
Speaker 1: and then out of the front of the digirig is
Speaker 1: a single USB C cable. So the USBC comes out
Speaker 1: of here and it goes into your computer however you
Speaker 1: want to interface. You want to interface USBC to USBC,
Speaker 1: that's fine. This is my FCG one tough pad from Panasonic.
Speaker 1: It has a single USBA port on the side, so
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm going c to a today. So now
Speaker 1: anytime I want to operate a digital mode from this
Speaker 1: radio all I have to do is plug in a
Speaker 1: single USB cable and we're done Windows. Now. I have
Speaker 1: found there's several videos on YouTube with this new DR
Speaker 1: eight ninety one cable system. There's a couple of guys
Speaker 1: doing win Link with it. There's a couple of guys
Speaker 1: using a Mac computer at Kdemord. He uses a Mac computer,
Speaker 1: gas Stone the tech Pripper. He's doing this with win
Speaker 1: link and JSA call. I have yet to see anyone
Speaker 1: use this new system with a Windows box to do
Speaker 1: FT eight for PODA, So I wanted to show you
Speaker 1: that today. There are several settings in the radio you
Speaker 1: have to set. You have to go into like I
Speaker 1: don't know eight or ten or maybe twelve different menus.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to show you that here in a second.
Speaker 1: And then when I set it up the first time,
Speaker 1: WSJCX was acting weird. It was acting like I had
Speaker 1: had had the bandwidth set to a narrow bandwidth and
Speaker 1: set it for three Killerhurtz wide. It was acting like
Speaker 1: it wasn't decoding signals, and it was acting like a
Speaker 1: couple of things. I closed WSJTX and restarted it and
Speaker 1: it fixed my problem. And I've had to do that
Speaker 1: a couple of times in the past. Not a big deal.
Speaker 1: Just sometimes if you change some settings, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: But that's just kind of the way it is. So
Speaker 1: if you're having trouble with WSJTX and you know you've
Speaker 1: got all your settings correct, close the program restarted. It
Speaker 1: is a Windows box after all. Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go over some of the settings with you that I
Speaker 1: changed in the FT eight ninety one in order to
Speaker 1: make it ready to do digital modes. Now, these settings
Speaker 1: can kind of vary, and you have to do a
Speaker 1: couple of things in Windows also, and quite frankly, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty well versed in Windows and I got it
Speaker 1: to work and it was no problem. But I emailed
Speaker 1: Dennis and then I ended up calling him on the phone,
Speaker 1: Dennis the owner of digirig, and he's like, well, there's
Speaker 1: actually a better way to do that, and we walked
Speaker 1: through some settings on the sound card and we got
Speaker 1: it to work a little bit better. So what I
Speaker 1: did worked, but what he did worked better. So basically,
Speaker 1: you have to go in if you click on your
Speaker 1: once you have the digit rig plugged into USB, go
Speaker 1: down to the bottom right corner of your sistre the
Speaker 1: bottom right corner your window and Windows right click on
Speaker 1: your sound speaker and choose sounds. Then from there you
Speaker 1: have a recording and a playback tab. And on each
Speaker 1: of those tabs you might have multiple options in there,
Speaker 1: but you need to go down and find the one.
Speaker 1: For the digi rig. Mine was listed as speaker and
Speaker 1: microphone USB audio codec. So what you can do is
Speaker 1: you can write or double click on those and change
Speaker 1: some settings in there. I renamed mine to digirig for
Speaker 1: both the playback and the recording device. The recording device
Speaker 1: is obviously the microphone, the playback is the speakers. But
Speaker 1: if you name both of them to digirig and make
Speaker 1: sure they're not set to the default speaker and microphone,
Speaker 1: that was something that did that. Dennis told me that
Speaker 1: was important to do. Do not let them be become
Speaker 1: the default because Windows will mess with you because Windows
Speaker 1: is dumb. Find your ambient, find your default speaker and
Speaker 1: microphone from Windows, right click on it, set to default,
Speaker 1: make sure it's not the digi rig, and then from
Speaker 1: there you can go into the digi rig. You can
Speaker 1: uncheck a box that says AGC that's actually in Windows.
Speaker 1: You can set the audio levels and you can rename
Speaker 1: them to what you want to. So that was a
Speaker 1: that was an extra I had it working before I
Speaker 1: did all that, but that was an extra step that
Speaker 1: helped me along as well. So there's a few menus
Speaker 1: in the FT eight ninety one that we have to
Speaker 1: set in order to do digital modes correctly, or at
Speaker 1: least correctly with the digirig device. So what you're going
Speaker 1: to want to do is you're going to want to
Speaker 1: hold long press the F menu on the bottom of
Speaker 1: the radio, bottom left corner of the radio, and that'll
Speaker 1: take you into the deep menu for the FT eight
Speaker 1: ninety one. In the deep menu, you want to start
Speaker 1: at menu five to ish oh six, okay, and you
Speaker 1: want to set that for thirty eighty four hundred, which
Speaker 1: is the setting that we will match in the WSJTX software.
Speaker 1: The cat TOT menu five oh seven is one hundred
Speaker 1: milliseconds and the cat rts is disabled, So which is
Speaker 1: a menu five DASHOA Those you want to set first off,
Speaker 1: and then you scroll down by using this wheel on
Speaker 1: the bottom left this control knob on the bottom left
Speaker 1: corner of the radio, and you're gonna find Menu eight
Speaker 1: dash one, and it's for data mode. There's shovel options
Speaker 1: in there, and the setting that I'm using is others,
Speaker 1: and then the next three for PSK tone, other DSP
Speaker 1: and other shift are all set to fifteen hundred hertz.
Speaker 1: I found that on another video somewhere. I set that
Speaker 1: and it seemed to work, so I just kind of
Speaker 1: kept going with it. Eight h five Data cutoff, data
Speaker 1: L cut frequency is off data L cut slope. This
Speaker 1: is eighteen dB slash oct. That's what it was by fault,
Speaker 1: so you could see the screen kind of flashing there
Speaker 1: anyway it was. It was that by fault, so I
Speaker 1: just left that. Data high cut frequency is also off
Speaker 1: so that it doesn't cut off the frequency at the
Speaker 1: top or the bottom of the WSJTX band. And then
Speaker 1: the high cut slope was also by default, so you
Speaker 1: can see that there. And then we want to in
Speaker 1: menu eighth nine. Data in select is rear because we're
Speaker 1: using that rear USB B port in the back of
Speaker 1: the eight ninety one. This next menu is eight ten,
Speaker 1: which is data PTT select and da ky is what
Speaker 1: you want. Mine was there by default, so I didn't
Speaker 1: change anything. That's just kind of where it was and
Speaker 1: then data out level is fifty again that was mine
Speaker 1: by default. I did not change that. And then data
Speaker 1: VFO should be set to USB. I think mine was
Speaker 1: something else. Mine was LSB. But this sets your data
Speaker 1: BFO to upper sideband because all digital modes on all
Speaker 1: bands are done on upper sideband, digital U or whatever
Speaker 1: your radio might call it. But that puts it on
Speaker 1: upper sideband. Then we're gonna scroll down here to menu
Speaker 1: eleven O seven, which is right here, which is BPO
Speaker 1: or b I'm sorry, BFO, and that should be set
Speaker 1: to auto. And then that's pretty much it for that
Speaker 1: deep menu right there. If you long press the band
Speaker 1: button here on the top, it takes you to the mode.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna want to set that from SSB to
Speaker 1: data mode or from CW today you want to set
Speaker 1: it to data mode wherever you were beforehand, So you're
Speaker 1: gonna want to set that, and then on the width,
Speaker 1: which you can. I've got my width set right there.
Speaker 1: That is five hundred by default, or it was before
Speaker 1: I changed it, okay, And to get into that menu,
Speaker 1: you just go into function short press the function menu,
Speaker 1: go into function one and you've got the width right there.
Speaker 1: You can choose which option is there turning the knob,
Speaker 1: press the knob, change the width right there. I set
Speaker 1: it on my quick menu down here, just because I
Speaker 1: wanted to. And the very last option is actually back
Speaker 1: in the deep menu. Again. Let's get out of there.
Speaker 1: Let's go back into the deep menu and we're gonna
Speaker 1: scroll down to option sixteen oh three, which is the
Speaker 1: HF power. Now you can see right there on the screen.
Speaker 1: SSB power is one hundred HFAM powers twenty five and
Speaker 1: HF power I have set to thirty. And the reason
Speaker 1: I have it set to thirty is because this poda
Speaker 1: able antenna HF power is the data or the digital
Speaker 1: power for the data mode. When we changed it in
Speaker 1: the band selection long press, the band changed it to data.
Speaker 1: This is the HF power that's used for that. Jesu's
Speaker 1: got different power settings for sideband AM and data. Some
Speaker 1: people don't like that. I think it kind of makes
Speaker 1: sense because you don't know what You may not always
Speaker 1: want to do one hundred wats or five watts on everything,
Speaker 1: but whatever, whether you like that or not, that's where
Speaker 1: you change that. This poda able antenna max is at
Speaker 1: thirty five watts for digital modes. I ranted at thirty
Speaker 1: five watts for about a half hour and it got hot,
Speaker 1: so the SWR came up, so I changed it down
Speaker 1: to thirty watts and it seemed to work just fine.
Speaker 1: I was getting plenty of stations, I was hearing plenty
Speaker 1: of stations, I was getting responses from plenty of stations.
Speaker 1: With thirty watts, it worked just great. But that's pretty
Speaker 1: much all you have to set as far as the
Speaker 1: radio menus go, and once you have all that, it
Speaker 1: should automatically connect up. I've had the digirig installed on
Speaker 1: this Panasonic FZG one tough pad for a long time.
Speaker 1: But the first time I ever installed it Windows Reddit,
Speaker 1: it installed the drivers. I had no problems. If you
Speaker 1: don't experience that same type of plug and play feature,
Speaker 1: you can go to digirig's website and download the drivers
Speaker 1: for Windows ten, Windows eleven, whatever you're using. So, but
Speaker 1: that was easy. So as soon as you plug. As
Speaker 1: soon as I plugged in this digirig, it came up
Speaker 1: with the proper drivers on the proper comports. You just
Speaker 1: have to go into the device manager of Windows look
Speaker 1: and see what the comports are and make sure you
Speaker 1: set those accordingly. For WSJTX, there's certain settings I actually chose.
Speaker 1: In the menus of WSJTX, there is a drop down
Speaker 1: when you choose radio, so I just created a new profile.
Speaker 1: I called it digirig, and in the drop down for
Speaker 1: the radio, I chose yesu FT eight ninety one. It
Speaker 1: kind of seemed to me like it was a little
Speaker 1: bit weird to have the Yasu FT eight ninety one
Speaker 1: and a menu for WSJTX, because the eight ninety one
Speaker 1: does not have a built in sound. But I guess
Speaker 1: Joe Taylor was smart enough to put all the radios
Speaker 1: in his drop down because things such as the digirig
Speaker 1: and signal Link and many other sound card devices have
Speaker 1: existed for a long time. So I chose FT eight
Speaker 1: ninety one at my dropdown menu, and then I chose
Speaker 1: thirty eight thousand, four hundred for the boad rate, which
Speaker 1: we set in the radio a minute ago, and then
Speaker 1: pretty much everything else was by default, but I did
Speaker 1: have to set my comport on my computer. It was
Speaker 1: com six, which the digirig installs two comports, a sound
Speaker 1: in and a sound out. That's normal, so you choose
Speaker 1: the sound in on the first option for WSJTX and
Speaker 1: then and then everything else was pretty much by default,
Speaker 1: but you do have to go over to the audio
Speaker 1: tab and choose the digirig for both your microphone and
Speaker 1: your speakers. If you've renamed it, it should just be digirig.
Speaker 1: If you haven't renamed it, then it might be it's
Speaker 1: probably called USB Audio Codec or something similar in that menu.
Speaker 1: So that was basically all I did. Now, every time
Speaker 1: I have to plug this up, I take one USB
Speaker 1: to C cable I plugged into the digibrig, I plugged
Speaker 1: it into my tough pad, and I'm done. If I
Speaker 1: wanted to use my Evolved Maestro laptop, it would be
Speaker 1: the same thing. USBC to USBA or my Windows laptop.
Speaker 1: USBC to USBA I could do. On the Windows laptop,
Speaker 1: I could do USBC to USBC if I wanted to.
Speaker 1: And that's up to you depending on what connection you're using.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty much it I made. I think I
Speaker 1: made about eight or nine contacts. So I didn't finish
Speaker 1: my PODA activation because because I left my charging cable. Now,
Speaker 1: the great thing about that tough pad is that it
Speaker 1: charges via twelve volt. It has a twelve volt charge.
Speaker 1: It has a twelve volt charger that you can buy
Speaker 1: an addition to it that's got a cigarette lighter plug. Of course,
Speaker 1: I just cut it off and put powerpools on it
Speaker 1: so I can charge it from my battery box. But
Speaker 1: I left that charger at home. I didn't think it
Speaker 1: was gonna take me so long to get everything set
Speaker 1: up and configured and blah blah blah. Some of this
Speaker 1: I did yesterday, but I wanted to make sure I
Speaker 1: had all my ducks in the road and everything was working,
Speaker 1: so I didn't get enough time to actually activate the park.
Speaker 1: But that's okay. That just means I can do some
Speaker 1: sideband now. I've got my Explorer backpack with me. It's
Speaker 1: got all my stuff in it. Really enjoying this potable
Speaker 1: Poda Abule antenna from the guys in Bayside, Texas. They
Speaker 1: make that. I'll put a link in the description blow
Speaker 1: for that. And that's actually like the second time ever
Speaker 1: I've used my thirty two foot spider beams mast. I
Speaker 1: don't use that one very much, but I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be running lower power than normal, lower power
Speaker 1: than what I am used to running, so I wanted
Speaker 1: the antenna up higher and it fits in this spot.
Speaker 1: From there, I could hang the feed point up a
Speaker 1: little bit higher. Typically i'll hang the feed point down lower,
Speaker 1: but I raise the feed point up up to the
Speaker 1: top of that thirty two foot mast and it's working beautifully.
Speaker 1: I was hearing stations all over the USA, hearing some
Speaker 1: Kenadian stations, one or two Cuban stations and works some
Speaker 1: Poda ft eight thirty watts from the DR eight ninety
Speaker 1: one connected to the YAZUFT eight ninety one from Parks
Speaker 1: on the air today. Thanks for watching today, Guys, put
Speaker 1: a comment BLOW if you have any questions about this.
Speaker 1: Links for everything I talked about will be in the
Speaker 1: description Blow and we'll catch you next time.