Ft-891 Firmware Update
Epicuro Kishore
Mine is going to be mobile in the car, using my Little Tarheel II and the Tunematic (891 pigtail is on the way) for 6m-80m. That being said, any tricks/tips on programming and use? I picked up RTSystems for it to get it programmed more easily. I still have to look into the memory groups thing again.
I have to run into a meeting, so I will post some more a bit later today. The number one thing for me was to set the scan edges up per band, so I can scan and listen while driving. That way you don't have to watch the radio or manually adjust it. The best part is, while scanning, when you hit the top or bottom edge, it just loops back to the start of the frequencies again.
2. one USB A to USB C that runs from the computer to the DigiRig. The DigiRig serves as an external sound card controlled by the ham radio software you choose.
3. one special cable that has a 4 conductor plug (Tip Ring Ring Sleeve) on the DigiRig end and a mini-DIN that plugs into the FT-891.
@Sshannon I'm not too concerned with running digital modes while mobile. I did buy used, and it does come with a DigiRig, not sure how to set the cables up so they are accessible though. That is a spring problem.
That's a bummer with my TH-D74A HT. A memory channel can only be programmed for a split frequency in the SAME band, no split band. My 20 plus year old TH-G71A lets me program in different bands for TX and RX. I wonder if Kenwood fixed that on the new TH-D75A.
I can't find my cable or software, which are probably both I the radio box, which I'm sure has been thrown away by now. I'm going to head to Ham Radio Outlet in a couple hours. I need it to read and program my radio.
Looks like it's going to have to be saved as a split. So, save the repeater output as a memory, and then program the quick-split button for the offset you want to transmit on (menu 05-13). That way, you can just go to the memory, and then press the Split button and you are good to go.
The problem we are running into is, not all repeaters in our area are on the standard -1 MHz shift. I have 7 repeaters stored and two of them are 0.5 MHz shift. I can save them in memory, but the shift isn't variable. Every time we change the shift, it changes for every memory in that band.
I was really hoping that the separate menu choices to change the repeater shift for 10 meters and 6 meters would help, but I see your point that whatever is set there affects all the 10 meter (or 6 meter) shifts.
I ran into a crap storm today with the kids (quick onset sickness), so I didn't get to try much. I found the quickshift setting. How to turn it on quickly is what I need to try. I just need a few free hours
Interesting. Do you see a range wider than 20kHz in the menu? I don't have an opposition to doing the mars mod, though I don't need it for out of band, if it changes the quick offset. What firmware version do you have? I need to check what I have in the radio as well.
When I connect a 100W 50 Ohm dummy load, switch to SSB mode and say "aaaaah" to the microphone the internal meter (MTR) shows SWR 1:1 and 100W transmit power, as expected. However, if instead of dummy load I connect a real antenna through mAT-30 tuner and enable the tuner by pressing TNR in the transceiver menu, the transmit power (according to MTR) drops to 50W while the SWR is about 1.5:1. I've found a few tables online (the first one, the second one) that say that SWR 1.5 correspond to only 4% power loss, thus I'm a little surprised.
At first I thought this might be some sort of bug in the firmware, thus I decided to re-check the readings using an external analog SWR/power meter. I have a second (manual) tuner MFJ-971, which has a build-in SWR/power meter. I bypassed the capacitors and the inductance of MFJ-971 using an alligator clip, which turned the device into just a SWR/power meter. Surprisingly it showed the same SWR 1.5:1 and only 50W of transmit power.
I see two possible explanations. The first one is that FT-891 reduces the power when it sees an SWR higher then 1:1 and TNR is ON. Another possibility is that the protocol between the autotuner and the transceiver (over 8pin mini-DIN socket) supports some sort of back pressure ("TRX DE ATU PSE DROP PWR"), and the tuner is one to blame. Though I'm not familiar with this protocol and thus I don't know whether the tuner could be responsible.
Common practice is to tune with low power. The FT-891 can do that automatically with SOME tuners. My DIY-tuner does not, so I have to reduce power from the FT-891 down to 5 watt, switch to FM for a constant envelope/carrier signal and match the antenna to lowest SWR-reading in the display, or in my (manual) tuner SWR-readout. When I try to tune WITHOUT power reduction, I see the message "high SWR" in the FT-891 and, as already mentioned in the thread, the power fold-back protection is/becomes active. That is rather close to your observation, I think. And when tuning is succesfull, switch to SSB and adjust the power to 100 Watt or what you need for the QSO.
The conversion tables for SWR and loss in dB as found on the internet and in documents are ONLY VALID FOR 50 Ohm source and load systems! An SWR of 1:2 results from 25 Ohm or from 100 Ohm load impedance (or from other complex mismatch). SWR is RELATIVE mismatch. In transmitter systems there is no power loss as with mismatched 50 Ohm-intended laboratory systems. My FT-891 can deliver more than 100 Watt with output load 40 Ohm, but that is close to the survival-limit of the power amplifier..... Compare it with a mains outlet: for a certain power you need a certain resistive load. The system is designed for use with that load. The output impedance of a transmitter can range from zero (voltage source) to infinite (current source). Mismatch will lead to a high current or a high voltage and destroy your power amplifier. That is why there is an SWR-protection that reduces power at mismatch.PA0FSB
I use my FT-891 with an MFJ 939Y auto tuner. When selecting TNR from the menus (I mapped the TNR function to one of the front panel A/B/C keys) holding TNR for over a second does drop the power to 5 watts carrier and the ATU does its thing. After the "ok" beep and green light on the tuner is on, the rig goes back to whatever mode and power setting it was configured for.
One of the FT891 manuals says that by grounding the ACC jack the rig will transmit a carrier for tuning. Ungrounding automatically returns the rig to whatever mode it had been on. There is no mention that power is reduced so I assume the power is whatever was set for CW.
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