Bluetooth CAT with Yaesu 857d

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wizzzard
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Bluetooth CAT with Yaesu 857d

Post by wizzzard »

I have got myself a cheap Bluetooh CAT dongle for my 857d off Ebay. It pairs ok on a laptop in Linux and Widows 7 and also with my Android phone. It works as it should on my phone using pRxTx but I can't get it working on my laptop. I have tried HRD (the last free version) and Fldigi on Win7. On Linux I have tried Fldigi and Flrig. On both OS pairing and connecting works and a new virtual com port is created, com 7 on Windows and /dev/rfcomm0 on Linux. That is as far as I can get. HRD. will not accept anything higher than Com 4. Fldigi will accept Com 7 and /dev/rfcomm0 but fails to control the radio. I have tried every combination of RTS/DTS to control the PTT.
Has anyone achieved Bluetooth rig control on PC or laptop?
If it didn't work on my phone or pair with the laptop I would assume the dongle was faulty. Just to clarify the laptop has built in Bluetooth and the dongle is a DIN plug in to the CAT port on the 857.
Thanks for reading this.

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Mitch
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Re: Bluetooth CAT with Yaesu 857d

Post by Mitch »

You can edit the HRDSerialPortSvr.cfg file with notepad in the HRD folder to select non standard serial ports, mine uses COM5 without a problem (#COM = COM5), tho' I'm using a hard wire to connect not bluetooth but I guess it's worth a try.
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Mitch
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Re: Bluetooth CAT with Yaesu 857d

Post by Mitch »

I thought I'd treat myself and bought one of these BlueCat type dongle thingy's to play with on my FT-857D.

It came yesterday (Sat) and I spent several wasted hours trying to get it to work on my tablet with HRD, which works fine with USB-CAT lead. I got it to pair alright but no amount of messing around with settings and editing of .cfg files could get it to connect. Device manager tells me I have COM1, COM3, COM4, COM6 and COM7 (COM5 is USB lead) but the only choice on HRD 'New' tab was COM1, Auto and Manual. The Auto only sees COM1 so doesn't check any others, and the light on the BlueCat thing flashed all he time too. Frustrating grrrrr....

So I had a cuppa, like you do, and thought I'd try it on my desktop PC. I used a USB Bluetooth dongle (not built in like tablet) and device manager said I had COM3 and COM4. I installed HDR (not used it on desktop before) and the 'New' tab in HRD showed COM1 to COM4 with Auto and Manual. Tried COM3, nothing, tried COM4 and bingo! it connected and worked the radio without a hitch, and the BlueCat light stopped flashing and stayed on.

The BlueCat will only connect at 9600bps, which is it's default, and of course only when the radio is set to the same, the USB CAT will connect at 38400 so 9600 is a bit laggy, but it does work OK on the desktop PC. Tablet and PC are both running Win10 64bit Home fyi, tho' the tablet will boot to Android (it's dual boot), so maybe I'll have to find the Android program to use it wirelessly with the tablet.

I really want it to work on the tablet though, it does lots of radio stuff (why I bought it) like programming handies, SDR# etc. so I'm going to have to do a bit more messing about with it yet, damn it {bnghd}

Anyone else had a try with this sort of stuff? I've ordered one of those BF-888S Bluetooth things as well, we'll see how that goes when it arrives.
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