homemade interface.
Idea&Construction: many years ago .
The only way to get connected the ol'FT1000 rig to a modern CAT program is to have an rs232c level converter
and the latest ROM Eprom version 6.xxx .
When the ol'1k appeared on the market almost 20 years ago there were still no software programs making use of the CAT interface.
Maybe very few of them, but I cannot remember of such one.
This little project is very easy to construct, even if in present days there are many small interfaces available around.
The following project has been taken with permission from the 2001 ARRL handbook page 22.45.
As I had the modern necessity to get the ol'1k rig connected to the CAT computer software after a short look into the lab's shelves
I put together the necessary parts and in a couple of hours the interface was completed.
Two interface were built.
One like the original schematic and a second without the buffer ic7417 and 1microF capacitors instead
of the 10microF(as a lack of those items).
Both works very fine, but with a noise coming into the radio when turning the main dial on bands below 40meters.
Soon I discovered that the disturbating noise was on the TX-data line cracking into the receiver.
Of course no noise was on the TXdata line when the dial was idle.
After many attempts trying some sort of filters to get such noise away I tried a mini T Filter cut for medium waves
(yellow item in the pic) used in another project.
The noise almost disappeared so that it is almost unreadable now and the interface still works fine.
Below is the underside of this small pcb.
and how it looks when sits in a small plastic box.
.....still updating .....
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v1.0 - gennaiio 2010