Yaesu FT-857D front panel protocol

Goal of this project is to explore the undocumented serial protocol, that connects the FT-857D tranceiver and its front panel and create simple tools to control both, the radio tranceiver and the front panel.

Why?

Knowing the protocol enables us, for exmple, to

• Establish a remote connection
• Develop additional or replacement displays or control panels
• Add features to the radio
• Band plan display
• Simultanous QRG and label display
• Modify the menu structure
• Add custom menu items
• Pretty labels for the custom MFq function keys

Also because I personally do not like undocumented protocols. And for the fun of it.

Docs

See doc/ for the work-in-progress protocol documentation.

Tools

A basic set of tools for playing around with the protocol.
These need PySerial and hexdump to work.

ft857.py

Simple module to control the FT-857's front panel and analyze the protocol. This is intended to play around with the protocol, not to build applications on top of it ;)

Can easily be used interactively in python, like:

import ft857
pan = ft857.frontPanel('/dev/ttyUSB0')
pan.setBacklight(0,15,0)

sniffer.py

Simple tool for displaying raw serial data frames sent by the FT-857 TRX or front panel. Use a suitable USB<->5V serial adapter and connect it to GND and one of the data lines. See hardware.md for details.

Further information and known projects

• DH1TW sucessfully gained control over the display in 2016. See his Twitter post.
• The "ft-857d service manual" can easily be found on the web.
• Remoterig support for the FT-857 indicates that remoting is possible somehow.

Take care!

Although the FT857´s front panel serial port hardware seems to be very well protected against over voltage and short circuit, take care not to damage your hardware. Playing around with the serial protocol, especially transmitting own data frames, may lead to unpredictable behavior of the tranceiver. It is even possible to key the transmitter that way. Also, changes of the calibration data or even a complete lockup might be possible. Make sure you have at least an EEPROM backup, including the soft calibration data.

Note that the documentation ist far from being complete and probably contains errors.

Use everything at your own risk.

And have a lot of fun!