My new Yaesu VX-8 handheld has arrived and it's fantastic! I will make another posting soon with some photos and specs etc. In the meantime I needed to program it with all my favorite frequencies, repeater offsets, squelch level settings, transmit settings, CTCSS codes etc & this was a somewhat daunting task through the built-in user interface. Why are all handhelds' user interfaces so difficult to use? They could learn some tips from Apple...
So anyway, I decided to buy a programming tool from g4hfq to do the job. First I needed to create the cable. The VX-8 uses a custom proprietary 7-pin plug which isn't available on it's own, so I had to buy a CT-134 cloning cable and cut it in half to get myself a plug. I then needed a board that would talk to the radio using 3V TTL serial lines rather than the usual RS-232 signals. I found a USB to RS-232 board from MindKits that has a jumper to change from 5V to 3V. After that it was easy. I just connected the TX, RX & GND from the clone cable (pin-outs taken from g4hfq's manuals) to the relevant pins on the FTDI board from MindKits and bingo, I'm was in action.
Now my radio is programmed just how I want it and making other changes is very easy to do. The hardest part was getting Windows installed on my MacBook Pro. Oh, I feel so dirty!
