Yaesu FT-1000MP Mark V and NaP3

Transcription

1 Yaesu FT-1000MP Mark V and NaP3 This paper describes in detail the hardware and software required to implement a full-function panadaptor for the Mark V using NaP3. Illustration 1: Panadaptor in operation Issues in using NaP3 with the Mark V I've tried most of the available SDR software that offers a panadaptor capability and none come close to NaP3 in terms of function and usability. However, there are some problems that must be dealt with: 1. NaP3 doesn't support the FT-1000MP Mark V only later Yaesu transceivers. The Mark V CAT command set is different from that of later Yaesu rigs such as the FT-950, 2000 and LP-Pan doesn't reach the VHF first IF frequency of the Mark V ( MHz). 3. There is no first IF output tap built into the Mark V. Some have used the second IF (8.215 MHz) for the source of the panadaptor signal, but the Mark V has a roofing filter in the first IF that limits the bandwidth to approximately 12 Khz and that's unacceptable for my requirements. 4. Tapping the first IF requires some sort of buffer amplifier that isolates the IF stage from the equipment attached to the tap. For years we've used the Z10000B buffer amp from Clifton Laboratories, but as of this writing (12/27/15), they're not currently making the Z10000B. To circumvent some of these issues, some have used a down converter to get the IF signal down into a

2 range supported by either LP-Pan or inexpensive SDR kits. I went through that exercise in 2008 and had an operational panadaptor, but the various pieces of hardware and software available at that time proved difficult to keep in working order. I also tried the approach of splitting the Receive antenna output on the rear of the Mark V, feeding the antenna to the Mark V via the Receive antenna input and to an SDR-IQ receiver. While that provided basic function, I found that the SDR-IQ was not as sensitive as the Mark V on 10 and 12 meters, so there were signals that could be heard but not seen on the display. On 20 meters, the SDR-IQ fed a white noise signal back in to the receiver, masking weaker signals. Also, the SDR-IQ and associated SpectraVue software did not support VFO-B of the Mark V. In 2014, I experimented using one of the cheap dongles sold on ebay with the 9 MHz IF output of my Tentec Orion II. That required an additional up-converter to convert the IF frequency up to something that the dongle could handle. While that worked (using SDR#), the dongle failed after just a week of operation, putting an end to that experiment. The Funcube Dongle Pro+ After reading about the recent Funcube Dongle Pro+, I decided to give it a try with the Mark V. That became the basis of a successful implementation and that's what I'll describe here. The Funcube covers 150 khz to 240 MHz and 420 MHz to 1.9 GHz and the sample rate is 192 khz. It's completely selfcontained, with an SMA connector for the input and a USB connector for the output. It's powered from the USB connection. The Funcube replaces LP-Pan and the sound card that you would normally use with NaP3 or other panadaptor software. You can find out more about the Funcube Dongle Pro+ here:

3 Illustration 2: Funcube Dongle Pro+. Other dongles may work well, but the Funcube reportedly handles strong signals better (less IMD) and is more reliable? NaP3 supports the Funcube Dongle Pro+ directly. Installing the first IF tap Some time ago, Jack Smith of Clifton Laboratories provided detailed information on installing the IF tap in the FT-1000MP. Jack's information is still available here:

4 Installation in the Mark V is nearly identical, but component IDs changed in the Mark V, particularly the IF transformer numbers. Illustration 1 shows the first IF strip in the Mark V. The signal tap will be made between T1008 and T1009 on the underside of the board. The crystals XF1001 and XF1002 and associated transformers make up the first IF roofing filter which has a bandpass of approximately 12 Khz. The IF signal tap is placed before this filter, so we will be able to view the full 192 Khz passband provided by the Funcube dongle and NaP3. Illustration 3: Mark V first IF strip Since the Z10000B buffer amp is currently not available, I searched for a substitute and located a similar unit made by G4HUP, called the G4HUP Panoramic Adaptor Tap Board. You can read all the details about the product here: g4hup.com/pat.com Dave sells the boards preassembled and tested at a reasonable price and has an agent in the U.S. who ships the board and associated components. I ordered one of the PAT 70M boards, and it arrived in just

5 a few days. I also ordered one of his GSIK (generic socket installation kit) which included the SMA socket, associated mounting hardware, and teflon coax cable. Overall size of the board is approximately 1.6 x 1. Illustration 3 shows where the signal tap installs in the IF strip schematic. Illustration 4: IF tap point. The coax used at the tap point may detune the IF transformers slightly and they must be repeaked as described. The first IF strip resides on the RF board, which is mounted on the left side of the main chassis. In order to access it, you must remove the three top cabinet covers and the bottom of the cabinet. You'll have to disconnect the red and black speaker wires in order to remove the front top cabinet piece. Next, remove the blower assembly (leave all wires connected and move it out of the way) and then remove the final amplifier and heat sink assembly. If you place a thick book behind the heat sink, you can tilt the heat sink backwards and lay it upside down on the book without disconnecting any wires. Now, disconnect the small coaxial cables from the RF board and remove the ribbon cable from the connector on the right side of the board near the rear. Careful here the ribbon has no connector itself and just inserts into the board connector. You can pry the top edge of the connector up on each side of the cable and then you can pull the cable out of the connector using your fingers. The metal shield that runs around the left, front and right side of the RF board is separate from the board and is fastened to the board with the same screws that fasten the board down. Remove all the

6 board mounting screws and you should then be able to slide the board forward enough for the connectors to clear the rear panel holes. At that point, the board is clear and can be removed from the chassis. The shield closes the space between the board and the chassis and we have to make a slight opening to accommodate the coax cable used for the tap. I used an Adel nibbling tool to cut a notch as seen in Illustration 3. Illustration 5: The RF board is shown bottom side up here so you can see the position of the shield notch in relation to the tap point. The next illustration shows where we'll connect the coaxial tap.

7 Illustration 6: The hot side of the coax goes to the Tap point and the coax shield is attached to the Ground point. Jack Smith recommended that the coax between the tap point and the buffer amp be limited to no more than 20mm to make sure that the IF transformers could be re-peaked without a problem. The next illustration shows the coax installed on the board. After this coax is installed, you can attach the other end to the pads on the G4HUP board. Dave, G4HUP, suggests that a single wire be used instead of the coax to connect the board to the tap point as he is concerned about detuning the IF transformers with the capacitance of the coax. If you choose to go that way, make sure you provide a good ground for the G4HUP board.

8 Illustration 7: Make sure to use teflon coax for the tap. The outer jacket you see here is about 1/2" long. Here we see the shield notch and the G4HUP board attached to the RF board tap coax.

9 Illustration 8: The yellow wire supplies 12V to the G4HUP board (see text). I chose to mount the G4HUP board as shown here in order to keep the length of the connecting coax to a minimum. The yellow wire supplies 13.8V to the board and as Jack Smith suggested, I sourced the 13.8V at the load side of the glass fuse on the RF board that supplies the rear-panel 13.8V accessory jack. Here's a photo of the fuse location. You can solder the wire to a fuse terminal on the bottom of the board nearest the rear panel.

10 Illustration 9: This is the accessory fuse. Connect the G4HUP + terminal to the fuse on the end of the fuse nearest the rear panel. The 13.8V supply wire is routed along the right side of the RF board and tied it to the other cable bundles running along that side. The provided SMA connector is mounted on the rear panel between the power connector and the linear on/off switch. Drilling the three required holes in proper alignment in the thin steel cabinet isn't the easiest task.

11 Illustration 10: Mounting location for the SMA connector on the Mark V rear panel Here's what the connector looks like inside the Mark V. A small solder lug is provided with the GSIK kit and you should position that lug so that you have a minimum of the inner conductor exposed.

12 Illustration 11: SMA jack mounting on the rear panel. Use a center punch (spring loaded variety) to mark the drilling locations on the rear panel. It's a good idea to place a terry cloth rag inside the chassis around the hole locations to catch any drill debris and make sure to vacuum the area when finished. After the SMA connector is mounted on the rear panel, you can reinstall the RF board. Route the wire from the fuse to the right top side of the board with the other cable bundles. Reinstall the shield and make sure that it's installed exactly as it was originally. Install all the coax connectors and the ribbon cable. Carefully insert the ribbon cable into the connector, making sure it's at the depth it was before you removed it. Then push down on the edges of the connector at each end of the cable, locking it in place.

13 Here's how it looks with the RF board reinstalled. Illustration 12: RF board has been reinstalled and the G4HUP board secured to the chassis with a bit of double sided tape G4HUP supplies a piece of white paper with adhesive backing used to insulate the bottom of the board from the chassis. After the RF board is remounted on the chassis, secure the G4HUP board to the chassis using a piece of double sided foam tape between the board and chassis. At this point, I suggest powering up the Mark V and making sure that everything works as it did before. Next, check the alignment of the two IF transformers, T1008 and T1009. To do that, use a signal generator to inject a signal into the Mark V antenna jack and adjust the two transformers to peak the signal. Use the Mark V S-meter for peak indication (AGC in FAST position). I found that there was

14 very little adjustment required. When adjusting the transformers, make sure to use a plastic tool - no metal. If you don't have an alignment tool that fits the slugs, you can shape one from an existing tool using a utility knife. At this point, the Mark V modification is complete. The Big Picture Now a few words on how things fit together. The Funcube Dongle Pro+ connects to the modified Mark V using a short piece of coax with an SMA connector at each end. If you don't want to construct the cable yourself, ready-made cables are available on ebay or other sources at a very reasonable price. The connector on the Funcube is a for a USB cable to connect to your PC. While it's possible to just plug the dongle into a PC USB slot and run a longer piece of coax from the dongle to the Mark V, I elected to keep the 70 MHz signal cable short as possible and used a USB extension cable from the dongle to the PC. The Funcube appears to NaP3 as a PC sound card and you have to tell NaP3 you're using a Funcube as the source device and identify the input device in the Sound Card section. Here's what a properly configured Funcube looks like:

15 Illustration 13: NaP3 configuration for the Funcube Dongle Pro+ Hit the Calibrate button and set the gain for around -25 db. At this point, you should be able to hit RUN and view the Mark V IF on the NaP3 display. After a couple of days of operation, I noticed some very strong signals on the panadaptor display that turned out to be phantom signals if I tuned to one of them, nothing was heard. The problem turned out to be with the Funcube gain settings and I was able to get rid of the phantom signals by turning off the Funcube LNA via NaP3 configuration. I then increased the Funcube IF gain to bring the noise floor up to a reasonable value. Jan 1, 2016 update: Under very strong signal conditions, having the Funcube IF gain set to anything above zero resulted in the problem described above, so my current recommendation is to leave the IF gain set to zero.

16 Illustration 14: Gain settings that eliminated the phantom signals for me. LNA Enable was previously set on. IF Gain setting just brings the noise floor up to a reasonable value in the NaP3 spanadaptor window. Solving the CAT problem NaP3 doesn't support the Mark V directly as it supports only the more recent Yaesu CAT protocol used by the FT-950, 2000, 5000, etc. What I needed was a way to access the Mark V from both my logging program (DXLab) and NaP3. DXLab Commander supports the Mark V directly, so the Mark V com port was specified to Commander as the Primary CAT Serial Port. Next, you need to provide a couple of virtual COM ports for a pathway between NaP3 and Commander and you can accomplish that using VSPE, VSP Manager or other similar product. I used VSP Manager to create a pair of ports, 12 and 13, that are logically connected. In Commander, I specified port 13 as the Secondary CAT Serial Port and specified the Elecraft protocol. At the NaP3 end, I specified port 12 as an Elecraft K2. With that configuration, Commander thinks it's talking to a K2 as does NaP3.

17 Now, any changes made to the Mark V frequency at the Mark V front panel or the NaP3 display or the Commander window are reflected at the other locations. If you mouse on a signal seen on the NaP3 display, the Mark V is immediately set to that frequency. If the Mark V is tuned with the knob, the NaP3 display and Commander readout follows. Commander provides an additional function that was formerly provided by K6SE's MPFILTER program. On the right side of the Commander window the currently selected IF filter for both second and third Ifs is displayed. You can select any available filter for either IF from pull-down lists and can select combinations that are not available from the front panel of the Mark V. You can also select the current Sub-receiver filter. Illustration 15: Pull-down lists seen as 2nd IF and 3rd IF can be used to select any installed filters NaP3 Considerations There are a couple of unresolved issues with NaP3 in this configuration. NaP3 apparently does not detect the IF filter width in use on the Mark V, and the mode is not always properly interpreted. The result is that you may change modes on the Mark V and find that the bandwidth shadow on the NaP3 display is not appropriate for the mode or bandwidth selected. To correct the problem, you can change modes or filter widths with the NaP3 buttons and you'll get the proper display. One concern I had was the possible center spike seen with many sound cards. In the past, I found that I was never able to completely eliminate the spike using the DC Block feature of NaP3. When I examined the problem using the Funcube Dongle, the spike was indeed there as you can see in this illustration:

18 Illustration 16: Funcube center spike approximately 40 db above the background noise level When I then set DC Block on in NaP3, I was surprised to see that the spike was completely eliminated as you can see in the next illustration. January 6, 2016 update: After several days of operation, a small fuzzy spike occurred in the same position as before DC blocking was turned on in NaP3. The Funcube dongle was a bit warm to the touch and I thought the spike might disappear when the dongle cooled down, but no such luck. I finally reduced the impact of the short spike by moving it to the left of the trace by about 6 Khz. Here's how to do that: 1. In NaP3 configuration, hit the Configure button for the dongle and change the IF frequency to (previously was ). 2. In NaP3 configuration, Rig tab, change the global offset to 6333 (you may have to adjust that a bit

19 so that signals line up properly with the NaP3 filter shadow. The fuzzy spike will now appear about 6.5 Khz to the right of the received signal. Of course, you may not see the spike at all, in which case you can ignore this information. Illustration 17: Turning on DC Block in NaP3 eliminated the spike Conclusions The modified Mark V with the Funcube Dongle Pro+ and NaP3 provides a first class panadaptor that is far superior to the spectrum scopes found in even the most expensive transceivers. The G4HUP board appears to be a worthy replacement for the Z10000B from Clifton Labs. NaP3 remains the best panadaptor software available, even with the lack of direct support for the Mark V. While the secondary CAT connection via Commander doesn't provide perfectly smooth tuning of the NaP3

20 display when the Mark V knob is turned, frequency changes made in NaP3 by mousing on signals is communicated to the Mark V without delay. It would be interesting to know how the less expensive SDR dongles available on ebay and elsewhere would function in this configuration. In an earlier test, one of those dongles ceased to function after only a week of operation. Floyd Sense K8AC

21 December 28, 2015