Usable Radio Modifications

This page is a list of the modifications you may make to your radio that provide functions not normally provided by the manufacturer. A few of these modifications will allow you to operate outside of the Amateur Radio bands. I strongly urge that you not do that! The cost of type accepted radios has gone from over a thousand dollars for a hand held to under three hundred. If you have need of operating on the Public Service bands, GET A TYPE ACCEPTED RADIO and save our collective reputation (and potentially a LOT of money for yourself). Soap box mode off.

I have either used each of these mods or have received the information from a person that I trust, that has used these mods. The reason for this page - since eHam, QRZ, and many others have lengthy lists of modifications that cover far more radios, is to make available to my friends those mods I trust. I also find it apalling that you can spend so much time looking through SO many posts, only to find that you are in the wrong forum.

This list will NEVER be lengthy enough to even come close to the other sources.

Mod's I have trust in

• 60 Meteres for TenTec. This is my page on my experiences with TenTec and how to get their radios to work on 60 Meteres.
• Yaesu FT-817 save your finals! Many people have lost the finals in their 817 radio multiple times.
  This page has two ways you can eliminate that problem.
• SoftJump is some freeware that allows you to modify the software "jumpers" in the FTs 817, 857 and 897 to enable 60 Meteres. DO use this one with care! First it modifies your communications parameters on your COM1 port. Second it has MANY options that you really want to read about before you use them. You can bump your head really hard here if you do not do a lot of reading first.

Yaesu 857 and 897 60M mod (in case you don't want to use "softjump" above). Open the top cover (carefully). About two inches from the front of the radio and about one and one half inches from the left, you will find two rows of solder pads. Remove or add per the table below. When complete, reset the CPU twice to activate the change. Note: This will remove everything you have previously placed in the memories. REMEMBER TO LOWER YOUR POWER for 60M operation.

Other items of interest

• For those with an FT-817 that would like more power on HF, once in a while: 5 in 140 out Amplifier. This is from Communication Concepts and coveres 2 - 30 Mhz. ONE to FIVE watt input, 140 Watts out. Nice looking kit for about $90.
• FT-817 Commander. This software allows you to do memory management on the FT-817. I have not tried this specific piece of software, but the other items from the author of FT-817 Commander are quite easy to use (VX-2R, VX-5R and VX-7R software).