In my honeymoon phase still in ham radio (licensed tech in Nov 2022 and general in Feb 2023) and just barely getting into digital modes. I have a tentec argosy and am borrowing a yaesu ft-100d from my local club to try and learn digital modes, specifically ft8 and js8call (and probably winlink at some point).
I got a digirig as the recommended hardware to get into digital as well as the ft-8xx cables from digirig. I assumed it was plug and play so I plugged it all in and turned it on. I was initially getting signal into the wsjtx software and the CAT seemed to be working but I couldn’t get out of the settings screen in wsjtx (getting a rig control error in wsjtx). I looked in device manager in my laptop and noticed the driver hadn’t been installed yet so I followed the digirig instruction to install the driver and get rid of the yellow triangle (which worked).
I followed the in depth audio control setup instructions from digirig but now my PC can’t hear anything from the radio and I still can’t get out of the settings screen because I get “rig failure” errors (see attached pic, IMG-6648). I did just read that middleware might be helpful, but I wanted to ask the question before I go too much further down a rabbit hole and decide to start over.
What do I need to do to get the PC (surface pro 2), digirig, ft-8xx cables, and ft-100d talking to each other?
Ps, I initially thought it might have been a cable issue because it WAS hearing before the driver install AND it looked like the CAT might have been working as I could see the frequency and was seeing messages in the band activity screen of wsjtx (IMG-6646…except the frequency part…but it WAS there because I remember turning the dial on the ft-100d to the frequency showing in the software thinking it might help…it was 14.074 and it didn’t help). Makes me think there is a setting or something on the ft-100d or in wsjtx. Any help is apprecaited… I would pull my hair out if I had any left…
Data In and Data Out are likely referring to the audio signal, not digital data for serial port.
I also found this document stating that the CAT functionality has to be enabled inside the radio.
Before you address the CAT related issues, I would suggest setting “rig” to “none” in WSJT-X so you are not bombarded by the errors and can confirm that everything else is working. PTT will have to be set to RTS as outlined in getting started guide.
Digirig Mobile with the Logic Levels Cat Config.
Yaesu FT-8xx Cables for Digirig Mobile (I bought the separated cables cause they were readily available).
In truth, the hardware was the easiest part of the whole thing. Settings in the radio and settings in WSJT-X were the long pole in the tent.
