Radioshack RC battery for FT817ND

Got some nice deal on local Radioshack, the quick charger and 1600mAh battery was on sale for just $10, nice... I modified it to work with my FT-817ND Yaesu, change the battery connector type to the smaller ones, as the original connector on yaesu its really damn small and hard to get, I changed it to different type, the purpose of the connector replacement is to accommodate quick battery swap and put the empty battery to the charger.

People may ask, why I did this ?, the reason is this radio able to charge the battery with its own internal charger, but it need 7-8 hours to complete the charge, with this quick charger, it took only 30 minutes - 1 hour, huge difference.

below are the pictures, you can get the idea from it :

Bluetooth serial for Yaesu FT817ND

I build this for just around 20$ compare if I bought the "standard" bluetooth to serial converter, which is always have price tag around 70$.

comparing with if I buy the standard one, I can make it small size, but sure, I had to deal with couples of SMD devices, 2 transistors, couples R and C and one step down regulator MAX1726 (Yaesu FT817ND ACC port is 5 Volt signal, and the bluetooth module need 3.3 Volt signal and 3.3 Volt VCC, so I need 2 step down, from Yaesu supply voltage 12 Volt to 5 Volt and to 3.3 Volt, and for 5 Volt I just use the regular 78L05 ).

the only cons is the speed only 9600bps, but its acceptable performance.

bought the module on ebay, at store called sureelectronics, and its comes with simple schematic :



this is the module physical appearance :



and this is my finish setup.







at above picture I use CTR-remote for PPC from http://www.lynovation.com/

Yaesu FT-817ND Freeband mods

I recently bought Yaesu FT 817ND transceiver and really love this small rig so much, even better, I did some modification to make it transmit on all band, originally it only able to transmit on amateur band frequency only, this is the range that I have now :

1.8 - 33 Mhz

33 - 56 MHz

140 - 154 MHz

420 - 470 MHz

My Yaesu is US version, 2008 build, so applying modification through software is no longger possible, I had to open it and reach the jumper inside of front panel, and for this model, originally it has J4001-J4004 open, J4005-J4007 close and J4008-J4009 open, and to able to change it to freeband, I have to mod jumper by opening J4005, closing J4008 and J4009

here is the picture to locate where the jumper and the way it numbered :

take a look my other project, Bluetooth serial for Yaesu FT-817ND.