I have a Yaesu FT-1000mp Mark V Field that I really like, I have seen the DMU units for the latest models, it displays all kinds of things on the screen, band scope, frequency ect. My question is for my radio what does the CAT system actually do? What would I see on a monitor, if I hook it to a PC through the CAT serial port on the radio? Is this something like the DMU or totally something different, I have seen pictures of shacks with monitors and they have the band scope running and a lot of everything else, I may be way off base here but I am totally new to this technology. What software is required to do this or will this radio even do it? Thanks in advance.
If you hook the CAT port to a monitor you'd get nothing. The CAT port is a serial protocol comm port that allows the FT1K to communicate with CAT (by the way CAT is an acronym for COMPUTER AIDED TRANSCEIVE) to pass mode, freq, SPLIT, filter info and some other stuff to CAT software where it is displayed via the GUI to the user. In some instances, the CAT s/w will pass the received info on to other applications to allow them to know what frequency the radio is at, what modes, etc. are being used.
As far as I know (never owned a FT1K but good friend has one I have helped him with many times) the FT1K series does NOT have a DMU option to use.
Most modern logging software (DX Lab Suite, HRD, and many others) have CAT software built in and provide a user application (or set of apps) to operate with. I suggest you look into logging software and see what the different pkgs do.
BTW you will need some sort of interface cable to connect the CAT port on the FT1K to the computer. Refer to your user's manual.
Good Luck,
Gene W5DQ
