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The FT-2980R is a beast of a transceiver putting out up to 80W FM on 2m. From spending a little time using it for 2m simplex nets and whatnot it is an excellent radio; the receiver is (anecdotally) an S-point “better” when compared to my other radios (FT-8800R, FT-857D, FTM-300D). S1 stations which were unreadable come through more clearly on the 2980R, and impact from local QRM seems much reduced.

I always thought it would make an excellent packet radio, but in their wisdom Yaesu never put a 6-pin Mini-DIN connector on the back - so this article will address that shortcoming!

• Pin 9 of Q1028 is the output from the discriminator
• Junction between C1122 and C1123 is de-emphasised audio before the RX-MUTE circuit
• Junction between C1276 and Q1003 is the DC-coupled input to the modulator
• TP1008 is MIC audio input, to then be processed / emphasised by Q1049 / Q1043 etc
• PTT is achieved by grounding PIN1 of the MIC connector (front panel board)

• DC-coupled audio input to the VCO was done through a bit of RG178 - there is potentially a lot of RF flying about inside the radio so keeing the audio input well shielded seemed like a good idea. Plus there is a dirty great big ground pad to solder the braid to!
• The de-emphasised audio output appears on the rear side of the PCB too

==Main PCB top side

• The flat audio out is tapped from the Q1028 side of C1098, it's an easier solder-job to access the cap rather than the IC pin
• The MIC audio input is tapped into the test point which appears next to the flat-flex connector to the Front PCB

More to come

More to come

More to come

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More to come