yaesu-ft-991a¶
Yaesu FT-991A — HF/VHF/UHF all-mode transceiver with a built-in USB CAT and audio interface
Vendor: Yaesu · class: rig
Status: untested — catalogued from documented sources, not yet proven here.
Not maintainer-verified: nobody on this project has run this hardware yet. The two facts are recorded separately on purpose (D-027) — a correct recipe and a tested device are different claims.
What it is¶
A Yaesu FT-991A, a single-box HF/50/144/430 MHz all-mode transceiver with a USB port that presents both its CAT control channel and its sound-card audio over one cable, through a Silicon Labs CP2105 dual serial bridge and a built-in USB audio codec.
What you can do with it¶
Run every digital mode and log with full computer control: frequency, mode and PTT over CAT, and transmit/receive audio over the same USB cable, with no external interface. Select it as the station's rig and one shared rigctld carries it to WSJT-X, fldigi, JS8Call, Pat and the rest.
Setup¶
Attach the radio and switch it on. In the radio's menu, set the CAT RATE and note it (hamlib defaults 1035 to 38400, but the menu is what counts). hammunition station set --rig yaesu-ft-991a --rig-device /dev/serial/by-id/usb-Silicon_Labs_CP2105_...-if00-port0 --rig-baud <your CAT rate>, then install rig-service. Join dialout and log out and back in. See docs/guides/rig-control.md.
Known problems¶
The CP2105 presents two serial ports and only one is CAT; the other keys RTS/DTR. They are told apart by the -ifNN- suffix of the /dev/serial/by-id/ path, not by the USB identifier, which is the same for both. A CAT RATE in the radio's menu that does not match --rig-baud reads as a dead or erratic radio rather than an error — the speed in the menu cannot be read from the computer. This entry is untested here: nothing about the radio's behaviour is claimed until the bench has run (D-073 §12).
What is not yet known¶
Not captured from this radio on a bench. What one scripts/identify-device.sh run with the FT-991A attached must record, to close this and let the entry become composite with measured strings: the two CP2105 serial ports' product strings (which -ifNN- is the Enhanced/CAT port and which is the Standard/PTT port — Yaesu's documentation says CAT is the Enhanced port, unmeasured here), whether the CP2105 reports a per-unit serial (reports_serial, the value never recorded, only whether), and the USB audio codec's identifier (a TI/Burr-Brown codec per docs/guides/audio-routing.md, identifier not measured).
Who can close it: the maintainer owns this hardware; the gap closes at the next capture session.
Access and permissions¶
Group membership required: dialout — added at install, applies at next login.
Software that makes it useful¶
Upstream: https://www.yaesu.com/