Gear: Yaesu FT-891, Windows 10, digirig-891.
It appears that I have to manually change menu settings when bouncing between VarAC and Winlink. Can VarAC save current transceiver menu parameter values when it starts, make changes to menu parameters necessary for it to run, then change them back when exiting?
I use Vara (licensed) with Winlink. The Vara waterfall and the red bandwidth lines look like they do in the manual - the red lines are far apart, just inside each edge of the waterfall.
This morning I installed and ran VarAC. One obvious difference in the waterfall was it was perhaps 1/6th the width of the waterfall when running Winlink and it wasn't centered but off to the right. However, what was concerning was that the two red lines that indicate the bandwidth were much closer together (about 1/6th the width as in Winlink) but more concerning was that the red lines were centered on the Vara window, which meant that none of the VarAC waterfall was within the red lines.
A bit of research on this forum suggested that I should change Menu 08-03 (OTHER DISP) to 1500 Hz and also change 08-04 (OTHER SHIFT) to 1500 Hz. After doing that, the waterfall was centered between the two red bandwidth lines. So far so good. But when I exit VarAC and run Winlink, the 1500 Hz values make the red bandwidth lines narrower than what is recommended for Vara.
Best,
Jim / K8DDV
What Irad said, but I am guessing what you are seeing is a Bandwidth change between VarAC which predominantly uses VARA 500Hz and Winlink which uses VARA 2300 or 2900Hz. If you had sent some screenshots I could be certain.
With those 2 different VARA modes you should be using a narrow RX Filter for VarAC's 500Hz and a wider filter for WL's 2300/2900Hz.
The VarAC ini file can do this work for you, and the FT-891 works well with both VarAC and WL.
For FT-891 - VarAC Only changes the modulation when using Direct CAT.
you mentioned using Digirig - so I have no control of what Digirig is doing.
Just a side note - If you relay on VarAC direct CAT control - you should be aware that in that FT-891 section you have at the end of it a parameter called "VarACExitCmd=" that you can add CAT commands that VarAC will run to your rig when is closes... some people use it to revert to a specific filter they want or anything else like AGC sensitivity etc...
73s
Irad
[Yaesu FT-891] CmdType=TEXT PTTOn=TX1; PTTOff=TX0; ModeUSB=MD02; ModeUSB_D=MD08; ModeFM=MD04; SetFreq_Data_method=TEXT SetFreqVfoA_Cmd=FA{}; SetFreqVfoA_param_length=9 SetFreqVfoA_hz_res=1 ReadFreqVfoA_Cmd=FA; ReadFreqVfoA_Result_Data_method=TEXT ReadFreqVfoA_Result_hz_res=1 ReadFreqVfoA_Result_Length=12 ReadFreqVfoA_Result_Freq_Start_Pos=3 ReadFreqVfoA_Result_Freq_Length=9 AntennaTuner=AC002; VarACStartCmd= VarACExitCmd= <-------------- HERE