FLDIGI With FT-991 On Linux

I am still (as of this writing) using Linux Mint 17. The only way I found to be able to use cat control and digital is using the latest FLDIGI and HamLib. If you don't have that visit my page dedicated to building it from source. This page is here for settings only.

Before we do anything with software we need to set up the FT-991 with proper settings. I will assume you will be using it like me, via the USB port and not the data/din port. This guide is for the USB cable connection ONLY!

On the FT-991 go into the menu->settings and set the following entries to the corisponding values:

28 GPS/232C SELECT = rs232c
29 232C RATE = 38400 bps
31 CAT RATE = 38400 bps
71 DATA PTT SELECT = RTS
72 DATA PORT SELECT = USB
111 SSB PORT SELECT = USB

Go to mode on the FT-991 and slect data-usb

It is common knowledge but you should be running low power. Every mode is slightly different but things like PSK, WSJT, etc only require 5-10 watts. Any more than that and you are just killing someone else's TX space and receiver.

Plug in the USB cable in to the radio then into your Linux PC. Open a command window and you should be able to see the usb to comm port via:

You should see:
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 Nov 9 20:27 /dev/ttyUSB0
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 1 Nov 8 18:04 /dev/ttyUSB1

Notice the group ownership is dialout, there are a few ways around it but I found by adding yourself to the dialout group to be the easiest. Type the following command.

And see if "dialout" is listed. If it is great, if not you can add yourself to the group by using the command

You have to logout and log back in to make that change take effect. Now open FLDIGI. If it is the first time running it you can follow along the prompts and use the following screen shots as a guide. If not go to the menu configure->rig control and use the following as a guide for settings. Make sure that no other tabs are selected ONLY HAMLIB tab.

Now open the audio tab and use the following as a guide

And lastly we have to tell FLDIGI to send the trasmitted audio to both left and right channels using the audio->right channel tab. Use the below image as a guide

Now we have to set up your audio for the FT-991 using the mixer. So open up

Or open it via right click sound icon in task bar -> sound preferences. Under the hardware tab you will notice the FT-991 sound card show up as "PCM2903B Audio CODEC"

Now go to the Input tab, select your PCM2903B Audio Codec and adjust the volume slider so that the waterfall in FLDIGI or your favorite digital mode software just starts showing a little bit of noise.

Now go to your output tab select your FT-991 below. The adjustment will take some back and forth effort. Put your radio down to 5-10 watts and the meter to ALC, put the audio output levels down to 10%, put the software in transmit. Slowly adjust the output volume until the output of your ALC shows the proper measurement as per the manual (typicaly just a couple notches)

Generally you should be good to go. Try putting the FLDIGI in whatever mode you like and give it a CQ shout out