Winston Lawrence

FT3D Operation: How to search for a YSF node/room

1. Set the radio to the frequency of your Pi-star hotspot and make sure the FT3D is on VFO A. You cannot do Wires-X commands from VFO B.
2. Press the PTT key so that the Pistar hotspot is "listening" (particularly if has not been active for awhile).
3. Press the [Wires-X key]. You may have to press the key more than once. Every now and then I have to press the a few times in order to ping the hotspot.
4. The hotspot sends back the succesful connection tone and you should see the last room you connected to flashing, which means not connected, or solid, i.e. not flashing, which means you are connected.


5. There will be an option in the center of the FT3D screen saying  [Search and Direct]  If you click on that you will go to a new screen, [WIRES CATEGORY]. The [WIRES CATEGORY] menu will show 5 memory locations labelled  "C1" - "C5"  (unless you have changed the names) followed by two choices on the bottom of the screen that you can click on [ALL] or [Search&Direct].
   Note:  If you have saved rooms (as a favorite/shortcut) in one of the  "C1" - "C5"  memory locations you can click on that memory location which will then show you whatever node/rooms are saved and you can select the room that you want to QSO.
   On the bottom of the screen, selecting [ALL] will return a (long) list of active rooms that you can connect to and selecting [Search&Direct] will let you enter the name of the room to which you want to connect


6. You should now be on the data entry / on-screen keyboard where the first cell is labelled [ID].
7. FOR A YSF search: You can enter the name (full or partial) of the room to which you want to connect. If you enter "PAR" and then press [ENT] for example you should see "waiting" flash for awhile and then all of the PARROT rooms displayed. Scroll and then click on the node/room that you want


8. You should again see "waiting" flash for awhile and then get the "connected" tone. If not, then click on the desired room and try again.
9. You should now see another screen for the room you have just connected which may display options like: "Emergency" "News Station" "Local News" "Int News" and at the end, [ADD] and [LOG] options.
10. If you click [ADD] you will go to the [WIRES CATEGORY] menu where you can click on one of the entries to add the room that you have just connected. Otherwise...
11. Press [Back key]to go back to the VFO display and you should now see the room you connected.
12. You can now QSO.