Yaesu Y-ACC cable

In prep for the 6W/C5 trip I splashed out and bought myself a Z11ProII ATU from LDG from a vendor down the road from mum and dad in Cornwall. I didn't splash out on the Y-ACC cable though to use with my FT897... why because for pennies you can make one yourself.... LDG even tell you how.

This is how I made mine.

Take a 12" or so length of twin core (I use a piece of red/black 6amp cable hacked off an old rig power feed) and two 3.5mm stereo plugs.

I wrapped one barrel with red tape that will be the rig end that plugs into the ACC socket of the FT897 (looking at rear this is to the left of the RED socket which is the cw jack and to the right of the data (6 pin) socket. The other end I left as black that goes into the only 3.5mm socket on the rear of the Z11ProII just to left of power.

The cable connect (see image below too):

The red wire from the barrel of the black plug (ATU) to the barrel of the red plug end (Radio).
The black wire from the tip of the black plug (ATU) to the ring of the red plug end (Radio).

And that is it... worth the extra £10-£15 isn't it :-)

Now when you want to to use the radio and atu but want to switch bands/frequency then just press the tun button on the ATU, it keys the rig for 1 second or so allowing the ATU to switch frequency and retune. It works best if you have already tuned the rig/antenna at that frequency in advance.