Terminology
FUSION
System Fusion is Yaesu’s implementation of Digital Amateur Radio, utilizing C4FM 4-level FSK Technology to transmit digital voice and data over the Amateur radio bands. In the early 2000’s GMSK emerged in the Amateur radio market as the dominant digital mode, however in 2013 Yaesu introduced “System Fusion” which quickly became the dominating digital format in Amateur radio because of quality, reliability and enhanced performance in a wide range of environments.
WIRES-X
WIRES (Wide-coverage Internet Repeater Enhancement System) is an internet communication system which expands the range of amateur radio communication. For WIRES-X, an amateur node station connecting to the internet is used as the access point and connects the wireless communication to the internet. Users’ stations can communicate with other amateur stations all over the world using a node within the radio wave range
C4FM
What is C4FM?
The introduction of C4FM / FDMA technology is the beginning of a new digital communication system in Amateur Radio world. The most attractive advantage of digital communication is the ability to transfer large amounts of data.
Getting started
Ok, it would be fair to say that you are going to (or most likely) need to get a Yaesu radio that is compatible with WIRES-X, you can see which ones on the Radios page
Free ways to try
So maybe you don’t need a new radio or want to payout for one that you might not use.
There are some free ways to try WIRES-X without spending out on a new radio.
Go to ‘WIRES-X > Other methods‘ then hover the cursor over the menu items, some will say free! Or click one of the links below.
Some repeaters also can be used as you can transmit in FM and the repeater will send that on to the wires-x network.
So it is worth finding out if any of your local repeaters support WIRES-X, if so this can be an easy way to access WIRES-X and use the repeater as your link to the nodes. There are some problems with this, the biggest one being that in FM mode you cannot change to room or know which room you’re connected to (if any)
If you want to know more about the radios, then either go to YouTube and search for that radio or visit Yaesu’s website. If you want to start small to see if it is something that you could be interested in then I would think that FTM-100 would be a good starting place, they’re not too expensive and you can get a bargain second-hand one. That said the FTM-400 is far easier to use.
The WIRES-X system works on rooms, once connected to a node, you can then join a room. There are plenty of empty rooms and you’re able to join any. If you want to hear others using WIRES-X then it’s worth picking a room with lots of hams in.
Some of the more popular one can be seen as the amount of node connected is in red down the right hand side.
Check out the ways to connect pages from the top menu.
Please see the WIRES-X video page (for members) or YouTube
Snapshot Function (Picture Messaging)
By simply connecting the optional MH-85A11U Speaker Microphone with Camera, an operator can quickly take advantage of the high speed data functions of any System Fusion C4FM radio and can easily transmit images to other C4FM users.
