← Back to hardware

Kenwood TM-V71A

The TM-V71A uses a physical DE-9 serial port on the rear of the main radio unit (not the control panel). This port is not officially documented as a CAT interface by Kenwood, but the command set has been thoroughly reverse-engineered by the amateur community. Serial connection: Connect to the DE-9 port on the rear of the radio main unit using a USB-to-serial adapter. Set the baud rate via menu 110 (default 9600 baud, 8N1, up to 57600 baud). Audio: Use the 6-pin mini-DIN DATA port on the rear of the main unit. Pin 1: PKD discriminator audio output. Pin 3: PTT input (active low). Connect to a USB audio interface. Note: CAT PTT transmits microphone audio, not DATA port audio. For node operation, use the DATA port for audio and bring PTT to ground on Pin 3 of the DATA port to transmit with discriminator audio.