I recently bought a cable from AliExpress with the wonderfully concise product title:
“Mini DIN6 to 3.5mm PTT Audio Cable for YAESU FT-891/FT-857/FT-817/FT-991/FT-450D, Radio to Sound Card Connection Wire”
Product link:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256812195387716.html
I ordered it on August 23, 2026, and it arrived on September 1, 2026. My total cost, including shipping and tax, was $8.38.
The listing looked useful, but it did not provide much technical detail. Since mystery cables are always more exciting than they ought to be, I decided to find out exactly what I had bought.
First impressions
The cable itself is actually pretty nice.
The 3.5 mm TRRS plug is a gold-colored metal type with a spring strain relief. The 6-pin Mini-DIN connector is molded in place and fit easily into the DATA jack on my Yaesu FT-897. Nothing about it felt especially cheap or questionable, which is not always guaranteed in the world of inexpensive AliExpress cables.
My first test
Before breaking out the multimeter, I tried the cable in what seemed like an obvious way: plugging the TRRS end into a generic USB sound card with a TRRS jack.
That did not work as intended.
In my quick test, audio out to the radio worked, but audio in did not. In other words, it was not behaving like a normal headset-style TRRS cable.
That was a pretty good hint that this cable was wired for a specific radio interface rather than for a generic sound card.
Continuity testing
A quick continuity check with a multimeter showed the following mapping:
| 3.5 mm TRRS | Yaesu Mini-DIN 6 | Function |
|---|---|---|
| Tip | Pin 5 | Data Out (1200 bps) |
| Ring 1 | Pin 1 | Data In |
| Ring 2 | Pin 3 | PTT |
| Sleeve | Pin 2 | Ground |
Pins 4 and 6 are not connected.
One bit of Yaesu terminology is worth mentioning here: in this use case, Data Out and Data In are really functioning as Audio Out and Audio In for digital-mode interfacing.
What it appears to be for
Once I mapped the wiring, the intended use became much more obvious.
This cable appears to be designed for an interface such as the USB2RIG, which looks similar to and may possibly be a clone or derivative of the DigiRig concept. The USB2RIG product I’m referring to is here:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256808076232761.html
The wiring also matches the DigiRig-style audio/PTT arrangement:
- audio from the radio
- audio to the radio
- PTT
- ground
So while the cable is advertised rather vaguely as a radio-to-sound-card cable, it seems more accurate to describe it as a Yaesu Mini-DIN 6 to TRRS interface cable intended for use with a DigiRig-style device, including USB2RIG.
That also explains why plugging it directly into a random USB TRRS sound adapter did not really work. The connector fit, but the wiring was for a radio interface, not a normal consumer audio jack.
Is it useful?
For $8.38 delivered, I think it probably is, at least to a cheapskate like me.
The build quality seems good, the molded Mini-DIN fits the FT-897 well, and the pinout appears to make sense for the intended application. The biggest weakness is simply that the seller provides very little documentation, which leaves the buyer guessing unless they already know what the cable is for.
If the listing had simply included the actual pinout, this would have been much less mysterious.
Next step
So far I have confirmed:
- it physically fits the Yaesu FT-897
- the build quality is decent
- it is not a generic TRRS headset/sound-card cable
- its wiring matches a USB2RIG / DigiRig-style audio + PTT interface cable
The next step is to test it with a USB2RIG and the FT-897 to see how well it works in real use.
If that goes well, expect a follow-up Slackworld post with the test results.
