Hi Rick,
YOu might want to consider the little Mfj long wire tuner.

It's less than $70.

Also Mfj makes a nifty noise bridge that can be u sed to tune one of their
tuners.

Other tuner choices include the Elecraft T1 and another little tuner made by
Emtech. I think it's the zm2 or something like that.

I have all of these and a Yaesu FT817ND

As you say the ldg tuner has to use a baud rate of 38400.

The keypads that work with the Yaesu u se a baud rate of 9600.

For my money it's h ard to change that value on the menus without sighted
help.

I also have Simon Brown's old commander software that will work with the
Yaesu FT817ND.

I haven't gotten aroujnd to trying it on my ccomputer and seeing if it will
work or not with Jaws or Window-Eyes.

After work I'm usually too esxhausted to fool with computers or radios with
quirky menus etc.

Eric
KU3I