Many years ago, programming the memories in an amateur radio was a “neat” feature. As the capability was included in more radios, the radio manufacturers also began charging a hefty sum for the cables to do so, because they contained “Circuitry”. Many amateurs quickly learned that these adapters were little more than RS-232 to TTL converters – often including a MAX232 chip. Some worked well with a simple 2 transistor interface, others did not…
Over the years, I began purchasing cables for my radios, until I found my VX-7 required a cable, and many others had found a way to use the VX-5 cable with some audio adapters. The lightbulb came on – I began realizing that the ADMS cable used for my VX-5 did the right level shifting, and could easily be adapted for many other radios… the results of that experimentation are contained below.
Contained herein is:
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Yaesu / Vertex
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Icom
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Radio Shack / GRE
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My cable was from a VX-5R radio, and was also useable on the FT50 and many other Yaesu handhelds at the time. This is the connector on the end: When you get down to it, this cable essentially contains a RS-232 to TTL converter… so it has uses even for small projects such as testing TTL-output GPS units, etc.
Now – here are some cables and adaptors to use this cable for other radios:
Vertex (Yaesu)
Use as-is for the following:
Yaesu VR-120
need adaptor to adapt 3 cond jack to 4 cond plug
Yaesu VX-5
Yaesu FT-50
Wire a 3/8″ stereo jack to a 3/8″ 4 conductor plug as follows-
Yaesu VX7-
A completely off the shelf solution – all that is needed is:
- a yaesu CT91 breakout cable,
- 3/8″ (socket) stereo to 3/32″ (plug) stereo reducer
plug 3 cond ADMS plug into reducer, plug into mic jack (3/32″ jack) on CT91 (and plug CT91 into the radio)
Yaesu FT-1500
need to build adaptor cable
get 6 cond RJ11 phone cable, 3/8″ stereo jack
pin 6 (program) to center conductor on the jack
pin 4 (ground) to outer conductor on the jack
VERTEX FTL-1011/2011/7011 – need to build adaptor cable
get 8 cond phone cable, 3/8″ stereo jack
jumper pins 7 and 6
Pins 8 and 5 to program and ground, respectively.
Pin 8 – Clone Data,
pin 7 – Clone Switch,
pin 6 – +9v,
pin 5 – Ground
Icom (CI-V)
Another off-the-shelf solution:
IC706 (as CI-V interface) need 3/8″ (socket) stereo to 3/8″ (plug) mono adaptor
plug 3 cond ADMS plug into adaptor into CI-V jack on radio
Radio Shack / GRE
More off-the-shelf solutions! RS/GRE use the same adaptor as Icom – a 3/8″ stereo jack to mono plug…
Pro 93/2053 – simple plug & play!
Pro 96 – same adaptor, slightly modified process…
plug the adapter into the scanner before plugging the cable into the adapter. The Pro-9X will then go into clone mode.
I’ve tried it without plugging the adapter in first and most of the time the scanner wont go into clone mode