27 noiembrie 2013

ICOM IC-7000 and CODAN 9350 auto-tune antenna

After a looooong search, I bought a CODAN 9350 radio with 9360 antenna. After playing a lot with the radio I concluded that is not the best option for a mobile HF setup so I put a ICOM IC-7000 with a LDG Z100 Plus ATU onto my car.
Maybe the ICOM is not better than CODAN in term of reliability or sound but in a Ham's world, the VFO is essential stuff.
So, I was wondering if i can put the CODAN 9350 to work with the ICOM after I read a lot of positive stuff about the Codan antenna.
As you maybe know, the antenna has a control socket with a dedicated connector (military grade) on the antenna side. The original cable that came tih the Codan setup has had a DB15 male connector to the radio side.
ICOM has a dedicated connector for a external ATU - ICOM AH4; on the same connector we have the power supply from the radio and command signals.
A little research on the internet gave me VK1OD's website where he shows a dedicated Protocol converter. As the 9360 has a very nice feature of a RF Preamplifier, very useful for scanning, it's higly recommended but the know how is a little costly and I am not sure that I really need that preamplifier.
To keep it short, I found that a direct connection between the ICOM and CODAN 9360 it is possible!

For the cable I used the LDG "Y" accessory cable which have a nice ICOM connector. Of course, I cut it to connect the wires to a DB 15 female.


The AMPHENOL connector on the CODAN Radio side:


Here is the cable diagram:

ICOM CONNECTOR        DB15              AMPHENOL

           KEY                         11                              D
           START                      4                               C
           + 13,8 V              12 AND 13                    A
           GND                   14 AND 15                     B

After testing, looked to me that the setup is OK and working. Unfortunately, I do not have (yet) the adequate bullbar for that antenna.

yo3hjv 

 

PS

Some other interesting resource:

https://github.com/darksidelemm/IC-9350/tree/master/Icom9350

https://github.com/TheSkorm/IC-9350

 

 

5 comentarii:

EJ spunea...

Hello,

since you know some info about codan 9360, were you able to add VFO tx function to the radio?

YO3HJV, Adrian spunea...

Codan sells a special EPTOM with the VFO activated. Mine it's only front panel programmable and via the RS232 with a PC.

YO3HJV, Adrian spunea...

Typo... EPROM...

YO3HJV, Adrian spunea...

Typo... EPROM...

VK5TBC spunea...

To enable TXE or RX/RX tuning I used a 32bit Windows XP computer with Com port 1 and DB9 connectivity via Codan 7 pin to DB9 female. Then down loaded Codan's XP programe Ver5. Now I am able to set any frequency from MF (rx only) and 2 - 30MHz Tx/RX.

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