Back...

Well, I'm back in Bucharest from a long and exciting trip in Cheile Latoritei at Petrimanu Lake. Very nice!
Heavy road, a lot of rain and, of course, some snow. The rain almost destroyed the road so we had to use two chainsaws to make the road available...
The CODAN 9350 didn't performed as I was expect. Impossible to use it under 10 MHz but over worked as a charm. I have to think to a longer whip. Maybe one from a CB antenna with some sort of adapter.
We (YO3HJV and YO8RNI) used a improvised long wire to work from YOFF-420. I have a lot of paper-log to put into the PC so, please, be patience, I will do it in the next weeks...
As for today... Guess what? It was a sunny day with over 20 Celsius!

 I painted two orange strips on the CODAN 9350 antenna just for the other on the road. It's more visible and the lights make it visible into the deepest dark also.

73 de YO3HJV

CODAN 9350 console for Nissan X-Trail

So, yesterday was my "sunny day" when I finally receive the custom-made console for my CODAN 9350/9360 antenna.
The assembly is made from a fixed steel plate and a elevated arm on which the antenna is affixed.
It's made from 5mm thick steel and it fixes onto the original rear trail hook. A few solder points and it's capable to support around 100 kg's!

Fixed plate:

Welding:

 Inspection:

 Final look:

 Testing:

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

 

 

Another CODAN 9369 experience...

CODAN 9360

Today I get my Codan 9360...
I dreamed a lot at this radio, for the last 3 years, seems to be impossible to get one!
So, this is my X-Mas gift from my wife :-) Nice!

This unit is full 2-30 MHz TX capable, with front keypad programming mode.
This is somehow complicated because there are only 12 controls (10 keys and two opto) and the menu is very, very complicated!
Not only this, but the engineering is weird for a ham!
I think I will need the programming software to put the frequencies into the Eprom and also make ALE to work with HF-ALE ham radio network.

This is a small video I made when I was in QSO with YO2LGX and YO2LEO.
73 d YO3HJV