FTM350AR Home made extension cables

[dsc3507]

Has anyone experimented with making their own extension cable from radio to head for the FTM350 or similar radios? It uses a UTP 8 pin type connector and all 8 wires. The stock cable is simply wired with all 8 wires from connector to connector and no crossover. I tested it with a network cable tester.

Could you use Cat 5 or 6 cable to extend these connections?

I have the wiring in my car from an old Icom 642 installation. It used UTP connectors and 8 wire cable for the mic from radio to a connection block mounted up from. I scoped this out with the network tester and all 8 wires are good and wired without any crossover. I was thinking of trying this for the FTM350AR. It would sure save some installation time.

 

[Moleculo]

It will work. When I wrote my review of this rig, I mentioned that I inspected the remote head cable and found that it was just a straight through CAT 5 cable. If you extend it with a coupler and another straight CAT 5 cable, it should work fine. If you like I probaly have the necessary pieces laying around to test this out.

 

[dsc3507]

Extending radio control cables

OK thanks, I will give it a try. My only concern is I don't know the quality of the old TM642 mic cable that I want to try and use as it is already installed. I doubt it is twisted pair cat 5 as it was from about 15 years ago. It tests out DC wise and it should not hurt anything to try it.

I will give it a shot tomorrow and report back.

 

[Moleculo]

I just got through testing out extending the radio head to body cable by extending it with a regular CAT 5 cable and coupler. It had no problems talking for the last hour with some locals. I'm not sure about your old MIC cable, but assuming it's straight through, you shouldn't have any issues either.

 

[dsc3507]

Ok it works! I am surprised how easy it was. I was expecting having to rewire the car.

The previous installation was for a Kenwood 742 ( I had said icom earlier) It is the one with three band modules and you could select 10m - 1296 modules. It was a good rig but it started giving me trouble and I got rid of it. The cables remained. It had an 8 conductor mic cable with UTP male to the radio and UTP female jack up front for the mic to plug in. I had also run a 3 conductor shielded audio cable for speakers. The original data cable for the 742 was a tiny 4 conductor wire. Probably power, ground, and +- data.

So this morning I took the radio out. Plugged in the old mic cable to the control jack on the 350 and up front I used the supplied 12 foot cable to plug into the UTP mic connector. The total length was probably about 30 feet with the two mixed cables.

So far it seems to work fine. I did not hook up the external speakers up front yet but the RX audio to the front panel seems fine.

I hope this helps others wanting to make their own cables. It seems the cable quality is not a big factor. If I were doing it new though and not trying to use the existing cable, I would try to use stranded cat 5 or 6 for flexibility.
Just make sure it is 8 conductor wired straight through. A network cable tester works great to test but you could use an ohm meter in a pinch.

 

[kf7mmx]

I assume that when you guys test using a 'straight through' wired cable, you maintain the standard twisted pairs and normal order as used in network cabling?

IE: orange/white, orange, green/white blue, blue/white, green, brown/white, brown?

Just picked up this radio last night and I'm looking forward to having it pop between my car and home setups on a whim. Being able to just lace any old cat5 cable through the car from the trunk where power/antenna connections exist, to the front of the cabin and just slap up the remote head/mic would be REALLY easy and desireable =)

 

[KE5MC]

On a Kenwood D710 I extended the mic cable using a 1 meter Cat cable without issue. Other have reported noise pickup for their efforts, but for the most part no factual data to support.

So... the continuity from beginning to end of the cable is maintained so that whatever is on pin 1 at one end gets to pin 1 at the other and so on. It is not likely that the pairing of wires in the cat cable is optimal for the signals twisted together. Nor will there be any shielding of the wires or if you do have a shielded cat cable the shield will be effectively shielding with the existing equipment connectors.

I am just saying that be aware that a long run in a vehicle could have it's issues. Nothing damaging because you have maintained the continuity of functions. Like Vcc and Gnd don't get crossed.

Let us know how it works out.

Mike

P.S. Missed the part about a 30 foot cable. Looks like you should be good to go.

...<snip>
Being able to just lace any old cat5 cable through the car from the trunk where power/antenna connections exist, to the front of the cabin and just slap up the remote head/mic would be REALLY easy and desireable =)

 

[k2led]

I have 3 FTM-350's. To take advantage of short coax runs, one is fed 350 feet to the antenna site 6 floors up with standard cat 5e cable at the work QTH. The other 2 are remoted with cat 5e from the shack to my house via 100 foot runs in underground conduit. It works! Now to find an HF rig that I could wire up the same way.

 

[M0GVZ]

I have 3 FTM-350's. To take advantage of short coax runs, one is fed 350 feet to the antenna site 6 floors up with standard cat 5e cable at the work QTH. The other 2 are remoted with cat 5e from the shack to my house via 100 foot runs in underground conduit. It works! Now to find an HF rig that I could wire up the same way.

Kenwood TS480.

 

[k2led]

Kenwood TS480.

Are you sure? It looks like non-standard cable and connector ends.

 

[team-ramrod]

Old thread, but I'll resurrect it anyway - useful information that others may use.

I've got an old Yaesu FT-7100M that I got reinstalled, and the separation cable was nearly 10 feet too long.

My cable uses a 6P6C modular (phone) plug, but it was a five wire cable. However, one of those wires is shielded, so that made the sixth conductor. I suspect that is for the microphone.

For my particular radio, the direct-connect cable was a rollover, meaning pin 1 was the same wire for both plugs, and pin 2, and pin 3, and so on. So, both plugs will have the same pin-out side by side, but look like they're reversed end to end.

I took my leftover cable and made an extension to use with an F-F connector, and it needed one plug's pins switches, so the pins match end to end and look reversed side by side. This is a straight through wire.

Picture Source:
https://www.computercablestore.com/straight-through-crossover-and-rollover-wiring