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.
Here’s the original text file I had put together:
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) | Yaesu VR-120 | Use as-is |
| Vertex (Yaesu) | Yaesu VX-5 Yaesu FT-50 | Build an adaptor to adapt 3 cond jack to 4 cond plug Outer shield to outer shield 3 conductor Ring to 4 conductor inner ring |
| Vertex (Yaesu) | 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 | 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 | Mic Jack Relevant Pins: Pin 8 – Clone Data, pin 7 – Clone Switch, pin 6 – +9v, pin 5 – Ground need to build adaptor cable Use an RJ45 and, 3/8″ stereo jack jumper pins 7 and 6 |
| Icom | CI-V (all CI-V terminals) | Another off-the-shelf solution: 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 | Pro 93/2053 | Same adaptor set as CI-V, plug and play |
| Radio Shack / GRE | Pro 96 | same adaptor as above, 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 |
(2025 Jul 18 Edit… I found some of the original images I had put together for this site, and uploaded them to clean this version up)