Published on KI6ETL - Ham Radio Enthusiast (http://www.ki6etl.org)
Making a Cable to Go Between a GPS device and the Kenwood TH-D7
By dave
Created 2006-08-17 18:27

Although you can buy cables "pre-made" for connecting the GPS to the Kenwood D7, it seems to be in the spirit of ham radio... to build your own.
Hopefully these pictures will help you see what I did to get mine working.

Page 6 of Kenwood's Documentation on Connectors [1] was very helpful. However it doesn't really say what to do with the "serial" port end of the cable. The TH-D7 manual mentions which holes are what, but obviously it can make a difference on which viewpoint (solder-side or connector-side) and whether it is a male or female port.

This cable has allowed me to connect a Magellan Meridian GPS [2] and a Garmin etrex Legend [3] to the D7. (NOTE: This was for use with the existing manfacturer cables that provide connections from the device to a DB-9 serial cable).

View of the front of the connector-side:

View of the top of the solder-side:

So a view from the solder-side shows the pins to be:

__(G)_(_)_(R)_(B)_(_)__
____(_)_(_)_(_)_(_)____

G = Ground
R = Red
B = Black (sometimes white)

A lot of this depends on the cable manufacturer. If for some reason it does not seem to be working, simply switch (R) and (B).

You'll notice that I used the crimp style connector [4] for this specific cable, since the wires were large enough. On another cable that had smaller wires, I used the crimp and then soldered to make sure there was good connection.


Source URL: http://www.ki6etl.org/making-cable-go-between-gps-device-and-kenwood-th-d7

Links:
[1] http://www.kenwood.net/indexKenwood.cfm?do=DownloadFile&Document=225e37e78a3fe783183e04103ac113d7855be16a817d793eed8f41c9af0df0c10e133796d5197e5b65bb91733b746aa8
[2] http://www.magellangps.com/support/product.asp?prodid=89
[3] http://www.garmin.com/products/etrexLegend
[4] http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103805&cp=2032058.2032231.2032285&allCount=18&fbn=Cable+type%2F9-position&f=PAD%2FCable+Type%2F9-position&fbc=1&parentPage=family