AOR 8200: Medium Wave Antenna Connector

[johnr5329]

I haven't sent email to aor yet but maybe someone here can provide some insight...

I have a 8200Mk III and had previously purchased a TV-5000 TV Converter (labeled "IF IN"). This never worked and that is probably by design as this accessory may be only for other models of aor receiver.

http://www.rigpix.com/accessories/aor_tv5000.htm

Anyway, this converter came with an interface cable that has one end a BNC jack (goes into the TV-5000) and the other end has a connector that interfaces to the medium wave (MW) antenna input on the receiver.

As I said this never worked. I put an oscilloscope on it and nothing seems to come across.

The questions are: Should the AOR 8200 have IF OUT on the MW antenna connector? If so, maybe it is on different pins? I ask because this cable fits into other AOR cables that clearly have this capability.

Thanks,

John

 

[eorange]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; CPU iPhone OS 5_1_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B206 Safari/7534.48.3)

The 8200 MW antenna is advertised with "negative feedback". Not sure why there's 7 pins, or if they're all used, but some pins might be used for that, whereas on other AOR receivers those pins could serve other purposes. But on the 8200, I can't imagine why there'd be an IF signal to a bar antenna. Just guessing here.

 

[johnr5329]

What you say makes sense.

I opened up both the MW antenna and the one attached to the cable pictured:

MW antenna: uses pins 1, 2, 6 & 7
RF antenna: pins 3 and 7. Pin 7 appears to be ground so 3 is intended to be signal.

Does the AOR 5000 receiver have a slot that will accept a connector that has same form factor as the MW antenna? If so, that would support what you say (this cable is intended for AOR 5000).

John

 

[eorange]

I haven't seen a 5000 in person, but since your accessory is called the "TV5000", then...probably!

Just to be clear on your pin discovery:

MW Antenna = the one attached to the cable (which looks so strange!)
RF Antenna = the standalone bar antenna

Is that correct? Also, is there any circuitry inside the cable version? Trying to figure how 4 pins go down to essentially 2 connections on a BNC.

 

[johnr5329]

I should not have used RF antenna in my description:

MW Antenna: Medium wave antenna that comes with the AOR 8200.
TV-5000 cable: Cable that has BNC on one end and connector with same format as MW antenna on the other. In this cable, only 2 pins are used (3 & 7).

In the TV-5000 cable, all other pins beside 3 & 7 are unused (nothing connected at header in the plastic body). The 2 used pins go to the BNC. There is no circuitry.

John

 

[eorange]

Well...the obvious guess is - regardless of the connector - the AOR 5000 outputs the required IF signal, whereas the 8200's port is strictly a MW antenna interface.

 

[johnr5329]

I am glad someone else beside me is intrigued as to why there is a connector made for the AOR 8200 that feeds the IF IN of a device.

I asked AOR and the mystery is mostly solved. I have email in to get more details and do not have permission to re-post verbatim what was provided to me already (seems like I should get permission).

Anyway, according that AOR representative there are in fact 8200 radios that have IF OUT on that top connector. Those that have it were sold in Japan and it is after a certain point in time. Representative could not say which world area model/serial # had that feature enabled.

I could be misstating what was indicated to me and if I get go ahead to copy/paste response I will do so.

I asked additional questions and will post more if I get answers.

John

 

[johnr5329]

So my first attempt at hooking up the BNC to the oscilloscope yielded nothing that looked interesting. However, that was the 8200 with US lineage.

I hooked up the one I got in Tokyo when I picked up the TV-5000 and things for sure are different. I know next to nothing about IF but there is clearly a signal on the oscilloscope with this radio. The plan is to work with SDR so next step may be to get that into sound card input and work with gnu radio to see if this signal can be demodulated.

John

 

[SM166]

IF output?! I too have an older Japan model but how too tell if mine has the output how else can one tell if a unit can do it?? cant wait for thier reply or should i pry the MW antenna apart? to see the pin connection

 

[johnr5329]

IF output?! I too have an older Japan model but how too tell if mine has the output how else can one tell if a unit can do it?? cant wait for thier reply or should i pry the MW antenna apart? to see the pin connection

You do not need to pry anything open. The picture posted above should match what you have and indicate a screw to be removed.

The pins in the MW antenna should match the pins indicated above (MW Antenna). The pin to test for IF should be the ones indicated above (TV-5000 cable).

The IF OUT on AOR 8200 is a test / proof of concept. No further information is available as to what units had it.


John

 

[dkf435]

The AR5000, AR8600 and AR3000A that is modded for it will have 10.7 IF out on a BNC jack on back of radio. The AR8600 has a narrower bandwith IF out then the others so is not usable for all functions such as SDU and not sure on TV bandwith availability.

Only the AR8200 and AR8600 used the bar antenna.

So as you received in the email I would be guessing some tap for the AR8200 since it is tight on space and does not come with a jack already.

Also putting an oscilloscope on the jack will not help much as you need a pan adapter to give you the sweep function of the IF.

You may ask if they can get you a copy of the mod because it could be useful for different things such as the P25 decoders need the IF out. Right now I am using a ARD25 on the AR5000 and R8500 to search for new P25 traffic, the AR8600 has the ARD8600 inside already kind of wished they could of done a slot card for the AR8200 would of been nice.

David Kb7uns