It was indeed Jim in Kitplanes March 2002 (Good memory, Mike) that used a
cheap 3.5mm "transistor radio" set of jacks to automatically disconnect the
com radio when you plugged in the portable radio.

Jim

--
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in
a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside,
thoroughly used up, totally worn out, with chocolate in one hand and wine in
the other, loudly proclaiming 'WOO HOO What a Ride!'"
--Unknown

"Mike Noel" wrote in message
...
A 'cheap' way to share an antenna with a hand-held when the official com
goes belly up is to cut the coax where it is easily accessible during
flight (like under the instrument panel near your knees) and installing the
appropriate coax couplers to rejoin the cable (something like a double
female bnc coupler and a couple of male bnc connectors on the two coax
ends). You can connect an adapter coax between the hand held and the
antenna side of the split coax for using the handheld in an emergency. One
down side to such an arrangement is that you obviously don't want to
accidentally plug your handheld into the wrong side of the split coax and
transmit into the expensive com radio. And wasn't it Jim at RST who wrote
an article in one of the homebuilt magazines about a panel plug in for
attaching a hand-held to the com antenna?