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#1
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Garmin 496-XM Radio-PS Engineering Intercom Follow up...
To recap our problem, last week Tony (and his guys) at McCandless
Aviation in Waterloo, IA, had no luck connecting the XM radio (music) output from my Garmin 496 to our PS Engineering PCD-7100 (a stereo CD Player/4-place intercom that we've had in the panel since '02). They found that connecting the 496 to the "auxilliary" input (in the intercom's circuitry -- there is no "jack") resulted in only the PILOT hearing the music, as if the "pilot isolate" switch had been thrown. The only other option they found was to use the "Music 2" input -- which fed only the back seats. With time running out on us getting home, we made another appointment, and left Tony scratching his head, diagramming circuits on napkins... In the meantime, Mark Shuerer of PS Engineering jumped in here (after seeing my post) and has been most helpful. At Mark's urging Tony contacted PSE, and Mark emailed Tony a "Service Aid" (like a "Service Bulletin" for aircraft) that gave Tony the precise instructions on how to make the music come out of all four positions without compromising most of the features of the PCD-7100. (More on that later.) Basically the mod involved jumpering across the circuit board in order to make "Music 2" feed all four stations in the plane. It's a simple mod that took the guys 30 minutes or so, and did the trick. At the same time, I had Tony wire in a filter that eliminated the alternator whine I noted last week. Thus, we were out of there by noon today, with everything working perfectly... ....Or so I thought. After take-off, while listening to Frank Sinatra crooning "live" from the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, the sound suddenly went haywire. Full of static and distortion, sounding very much like a blown speaker. Through trial and error, we found that touching any button on the 496 caused the problem to go away -- or start, depending on...something we couldn't determine. Great, we thought, this will be one of those lovely intermittent problems that can drive a tech crazy... After landing in Iowa City (dang, but it got COLD here all the sudden -- wind-chill 5 above zero!) we spent a few minutes on the ramp trouble-shooting. All the connections were solid coming through the AirGizmo, although I would have appreciated a bit more "slack" in the cords. We could still induce (or cure) the problem by pushing buttons -- but not every time. The sound would be fine, and then it would be totally distorted, like the volume had been suddenly turned up beyond maximum. Finally I navigated to the "Sound" page in the 496, and found a menu item named "Audio". Selecting that gives you two choices -- "Line Out" and "Headphones". It was on "Line Out" so I switched it to "Headphones" -- and SHAZAAM! -- it was like night and day! The stereo sound we *THOUGHT* was so excellent was suddenly ten times better, and the "static" problem instantly went away. So, even though "Line out" sounds like it makes sense (feeding into the intercom), obviously the right choice is "Headphones" -- and that's where we left it. THAT, my friends, is the kind of problem that might take an avionics shop a full day to "fix" -- so I consider myself lucky to have stumbled across a fix. Something to file away in your brain-bank if you're ever planning on doing this upgrade to the 396/496 in your plane... Finally, I must admit I'm a bit disappointed with the ultimate "fix" (jumpering into "Music 2"), since we have now lost the ability to feed music to the back two seats only. My plan to get the kids a portable DVD player for Xmas, which they would be able to plug in to the back-seats-only jack (located in the right-rear headphone jack housing), has obviously been shot to hell, since any movie will now be heard by all FOUR stations. So, the power connection I paid Tony to install under the panel last week (so that I could safely and properly plug a cigar-lighter extension cord into it) no longer has any purpose -- basically money down the drain. Of course, Tony says that the new PS Engineering audio panels will do everything I'm trying to do (and more), without difficulty. Buying one would get rid of my ugly old (but perfectly functional) Narco CP-136 (with the broken face plate), but then I'd be stuck with TWO intercoms in the panel. And, of course, we're talking about spending another ~2 AMUs or so. Oh, well. In the meantime (while I save my nickels for that eventual installation) it's going to be SO cool having 5 jillion XM radio choices of music/sports/talk to choose from whilst droning along on those long cross-country trips... -- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA Pathfinder N56993 www.AlexisParkInn.com "Your Aviation Destination" |
#2
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Garmin 496-XM Radio-PS Engineering Intercom Follow up...
Jay,
Mark Shuerer Since it's not the first time you do this (and have mangled my name, too), let me suggest that it might be a matter of showing very basic courtesy and respect to other people if you made the simple effort of copying their names from a post correctly. Mark's last name is Scheuer. -- Thomas Borchert (EDDH) |
#3
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Garmin 496-XM Radio-PS Engineering Intercom Follow up...
I'm glad you've finally discovered the joys of the 396/496! It's a
great box. A game changer. Better ones will follow but this is a great one. Now I've got to see if the 396 has that same setting. I had to install a filter to get rid of the hum in my system. Bill (I've got a 396 and love it) Watson Jay Honeck wrote: The stereo sound we *THOUGHT* was so excellent was suddenly ten times better, and the "static" problem instantly went away. So, even though "Line out" sounds like it makes sense (feeding into the intercom), obviously the right choice is "Headphones" -- and that's where we left it. THAT, my friends, is the kind of problem that might take an avionics shop a full day to "fix" -- so I consider myself lucky to have stumbled across a fix. Something to file away in your brain-bank if you're ever planning on doing this upgrade to the 396/496 in your plane... Finally, I must admit I'm a bit disappointed with the ultimate "fix" (jumpering into "Music 2"), since we have now lost the ability to feed music to the back two seats only. My plan to get the kids a portable DVD player for Xmas, which they would be able to plug in to the back-seats-only jack (located in the right-rear headphone jack housing), has obviously been shot to hell, since any movie will now be heard by all FOUR stations. So, the power connection I paid Tony to install under the panel last week (so that I could safely and properly plug a cigar-lighter extension cord into it) no longer has any purpose -- basically money down the drain. Of course, Tony says that the new PS Engineering audio panels will do everything I'm trying to do (and more), without difficulty. Buying one would get rid of my ugly old (but perfectly functional) Narco CP-136 (with the broken face plate), but then I'd be stuck with TWO intercoms in the panel. And, of course, we're talking about spending another ~2 AMUs or so. Oh, well. In the meantime (while I save my nickels for that eventual installation) it's going to be SO cool having 5 jillion XM radio choices of music/sports/talk to choose from whilst droning along on those long cross-country trips... -- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA Pathfinder N56993 www.AlexisParkInn.com "Your Aviation Destination" |
#4
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Garmin 496-XM Radio-PS Engineering Intercom Follow up...
I'm glad you've finally discovered the joys of the 396/496! It's a
great box. A game changer. Better ones will follow but this is a great one. It truly is amazing what that little box can do. When you pick it up, and roll it around in your hands, and you see that it weighs, what, less than a pound (?) -- it seems like such a rip-off to pay nearly $3K for it. Yet this one little box captures and displays weather, provides in-flight entertainment, and is a fully-functional GPS! It truly is a wonder of modern technology. -- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA Pathfinder N56993 www.AlexisParkInn.com "Your Aviation Destination" |
#5
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Garmin 496-XM Radio-PS Engineering Intercom Follow up...
Finally, I must admit I'm a bit disappointed with the ultimate "fix"
(jumpering into "Music 2"), since we have now lost the ability to feed music to the back two seats only. My plan to get the kids a portable DVD player for Xmas, which they would be able to plug in to the back-seats-only jack (located in the right-rear headphone jack housing), has obviously been shot to hell, since any movie will now be heard by all FOUR stations. D'oh! Not to answer my own post, but I just figured out how to salvage the DVD player scenario. Both kids have LightSpeed Twenty3G ANR headsets -- with the cellphone adapter jacks. All I need to do is split the wire coming out of the DVD player into two, and terminate them both into appropriately-sized jacks, and voila! They can hear their movie, and we can't. It's not quite as elegant as the single-jack-in-the-wall solution, but it'll work... -- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA Pathfinder N56993 www.AlexisParkInn.com "Your Aviation Destination" |
#6
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Garmin 496-XM Radio-PS Engineering Intercom Follow up...
Jay Honeck wrote: Both kids have LightSpeed Twenty3G ANR headsets -- with the cellphone adapter jacks. All I need to do is split the wire coming out of the DVD player into two, and terminate them both into appropriately-sized jacks, and voila! They can hear their movie, and we can't. It's not quite as elegant as the single-jack-in-the-wall solution, but it'll work... That will halve the available volume to each person. Make a short test flight to make sure there's enough volume. Another option is a portable intercom. It could be velcroed to the lid of a laptop for example. |
#7
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Garmin 496-XM Radio-PS Engineering Intercom Follow up...
When you buy the DVD player, just buy one with 2 headset audio outputs. No
wire splitting needed, just two music input cables for the Lightspeeds. Caveat: They will either have to unplug their headset phone jack or listen to ATC, Mom, Dad, XM, and DVD all at the same time. My kids usually unplug ATC, Mom, and Dad. Jim |
#8
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Garmin 496-XM Radio-PS Engineering Intercom Follow up...
When you buy the DVD player, just buy one with 2 headset audio outputs. No
wire splitting needed, just two music input cables for the Lightspeeds. Great idea. I've been watching the prices on them since I saw yours, Jim, and they just keep going down, down, DOWN. Menards had one for $49 on the day after T-Giving! At that price, they're almost "stocking stuffers"... -- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA Pathfinder N56993 www.AlexisParkInn.com "Your Aviation Destination" |
#9
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Garmin 496-XM Radio-PS Engineering Intercom Follow up...
"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ps.com... When you buy the DVD player, just buy one with 2 headset audio outputs. No wire splitting needed, just two music input cables for the Lightspeeds. Great idea. I've been watching the prices on them since I saw yours, Jim, and they just keep going down, down, DOWN. Menards had one for $49 on the day after T-Giving! So, buy two DVD players; no splitter needed... ;-) |
#10
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Garmin 496-XM Radio-PS Engineering Intercom Follow up...
So, buy two DVD players; no splitter needed...
;-) Great idea! But, wait...then I have to split...the power cord to the back seat! Augh! ;-) -- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA Pathfinder N56993 www.AlexisParkInn.com "Your Aviation Destination" |
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