Headsets and ANR

On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 14:25:51 GMT, Mitty wrote:



On 7/8/2005 1:46 AM, Roger wrote the following:
On Mon, 04 Jul 2005 18:00:53 -0400, Luke Scharf

Flying small prop planes I would not want anything that did not have full ear
coverage like the passive, but with ANR added.


You like hot & sweaty ears?
It sure beats not being able to hear and going deaf. OTOH the old
Telex are "HEAVY"!


I went along in the right seat of a twin wearing one of those little
headsets. I was supposed to handle the radios and we were going dual pilot
IFR. I basically ended up as a passenger as I could not hear a thing ATC
said.


Roger, you surprise me. You are usually far too logical to leap from one sample
to such abroad conclusion. The "little headset" may have been bad, but my

They may have been, but they were his spare as an ATP.

Clarity set has better attenuation than the ANRs in almost the whole spectrum.
Try one. The audio quality and sound attenuation will amaze you. You may even
lose your fondness for sweaty ears and for placing weights on your head while
flying.

I'm not so sure. To really cut the sound you really need to cover the
mastoid bone. (I used to do a lot of trap shooting). Adding ear
muffs over ear plugs was like the difference between night and day.



I can't imagine wanting a cell phone interface in the head set.

I can. I have the phone numbers for the ATC centers on my clipboard and having a

You don't have the number already in memory? Mine does.

cell phone aboard is on my checklist. If the radios go out, I'll just call in to
discuss the situation. I can't legally test this plan, but it seems likely to

Sure you can as you are on the ground the way it's stated. OTOH, I
guess it would be nice in the air if you don't get an "out of
coverage" signal. Mine usually shuts down by 2000 feet if I forget to
turn it off. It has to be turned off to reset if you want to call
anything other than 911.

work. Cell is also nice for clearances from fss at un-towered airports.

Yah, but that's on the ground and if the radios aren't working I don't
need the head set as I haven't fired up by that time.
I fly out of an uncontrolled airport (3BS) but we have a Remote outlet
on the field. Choose the frequency, follow the directions and it
phones the tower.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 23:20:01 GMT, Mitty wrote:



On 7/8/2005 5:30 PM, Stan Gosnell wrote the following:
Mitty wrote in
:


On 7/8/2005 1:46 AM, Roger wrote the following:

On Mon, 04 Jul 2005 18:00:53 -0400, Luke Scharf

Flying small prop planes I would not want anything that did not have
full ear coverage like the passive, but with ANR added.


You like hot & sweaty ears?


I like having hearing protection, especially for high-frequency stuff
which ANR doesn't protect against, when (not if) the ANR portion fails.
I, too, won't even consider a headset that doesn't have good passive
protection. It's your hearing, though, so use what you want.


I'm not quite sure why this has gotten to be such an extended discussion, but
I'm also not sure of your point. The Clarity set has exactly what you want --
high attenuation especially in the higher frequencies. Check page 17 of their
owner manual: http://clarityaloft.com/6_ClarityAloft_OwnersGd.pdf

So if your point is that you need big muffs to get good attenuation, that is
incorrect. (In fact, logic would lead me to conclude that a good seal in the
ear canal is easier to make than a large one encompassing hair, glasses bows,
irregular head shape, etc.)

Although the seals are a problem the ANR portion should help on that.
The reason for the large coverage is to cover the mastioid bone which
conducts a lot of sound.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Whether the LightSpeed set also has high attenuation, I don't know. My friend
who is the president of Clarity tells me that their performance is due to the
unique ear tip design and materials, which are covered by several patents. But
then he's the chief salesman, too. :-) What I do know is that the product
works far better than the Softcomm ANR sets that I have and that I did not
hesitate to write the big check after flying with them on a demo.