Ron Natalie wrote:
Vaughn wrote:

Practical? No. I have been in the radio business all my life and
I would not
even consider it, probably not even a kit.

Possible? Yes.

Legal? I don't think so.

Back a long time ago, in the first incarnation of RST, Jim actually
did
have a kit radio. The "legality" was dealt with by sending the radio

off to RST after you finished building it for it's test and alignment

stage. Jim has felt the market out for radios again a few times
over
the years, but it's a hard market.

Frankly, what I suggested to him maybe 10 years ago, and I think
would
still be intersting in pursuing is to have a com radio unit where the
radio parts were preassembled/certificated but with no real user
interface parts, just a digital interface of some sort that avionics
hackers could integrate with their own electronic panel.


Use a portable. Fasten it on the side of your cockpit and use
a headset.
I have flown gliders for hundreds of hours with a tiny portable on
a light
lanyard around my neck, but that may not work well over engine
noise.

I ferried my Navion around (it was between having the new panel cut
at
one shop and the radios installed at another) with my headphones, a
portable intercom and my Yazoo handheld. Worked passably (would
have
been better with a real antenna rather than the rubber coated dummy
load), but such would work well in a homebuilt.

Cabin noise you fix with a headset. The bigger problem with a lot of

these small planes is ignition noise. That can lay waste to the AM
signal in any radio.



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Ron;

Back in 1983 I built one of RST's 360 Nav / Com radios. It was a fun
job with over 1000 parts on 9 circuit boards,as I remember. I sent it
back for calibration/certification and they found I had a couple of
diodes installed backward - otherwise OK. I flew our Rv-4 for 700
hours with it and a Communications Specialists handheld, with a
slide-in can and connections for power and antenna and wired into my
intercom.
Bob Olds RV-4
Charleston,Arkansas


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