Stuck Mike

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message news:jPFcd.410304

Aside from the obvious lessons to be learned from this (like, always be
careful what you say, in case you're transmitting!), we just could NOT
believe the number of pilots who tried to call the guy with the stuck
mike!

Snicker. I've been one of those people before.

I overheard a pilot giving his co-pilot a narrated tour of the surrounding
area. Obviously a stuck mike.

I tried in vain to alert him to this. There were silences between
transmissions where I was not certain the mike was stuck so, during these
silences, I transmitted that he had a stuck mike. I thought perhaps he had
a voice activated mike or something.

I was on flight following at this time and had just a few hours of cross
country in my logbook so I felt uncomfortable without the extra eyes that
flight following afforded me. The pilot probably couldn't hear me but I
felt it was worth a try, anyway.

After about 5 minutes, he finally did stop transmitting just after I
transmitted to him. Maybe he heard me, maybe not.

--
Jim Fisher

And make sure you keep the red light continuously on anytime you're in a
Class B airspace. That way you can get right through to ATC without having
to wait for all of the heavies and stuff to stop talking...




"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:PKPcd.203381$wV.74690@attbi_s54...
I wonder why no aircraft manufacturers or mod manufacturers have come up
with a nice, big, XMIT light mounted dead center on the panel.

Our year-old Narco 810+R (a digital flip-flop slide-in replacement for the
venerable Narco 120 com radios) has exactly that.

I routinely check to see if I'm transmitting when I've pushed the PTT.

Now, of course, I'm going to be checking it all the time! :-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:

I wonder why no aircraft manufacturers or mod manufacturers have come up
with a nice, big, XMIT light mounted dead center on the panel.

Our year-old Narco 810+R (a digital flip-flop slide-in replacement for the
venerable Narco 120 com radios) has exactly that.


Our Garmins have this too. It was quite helpful in identifying/debugging a
"stuck microphone" wiring issue a while back.

- Andrew

Jay Honeck wrote:

Our year-old Narco 810+R (a digital flip-flop slide-in replacement for the
venerable Narco 120 com radios) has exactly that.

My Mk-12D has a little "T" in the display when the mic is live. Easy to miss, but
also easy to check if, for some reason, you become suspicious that yours is stuck.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

Bob Chilcoat ) wrote:

My
brother swears that this is true and happened to a friend of his, but of
course the same story appeared later in one of the Naked Gun movies

Perhaps one of the Naked Gun writers was in the church that fateful day.

--
Peter

You wanna know why? I'll give you two good reasons why.

1. The BIG RED LIGHT on the center of the panel should be reserved for things
that make the airplane stop flying, like low fuel, low oil, high temp, all that
critical stuff. A radio (much to my corporate dismay) is NOT required to keep
the aircraft in the air.

2. We designed and manufactured such a light...even a BIG RED light to tell
when ANYTHING on the airplane went out of limits (fuel, temperatures, pressures,
stuck mic, etc.). It sold for $75. In five years we sold fifteen of them.
People don't give a damn about things like this until it hits the fan, and then
it is a bit late.

Jim




"Bill Denton"
shared these priceless pearls of wisdom:

-I wonder why no aircraft manufacturers or mod manufacturers have come up
-with a nice, big, XMIT light mounted dead center on the panel.
-
-It should be very cheap to do on a new aircraft, inexpensive when done in
-connection with other radio installs, and not worth it as a stand-alone mod.
-
-And it would also provide a helpful visual cue for the folks who can't seem
-to manage to hit the PTT until they are halfway through their message!


Jim Weir (A&P/IA, CFI, & other good alphabet soup)
VP Eng RST Pres. Cyberchapter EAA Tech. Counselor
http://www.rst-engr.com

Jay Honeck wrote:
I wonder why no aircraft manufacturers or mod manufacturers have come up
with a nice, big, XMIT light mounted dead center on the panel.


Our year-old Narco 810+R (a digital flip-flop slide-in replacement for the
venerable Narco 120 com radios) has exactly that.

I routinely check to see if I'm transmitting when I've pushed the PTT.

Now, of course, I'm going to be checking it all the time! :-)

My SL40 has a transmit light, not very bright but it's there. More
importantly it also has a time out timer. After about 45-60 seconds the
transmitter simply turns off and you go back to receiving, even with the
mic button held down.

"Bill Denton" wrote in message
...
I wonder why no aircraft manufacturers or mod manufacturers have come up
with a nice, big, XMIT light mounted dead center on the panel.

It should be very cheap to do on a new aircraft, inexpensive when done in
connection with other radio installs, and not worth it as a stand-alone
mod.

And it would also provide a helpful visual cue for the folks who can't
seem
to manage to hit the PTT until they are halfway through their message!


Hi Bill,

The Bendix/King KX 155As in the C172SPs I trained in and am now renting will
(according to the Cessna Pilot Course textbook...) cut off the TX if the mic
has been keyed for longer than 33 seconds. Then the active frequency will
start blinking confirming you've been cut off. I've not had to test this
under fire yet...hope I don't have to.

Via scanner, I caught a stuck mic incident at Washington Reagan a couple of
months ago where ground control was blocked for a good half hour or so. The
tower had to handle everything and they were NOT happy about it. You could
almost make out conversations going on in the far background on the ground
frequency but unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to hear how it resolved
as I had to go board my flight.

Jay Beckman
Chandler, AZ
PP-ASEL

Jay Honeck wrote:

There are times when transmitting "you got a stuck mic" works, as
odd as it may seem. if I'm near the airport, I have both radios
tuned to the same freq

Wouldn't you be blasting the receiving radio with overwhelming power
from the transmitting radio?

It seems like this would eliminate any chance of you hearing anyone
else, in the case of a stuck mike.

Let's see, you know that the guy is transmitting on one frequency,
but what about his second box?

If he's using it to monitor another frequency then, with a spot of
educated trial-and-error, you may be able to get through to him.

Jay Beckman ) wrote:

The Bendix/King KX 155As in the C172SPs I trained in and am now renting will
(according to the Cessna Pilot Course textbook...) cut off the TX if the mic
has been keyed for longer than 33 seconds. Then the active frequency will
start blinking confirming you've been cut off. I've not had to test this
under fire yet...hope I don't have to.

Provide a PIREP or file a flight plan in the air and you will
inadvertently test the cut-off feature of this audio panel.

During a PIREP or flight plan, I purposely pause to recycle the push-
to-talk switch. This prevents the panel from activating that safety
feature and cutting me off mid-sentence.

--
Peter