The Good, the Bad, the Ugly: AirGizmo PIREP, PS Engineering CD/Intercom woes, XM "service"

This is what I love about these forums...I swear, I am ready to trade in
the Garmin 340 audio panel my partner/brother and I bought a couple of years
ago, and have yet to install in our Skyhawk, for a PS Engineering unit
based, almost solely on these posts!

Mark, your representation of your company and technical knowledge of your
product is an awesome example that some companies still care.
Good on ya!

Brad Boss
Co-Owner 1967 C-172H N3916R
MH-47 Flight Engineer by night....


wrote in message
ups.com...


The pin inputs on the intercom are "Music 2" and "Auxilliary". "Music
2" feeds ONLY the back two seats, which allows my kids to listen to
music different from what Mary and are hearing. "Auxiliary" (the
avionics boys discovered only after completing the installation) only
feeds the PILOT position. Only the pilot can hear anything.

Actually, I'm not sure exactly what one is calling The Auxillary if it
is anything other than the SWITCHED Auxillary input that is activated
by the AUX front panel pushbutton.

There is a Music #1 which will be heard by the pilot and copilot while
Music #2 will be heard by the passengers.

The unit was designed before the proliferation of Ipods and MP3
players, so apparently PS Engineering made no accommodation for an
auxillary music input that feeds all four positions!

Your description of the operation is correct, but it wasn't because the
PMA7000CD was designed before many of the portable MP3 players came
out, it was because we learned a lot from our original design of the
PMA6000 where the intercom mode switch controlled who heard Music #1.
Because this function switches music inside the audio panel, it limited
the amount of flexibility of who hears what when.

This is why when we designed the PMA7000 Series we made the music
distribution simple, #1 to Crew, #2 to the passengers. With the
installation of one or two switches, the combinations of who hears what
is significant.


Additionally, the
auxiliary input does not "auto-squelch" when ATC starts talking, which
required the shop to install a "kill switch" in the panel so that I can
cut the music quickly if needed.\

This I don't understand. The Mute button on the front panel of the
PMA7000CD places Music #1 for the crew in the Mute or Karoake Mode. The
passengers can also have this feature, but a SPST switch is required to
allow them to make this change "on the fly"


The avionics boys wanted to experiment with a few things, to see how
they could effectively feed all four positions without interfering with
the unit's "Intellivox" auto-squelch -- but we ran out of time. It was
getting late, and we had to be home to meet family coming in for the
holiday, so we had to depart. Just as well, as Tony (the head of the
shop) wants time to diagram and study the circuitry in more detail
before they started running experimental patch cords all over the
place...

Please have your shop call me at PS Engineering and I'll be glad to
help them. There is actually a wiring diagram discribing this exactly
in the installation manual. You can download this manual by going to
www.ps-engineering.com/downloads.shtml

Jay, please let me know how I can help, I'll do what ever I can to make
sure that the Bad turns into AWESOME!

Sincerely,
Mark Scheuer
PS Engineering, Inc.
www.ps-engineering.com