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"

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)

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"

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"

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"

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.

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

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"

"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...
;-)

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"