Hand held radio

[DannyDot]

I am looking for ideas on type of handheld radios and how to mount it in a BC-12D. Do I need an external antenna? Do I need an external mic? Can I hook up an headset? How about 2 head sets?

Danny Deger

[Mark Julicher]

Re: Hand held radio

Danny,
You have gotten some pretty good replies already, but I'll take a stab just for giggles.

The portables on the market are good. I have owned King, Yaesu, and Icom, portables and they all work. I had some issues with the King when I lashed up an intercom, radio and two headsets the durn thing always went hot mic because the King used an oddball keying circuit and I wasn't smart enough to re-wire the harness. Get a portable radio with an automatic noise limiter circuit. It helps. Tiny portables don't have a really large super effective noise limiter like a panel mount radio does, but still they help.

Almost any antenna is better than the rubber duck that comes on the portable. Antennas inside the fuselage will work OK if you know what you are doing. External antennas are better. Any antenna installed without a ground plane or not impedance matched is going to be rather poor. Make friends with a Ham Radio operator and you should be able to borrow some impedance matching equipment.

I have a panel mounted RST intercom. It was cheap and effective in its day, however I plan to use a P/S engineering intercom with the voicie recognition circuit and no squelch control on my RV-8 because that way my two headsets do not have to have matched microphones. (Since most intercoms only have ONE squelch control the person with most sensitive microphone breaks squelch easily and the other SOB has to yell.)

I use a gell cell battery velcro strapped to the floor where T-craft originally put the lead-acid battery - behind the pilot's legs. The 7AH battery will run my radio all day or my tail strobe and radio for two hours.

I also, put my radio on the seat and use the PTT on the radio itself rather than a yoke PTT. It is simple that way and besides, If traffic permits I make only one radio call per traffic pattern (some pilots fly with Bernoullis and some fly with Marconis ... does that sound like a pet peeve? OK I'll shut up.)

I had a radio holder (similar to an RAM) mounted on the heel kick plate infront of the seat with a goose-neck attachment that held the radio up next to my right knee. That worked very well until it broke and I have not replaced it yet.

BTW, my intercom and battery and antenna are 337 field mods.

I have a shielded ignition, but I still have a fair bit of ignition noise on my radio, I added ignition suppressors on my P-leads and I now have ignition noise with weaker sparks on my plugs....go figure. I still manage to make radio contact when I must and I don't tend to talk unless I have to.

Now, IF I were doing my cockpit over again and did not want to hassle with red tape for a permanent installation I would do like others in the tribe have said already -- namely, build a light weight box containing a gel cell, an intercom, and a radio. Design the box to be skinny and flat so it could be strapped on the floor and against the heel kick plate in the center of the seats. Lash the radio on top of the box so you can look down and work the controls. Recess the intercom into the top of the box so the jacks are right there your knee also. Don't forget to put a fuse on the positive battery lead or else please read the thread on the fastest way down during a fire. Take it home and charge it up there because nobody should steal it while it is at your house. A solar cell will also charge it up i.e., if you have reliable sunshine and a large enough solar cell, and as was pointed out once before - use a regulator because some solar cells will over charge and some will drain your battery during darkness. If you go to one of the stores selling doodads for running your house off-the-grid you can probably get the solar panel you need with good advice on setting it up to boot.

OK, that was long winded.

When you get your radio set up and working well you owe the tribe a good description of your set up.

[DannyDot]

Re: Hand held radio

Sorry for the second thread. I thought I had one, but for some reason couldn't find it. Please reply to the other thread and let this one die.

Danny Deger