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Team Leader Mic..would someone make me one


tkrinor
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Just as an add - unless you are going to listen to whatever comes up on the ipod - you have a hard time picking a song, getting everything back in your pockets, then being ready to fly when the music comes up! Some remedy this by adding a 10 sec delay to the song, to give them time to put everything in order, before starting!!

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I sent him an adaptor to change from 2.5mm to 3.5mm socket for his second headset. It caused problems.

I had the wires all tied together. Will that cause a problem?

Thanks for attaching the detailed test report. It sounds like you're really close to having this up and running and that you guys are on the right track with troubleshooting the remaining issues.

I can't think of any reason that the wire bundle would cause a problem.

Good luck and please keep us posted on your progress!

-Brian

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  • 2 weeks later...

The potentiometer turns out to be a redundant volume control.

Volume of the music to the team leader is controlled with the ipod.

Volume of the music and commands to the team members is controlled by their walkie talkie volume.

The potentiometer controls the volume, of the music only, sent to the team members.

There might be a use to some people.

This circuit works as designed. It still needs some field testing. I'll take some detailed pictures of the assembly, and show exactly where to order the parts and post them so you guys can make one if you want. Right now, I'm going back to the Russian River to test some new quads I built. brb

rlgf83.jpg

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It seems like the potentiometer could be a nice feature to keep, since it allows you to adjust the relative volume of music and team leader voice that the team members hear.

  • The volume control on the iPod is adjusted so that the music is at a comfortable volume for the team leader.
  • With that particular iPod volume setting, the team members might find that the music is either too loud or too soft relative to the team leader's voice.
  • The potentiometer allows you to adjust that mix until the team members are happy.
  • The final adjustment is for each individual team member to adjust the volume control on their own radios until they're happy with the overall voice + music volume.

The downsides are that this adds an additional adjustment that can get disturbed in the middle of a routine and the mechanical assembly is more complicated (you have to allow access to the mixing control). If it seems like the default 9.5k resistor gives you a good audio mix most of the time, there's probably no compelling reason to complicate life with the mixing control.

If you decide to include the mix control, I have a suggestion for how you could optimize its behavior.

The original circuit looks like this:

teamLeaderMicSchematic_v1b.gif

One option would be to simply replace the 9.5k resistor with a 10k potentiometer, like this:

teamLeaderMicSchematic_v2b.gif

This idea is not quite optimal, however. The adjustment range on the resistance is 0 to 10000 ohms. Assuming that the 9.5k is close to the value you want, your adjustment range ends up being 9500 +500 / - 9500 ohms or 9500 +5% / -100%. In other words, you can really only adjust the mix to make the music louder -- you have hardly any range left to make it quieter relative to the team leader's voice. Even if you did want to adjust the mix for louder music, you probably wouldn't ever want to go all the way to 0 ohms, so you wouldn't get much benefit from a large portion of your adjustment range.

You may have already found a good workaround for those issues, but I'll offer the following suggestion for the benefit of anyone else that might want to make one of these. This configuration would allow you to adjust the mix for either louder music or softer music. You could put this together using components that you've already purchased. If you put two resistors in series, their values add together. In this circuit diagram, the new 4k resistor adds in series with the potentiometer's resistance. If you set the potentiometer to its mid-point, you get 5000 ohms from the potentiomter plus 4000 ohms from the fixed resistor, for a total of 9000 ohms. In other words, your adjustment range would be 9000 +5000 / -5000 ohms or 9000 +/- 55%. That gives you a really nice adjustment range that's almost ideally centered about the default 9.5k. It seems like that would work really well to cover just about any scenario.

teamLeaderMicSchematic_v3b.gif

To do the setup, you'd set the potentiometer to mid-scale and the team leader would adjust the iPod volume control until the music volume is right in the leader's headset. Then do a field check with the music playing and the team leader talking. Adjust the potentiometer until the team members are happy with the voice-to-music ratio. There are lots of different ways to do it. This is just one suggestion. If it doesn't seem like you would need to adjust the mix very often, I'd be pretty tempted to go ahead with your plan to leave the potentiometer out of the cable. I'm a firm believer in keeping it simple whenever possible :)

Edited 5 August 2014 to correct an error in the drawings.

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Thanks for all the input Brian. When we tested the cable I noticed that the potentiometer would only increase the volume and then cut out completely at the far end of the dial. I will add the other 4K resistor and keep the potentiometer. Pop noticed that you have a stereo plug for the music source. The original schematic has a mono plug. Is this another design modification, or a typo?

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Pop noticed that you have a stereo plug for the music source. The original schematic has a mono plug. Is this another design modification, or a typo?

That was a typo. Well, more than a typo...it was just drawn incorrectly. :P Thanks for catching the error. I edited my last post to correct the drawings. Let me know if you see anything else that looks wrong.

Since you brought up the issue of the stereo plug to the music player, however, it is arguably better to use a stereo plug than a mono plug. When you connect the mono plug to the music player, the Left audio channel is connected to the tip. The Right audio channel, which would be connected to the ring on a stereo plug, simply gets shorted to the sleeve, which is connected to ground. In other words, you're shorting out the Right channel audio amplifier in the music player. I didn't mention this earlier, since you've already demonstrated that it doesn't cause a problem with your iPod. There's a small chance that you might run into a music player sometime that could be damaged by having its output shorted. I think it's a low risk, but if it makes you squeamish you could replace the mono plug with a stereo plug and just leave the Right channel output (on the ring connection) disconnected:

teamLeaderMicSchematic_v4b.gif

Just to be clear, I'd put this last suggestion into the "optional refinements" category. The big feature upgrade would be adding the 4k resistor like you described in your last post.

Edited on 5 August 2014 to remove a suggestion that was just a bad idea...

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My favorite leaders headset, hands down, far and away after 125+ events calling with iQuad.

Plantronics MX505

post-1-1407811485835_thumb.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/Plantronics-MX505-Windsmart-Boom-Headset/dp/B0007NDBEW/ref=sr_1_107?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1407811378&sr=1-107&keywords=plantronics+headset

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Does it have a 3 or 4 conductor plug?

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Ed,

We used your harness setup last weekend. We had four flyers and in my book you hit a home run with your set up.

We used the Midland radios paired with JB's suggested Plantronic head set, and an Ipod mini. I added a wind screen that my have not been necessary.

The harness I used was your 2.5 set up with shorter cords.

** I like the red shrink tape..just nice having a distinctive color to pluck out of the bag

** I liked the shorter length of the cables, however I can see that some setups may like an extra few inches to work with. I had the radio on my belt on my left hip with the Ipod (mini) in my front pocket. Back or front pocket would have worked just fine. My left ear gets worn out with a headset during the week so I wore the head set on my right ear. No cable problems at all.

**Color coded wires...I don't see a need. There is only one way to put the setup together and after you have done it once it is a no brainer. I would have a much harder time remembering color coding.

**music volume adjusted with the ipod (mini)..a non issue

**receiving radios adjusted the combined voice / music volume. We did not test the mic volume settings..I used the high setting the whole time.

** I have had no experience calling and only flown team 3 times (once at a clinic) I felt the harness worked perfectly

** The other flyers had virtually no experience flying as a team. (they did GREAT!!)... the feedback from the flyers was all positive. 2 were with earphones and 1 hung the radio around her neck. They all thought the harness setup worked perfectly. .

** It is mono, stereo could be nice but has a tool/aid etc. it is not necessary .. I think a team learning a routine, this could be fantastic.

** We had a bit of battery life concern as the transmitting radio is on transmit mode the whole time. I had not adjusted the transmit strength etc. I don't see this really being an issue at all. I bought some rechargeable batteries and adjusted the transmit strength. I think that will take care of the battery life issue (if it was an issue). I suspect we were at about 1 1/2 hours when the transmitting radio died.

** the headset was perfect ( as mentioned a windscreen was added but may not have been needed)

**What I would do different.. I should have sent you the components to start with. I assumed a smartphone would be the same as an Ipod...not. I assumed all plugs were the same...not. Those issues were my fault.

**We did not have volume problems, we did not have static issues.. overall your finished product is perfect relative to what I was looking for.

Bottom line, I met with friends. I plugged the components together. We flew all afternoon pretending we were a team. No issues what- so- ever.

There were smiles on the lines, no technical issues etc. Just plug in and fly.

Great job ED!

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Great report Terry, and great job Ed and everyone else involved. I am now contemplating getting a setup for myself and the team I fly with. I sometimes feel bad running our music over a portable speaker all afternoon while practicing, disturbing others nearby who might not want to listen to the same thing over and over again. Although, I guess running it over a speaker is beneficial to the people who stop by and watch, so I don't know... I guess I'll have to see what the team thinks and if we want to invest in radios, etc. Am I understanding correctly that only the leader radio needs all the gadgets, and everyone else just needs a radio and earphones (if desired)?

I assumed a smartphone would be the same as an Ipod...not.

Good to note. I would have made the same assumption. What is different? Is there a workaround? I run music off my smartphone. I actually use a set of earphones from an old iPod that probably doesn't work anymore. The earphones work just fine with my phone (and computer for that matter), so I would have assumed the connectors are the same.

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Thanks for the detailed test report, Terry. It's always nice to hear how these projects work out in the end. Congratulations to Ed -- it looks like your efforts were an unqualified success!


** It is mono, stereo could be nice but has a tool/aid etc. it is not necessary ..

Since you're using GMRS/FRS radios, it's unfortunately not possible to transmit stereo audio to the team members (at least not without making some major modifications to the radios). You could modify Ed's adaptor so that a team leader equipped with a stereo headset would be able to hear stereo, but the team members would still hear mono. The way it's wired now, Ed's setup sends the Left audio channel. If you feel like you're missing a lot of information from the Right audio channel, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to transmit a Left+Right mix into the radio's mono channel. In any case, there's going to be a built-in ceiling on the audio quality, due to the technical limitations of the GMRS format.

I assumed a smartphone would be the same as an Ipod...not.

Good to note. I would have made the same assumption. What is different? Is there a workaround? I run music off my smartphone. I actually use a set of earphones from an old iPod that probably doesn't work anymore. The earphones work just fine with my phone (and computer for that matter), so I would have assumed the connectors are the same.

The iPod has a 3-contact connector: Left audio, Right audio and Ground.

Many smartphones have a 4-contact connector: Left audio, Right audio, Microphone input and Ground. Unfortunately, there are (at least) two different standards for how the contacts to the 4-wire connectors are mapped to the different signals. Some smartphones are wired up in a way that's not compatible with 3-wire earphones. Since you already know that your phone works with a set of earphones, there's a good chance that one of Ed's gadgets would work for you out of the box. If not, you'd have to use an adaptor.

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On iQuad, we used mono-stereo splits on the receiving units to enhance the mono audio to R and L. ;)

Something like this, I think?

http://www.amazon.com/3-5mm-Stereo-Jack-Female-adapter/dp/B004P4JUWQ/ref=sr_1_14?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1408470339&sr=1-14&keywords=mono-to-stereo+adapter

Verify for yourself, I'm notoriously not tech-savvy. :)

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