remote ELT unit is confused

I tested my ELT tonight. It is an AK-450. The main unit works fine. The remote unit is confused. I think I confused it.

Noting that there was about 9 miles (ok, about 10 feet) of excess cable between the remote unit and the main unit, I cut the cable and installed a new end terminal from radio shack. When I tested the remote unit I noticed that the black plug labeled "reset" and the red plug labeled "on" are reversed in function.

I suspect that the culprit is the end fitting from radio shack which is probably for a telephone connection.

Have any of you guys experienced this, and do you know the cure? I will contact the company tomorrow to see if they supply fittings for boneheads like me who cut their cables in order to make them the proper length. I did not want all that extra cable ratteling around in the tailcone.

Any advice?

Thanks,
Tony

I also cut my cable and it works correctly. I did this over 9 years ago but do remember that the plug was a phone plug but they did not put the wires in the same way as you do on a phone cable plug.

Get your cut off cable out of the trash and make the color code or RIDGE on the cable the same way on the new plug in relation to the tang on the plug as it is on the OLD plug that was cut off.

If that does not work, you will need to call the factory and then post what they tell you here for the rest of us.

I just put my B747 sized wire in last week and was debating either cutting it or just purchasing a shorter sized pre-made one from radio shack, home depot, or CVS. Any thoughts on just purchasing a pre-made telephone wire?

Capflyer said:

I just put my B747 sized wire in last week and was debating either cutting it or just purchasing a shorter sized pre-made one from radio shack, home depot, or CVS. Any thoughts on just purchasing a pre-made telephone wire?

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Whatever you do, just do as Gary said...make sure the wires (by color) are oriented the same as they were on the original cable that came with your ELT. It could be a crossover, it could be a straight-through. Make it match the stock setup.

Tony,
When I cut mine and put the phone jack on, the jack had to be reversed to make the wires line up correctly.

You absolutely have to get the wires lined up like the original wire. It looks like a phone jack wire, but it is not. I got trapped the same way.

Roberta

unconfused

I think I have figured out the issue with the ELT remote. It seems in fact, that it was the installer (me) who was confused instead of the ELT remote. So that others may not have to go thru this head scratching and calling Ameri-King, I will tell you what I have discovered about the installation of the ELT remote.

First, the radio shack terminals work fine. The ELT remote for the AK-450 has two buttons and an LED. The LED of course indicates that the unit is activated. One of the the two buttons is red, the other black.

It seemed intuitive to me that the red button would be the one to activate the unit, and the black on would reset it. Not so. To activate the unit from the remote, the pilot pushes the black button. The red button resets it.

At least not in my unit. I note also that the reset button on the main unit is also red. Once I understood this rather counter intuitive setup, I realized that my AK-450 remote works as designed.

If any of you have a different setup regarding the funtion of the buttons, please advise.

Thanks for the responses about this issue.

Tony

Here's the wiring info from the Ameri-King website regarding the AK-450. Full text is here. I seem to have misplaced the cord that came with the unit so I'm having to make my own.

The ELT wiring configuration is a straight wiring, not cross wiring (not a telephone wiring configuration). i.e. Pin 1 to 1, Pin 2 to 2, Pin 3 to 3, Pin 4 to 4. To verify straight wire configuration, looking at both connector Plugs, side by side, you must see the same color sequence on both plugs.

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Putting it here for future reference...