Tom McCutcheon

Well Known Member
The Garmin 396 has an audio output female jack. Would one wire this to your intercom auxilary input so as to hear the warnings that the Garmin puts out? Also, does anyone know the size of the male jack to use?
 
3.0 mm Stereo

Tom,

Yup, that's where the audio comes out. Hook it up with an "MP3/Walkman/ear bud" standard stereo cable to your audio system and enjoy not only the lovely voice of Betty telling you "TERRAIN! TERRAIN! PULL UP! PULL UP!", but all of the music, sports, talk you can stand from XM satellite. Good stuff. (Except when Betty doesn't understand that I'm TRYING to fly up the deserted beach that low.... :rolleyes: )


Correction - it's a 3.5 mm plug, not 3.0.....thanks Dan C for keeping me honest!

Paul
 
Last edited:
396 Audio

I used the plugs that came with my DC-11 and Lightspeed headsets for flying with Jazz or hard rock depending on the mood. It cuts out properly when a radio call comes in. And yes, Betty is more like chatty Cathy from Garmin... But you can always set the alarms to different values and she is a rather pleasant sounding alarm! ;)
 
Thanks for the input everyone. I did try a headset from a walkman and got the XM radio just fine. However couldn't get the alarms from the timer. Didn't try flying it yet to get any of the other alarms. Ended up calling Garmin and they said none of the alarms go to the audio output, just the XM radio. Now some of you are saying you do get the alarms. How do you do it? Are you using 396's or 496's? Are there special settings in the "setup" etc? I like the idea of piping it in through the cell phone input of my Lightspeed headset. I'll try that. Thanks again for the help.
 
Tom,
They were mistaken. I regularly get the female voice warning of terrain when approaching certain airports with mountains around as well as a standard 500' warning on approach. Check your settings, there are many... ;)
 
396/496 audio

From what I have been able to get working on my 396 and now the 496 the XM audio and the terrain warning comes from the audio jack on the rear of the unit which I have fed into the intercom aux/music input (PS3000) and this works well (the 496 seems better than the 396 with respect to volume etc). The road voice directions/key beeps seem to come from the wires in the power cable.
I have not figured out how to get the beeps/tones from the audio connector on the back and am not sure if this is possible, I was trying to get the fuel timer to sound a tone in the headset when it has counted down but I cannot get this to work.
Am I missing a setting somewhere?
 
Ok, what's the trick to getting the audio to my Lightspeed headset? My Lightspeed cord to cell phone when plugged into a 3/32" mono to 1/8" sterio adaptor works, but only when you hold it just right. It won't cut it in the air. Maybe just a bad plug.

Also, does anyone know how to turn off the XM advertising and still hear the terrain warnings? In the audio tab I can mute the XM, but I assume that mutes the warnings also.

If I ever get my prop back I'll actually be able to fly test this thing.
 
Tom McCutcheon said:
Also, does anyone know how to turn off the XM advertising and still hear the terrain warnings? In the audio tab I can mute the XM, but I assume that mutes the warnings also.
Tom,

The "Sound" tab in the main menu controls the unit's overall volume level. You can also disable just the XM audio (music) output by going to the XM page and selecting "Mute Audio Output" from the option menu.

cheers,
mcb