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Brian Vickers

Well Known Member
All,
I am working on the panel of my RV4. My C-172 has a switch to turn on a speaker within the cabin. You all know what I mean. Are you installing a speaker or just providing for headsets only? My whole flying career has been in Cessna?s with a loud speaker. I do use it while preflight checklists take place when the engine in not running yet. Help me get into the proper orbit. Omit?

I did wire in a music input for my wife's Ipod. My C-172 does not have this luxury.

Sincerely,

Brian Vickers
 
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Speakers

My Tiger also has speakers, but I've never bothered used them - yes it has two, one on each side of the glareshield, but no stereo... :rolleyes:

I'd also like to hear comments from others whether installing a speaker is needed. At this time, I don't think I would bother...

gil in Tucson
 
Lot's of hours in a 172, never used the speakers. I bought a good headset before my first PPL lesson and have never even been tempted. Cabin noise levels are too high and I like my hearing.
 
I put one in. A self contained Radio Shack speaker attached to the side panel in the baggage compartment. This way, you can listen to pattern traffic, atis, etc. before ever putting the headsets on.

edit: It's all for ground use only! :D

L.Adamson
 
speaker

I put on in. It is cheap, less than $5 at a surplus store, and easy to wire. Weighs a few ounces. Don't know if I will use it much, but I would rather have it and not need it than visa versa.
 
After many dozens of panels wired up with intercoms and such...we've installed a whopping total of ZERO speaker outputs. Why? Because I can normally convince everyone that installing a heavy chunk of magnetized iron in a plane that is too noisy to use anyway is a waste - but that's just my own opinion :) Sure, you could use them on the ground, but think about how often you'd actually use it in reality.

Extra wire, extra weight, and extra magnets. Nothing we need too badly! It's kind of like the external microphone type of a thing. Sure you could, but the goal is to build the plane for the 99% percentile of usage, not the 1% of "maybe will use once and awhile someday".

Cheers,
Stein.
 
Weight, build time, cost and why?

Brian Vickers said:
Help me get into the proper orbit. Omit? Brian Vickers
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Negative on the speaker. Headset all the way all the time.

One reason the speaker was needed in the past, old days, was the old radios had speaker outputs that NEEDED a speaker load. With out the load wired to it you would damage the radio. Modern radios don't care if you connect up the aux speaker or not. I'll go on a limb, 99% of the RV's I have seen don't have aux speakers.

I have two headset jacks and I usually have two headsets on board. Redundancy covered. Also flying VFR or even in class B or C or D airspace, it would be a simple 7600. I also sometimes have a handheld with a jack for a headset. So safety is not an issue. Number of total headset failures in my experience? Zero. I had one lost com but a speaker would not have helped.

Pre-flight ATIS? A speaker could be handy. I just put the headset on or around my neck with a little volume or wait until I buckled up and started.

I almost guarantee you, in flight, if for some unlikely reason you lost headphone audio and tried to use the speaker, assuming it still worked, you would NOT be able to hear the speaker in flight. A RV is way louder than a C-172. Also the speaker will not be mounted right above your head, next to your ear; with a bubble canopy the speaker will be around you knee or elbow. Forget about hearing it.

The other reason for my negative on the speaker: weight, cost, build time and more stuff to wire and install. Weight adds up. Even a cheap aux speaker, with its steel frame and magnet (a couple of ounces) weighs a total of what.... 1/4 pound or 1/2 pound? The speaker has to be something substantial, at least +5 watt, 4 ohm, 4" round, if its going to be effective at all, so it will weigh a good chunk.

The guys saying put it in are not wrong, but I say why? There is no right or wrong or definite yes or no. Hope that helps the orbit? :eek:
 
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speaker

I intend to use mine only on the ground, with the engine off or at idle. Otherwise I think it would be worthless. You would never hear it in an RV.

Its value is really for listening to ATIS or copying clearances prior to startup and/or taxi.
 
As long as your adding speakers....

Why not put in a sub-woofer. :p
It would be nice when camping with your plane. The neighbor annoyance factor would be incredible if you cranked up some "in-a-goda-davida". :eek:
 
I personally think a loudspeaker is a great idea. The benefits are numerous. Such as listening atis while doing your walk around and gassing up the plane, it can be mounted so as to bring your CG with in the proper range and it will help stabilize your compass from swinging around too much.
 
Norman CYYJ said:
The benefits are numerous. Such as listening to the atis while doing your walk around and gassing up the plane, it can be mounted so as to bring your CG with in the proper range and it will help stabilize your compass from swinging around too much.
Click to expand...

Hmmm; I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or serious with those "benefits"...
 
Speaker

I have a very useful speaker in "sunshine." Completely portable, has it's own power supply, and is a great backup. A handheld!

John Clark
RV8 N18U "Sunshine"
KSBA
 
My speaker

My hand-held is wired into my audio panel as COM2, through a phone jack. So I guess you could say I have a speaker in my plane. If I ever want to listen to ATIS before start-up over my "speaker", I can turn on the handleheld and pull the phone jack. That way, I'm not drawing battery power to drive everything else on my avionics bus just to listen to ATIS.

But what I really do is I listen to ATIS in my headset while I'm waiting for the engine to warm up.

I thought I was going to want a speaker until I got my first ride in an RV. I'll put it this way... my RV6A is extremely well insulated, with full upholstery, but even when idling it's barely possible to hold a conversation without headsets. I don't think the amp in my GNS430 could drive a speaker loud enough to hear ATIS over a speaker in my cockpit, even at idle. At cruise, if you take off your headset it's about like sitting front-row center at a Van Halen concert.

Funny story -- on one of my first flights I was zipping along at about 180 MPH on a windy day, when WHAM -- I hit a bump so hard that the canopy about knocked me silly. Suddenly, the noise was so loud that at first I thought my head had punched a hole right through the canopy. Then I looked down and saw my headset lying on the floor.
 
Handheld

Jon,

Good post.

Question: Is your handheld hard wired all around? Power and antenna as well? If so, lots of wires around? I am thinking of going your direction. I'm not so excited about all the wires. Maybe just a jack to the comm 1/2 switch? I would be interested to know how you actually use the handheld in flight ops. Is it mounted in some way? Thanks for your input and participation in the thread. These posts really do help a great deal.

Sincerely,

Brian Vickers, RV4 - working on panel now
 
Brian, that cockpit will be so d***ned noisy I cannot picture a speaker doing any good (in flight at least) unless it is BIG and you've got the 200W McIntosh amp driving it... :p

JHW
 
What DID you say #%@*$&?

Rutus said:
Brian, that cockpit will be so d***ned noisy I cannot picture a speaker doing any good (in flight at least) unless it is BIG and you've got the 200W McIntosh amp driving it... :p

JHW
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I just value my hearing too much to subject it to the no headset and a speaker at spinal-tap 11 in RV, even in an emergency. Its just crazy. My hearing is perfect and I am planning on living another 45-50 years? I want my hearing.
 
Speaker

I'm with J. Clark on this one. My handheld will have hard wiring for Com/Nav if needed for a backup and if I need a speaker it will be there. :D
 
Hand-held

Brian Vickers said:
Jon,

Good post.

Question: Is your handheld hard wired all around? Power and antenna as well? If so, lots of wires around? I am thinking of going your direction. I'm not so excited about all the wires. Maybe just a jack to the comm 1/2 switch? I would be interested to know how you actually use the handheld in flight ops. Is it mounted in some way? Thanks for your input and participation in the thread. These posts really do help a great deal.

Sincerely,

Brian Vickers, RV4 - working on panel now
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The wires aren't a problem.

It's held in a cradle I made on the left side, on that little shelf next to the panel. The connections are all right there next to it, to avoid wires hanging all over the place.

However, I never actually got around to installing the antenna wiring, so the range is a little limited by the standard antenna. I built wire antennas into each of the gear fairing legs, but then never ran the antenna wire to the panel for the handheld -- which is funny because I DID run the antenna for the Sony AM/FM/CD. Screwed up priorities, I guess.

The handheld plugs into a three-pin miniture phono jack in the panel with a 6" cable, and I have another plug next it it for power. However, I never could figure out how to make a power cable that had a filter circuit like the cable that came with the radio, so instead, I just plug it into the cigarette lighter with the cable that came with the radio.

As far as using it, I hardly ever do. It's a backup radio. I mostly just use it when I go to Osh -- to listen to the cockpit chatter when I'm sitting in my lawnchair watching the airshow.
 
Norman CYYJ said:
I personally think a loudspeaker is a great idea. The benefits are numerous. Such as listening atis while doing your walk around and gassing up the plane, it can be mounted so as to bring your CG with in the proper range and it will help stabilize your compass from swinging around too much.
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Norman,

Is having the master on while "gassing up the plane" a good idea?

As for my plane, I agree 100% with Stein, no speaker for me please.
 
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