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Dean - I recon you"re on the money with the microphone and that"s why I asked Tony for that particular series of pictures.Tony the pictures tell a thousand words (well done loading them)and it shows me that all of the hard work has been done.If the system that you have shown me in the photos is giving a clear readable signal to someone on the ground from your gyro without the engine running then we are almost there.The antenna connections that were confusing you are all OK and the "interface cable" is already mounted. (that"s the cable coming from your radio and connecting to your helmet connections via the 2 large plugs that I can see just next to your instrument panel.)OK where to from here?Once you confirm with me that the existing radio connections are working clearly on the ground - and this might mean that you swap with someone and get them to transmit on your radio so that you can actually hear what is coming from your radio while the gyro is stationary. It should be clear and crisp like the other person is standing next to you talking! You can test this using another one of your handheld radios as well.I suspect that what is happening is your helmet mic is ok when there is no noise nearby, but as soon as you start the engine that noise and the propeller noise are too much for it.There are 3 paths that noise can take to get into your microphone and upset things:-1)Direct ambient noise- as described above.2)Mechanical noise- this is conducted to the microphone via its housing-in your case the noise hits the earphone plastic housing and is conducted through the microphone boom (that"s the springy flexible bar that your mic hangs off the end of) and directly into the microphone.3)Electrical interference. You have told me before that initially you had some "crackling" noise but this has since disappeared.Tony if you can confirm the above points for me we can move past this point. I"ll go slow and explain what I am doing and why as we progress.Regards.......Chook.
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ok chook all points 1# 2# 3# I would say are correct.
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heading home from work now so i"ll catch up tomorrow.
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I will ignore it as I can"t understand it . thanks again.
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Ok chook,I had previously worked out that I could hear very well with the speakers in my bearded helmet and people could hear me on my light speed. I butchered my light speed 15xlc for the whole boom. There aren"t identifying marks but I"m sure you will get all info from light speed. Even maybe specs on website. The are so big that they"ve probably taken over from David Clark in the light aircraft market now.
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Apologies for the delay - 3 of us have had 8 lambs killed by a dog over here so it is taking a lot of time trying to get the miscreant!Tony we are now at the stage of matching your helmet (including the mic and earphones) to your machine. You have told me that you have crystal clear comms when on the ground when the engine is idling. This tells me that the microphone is matched correctly to the radio and that all of the wiring is correct. Now this is where the "black art" comes in - we need to match your microphone to YOUR environment, that is your helmet and engine.Dean has had success with a Lightspeed 15XLC microphone boom attached to a Raptor helmet and likewise the Lightspeed Zulu2 headset (this is not a helmet but purely a headset/mic combo)Now Dean, if I recall has 2 gyros - one an enclosed 2 place with a 4 stroke engine and he obviously has a open frame single place with probably a 2 stroke.The point I"m trying to make is that what works for Dean may not work for you. The noise signatures of both those machines are different and it is this noise signature on your machine which is interfering with your radio transmissions.Some of us are lucky to be in a club environment where others have systems which we can borrow to test their suitability to our own gyros, It sounds as if you don"t have this situation available to you if sharing with the glider guys. Their radio systems are easy compared to our (gyro) environment with all of our noise and rotors.And to just go out and "get" a Zulu2 headset to test is going to set you back at least $900. AND it might not fix your problem!!When flying rotary wing aircraft I have an aversion to flying without a helmet - a bit like getting into a car and not wearing the seatbelt - for me it just doesn"t seem right. So the headset only option I would personally avoid.Next questions,1) what type of engine do you have on your gyro?2)And do you have someone over there who is a wiz with soldering and who has a good quality temperature controlled soldering iron that you can get a few favours from? The work is reasonably fine.Chook.
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hello chook, i"m understanding what your saying. [ and that"s starting to worry me] I have a subaroo ea81engine.not E.F.I. and just in case you need to know, it has a distrubitor [without points]. it will always be easier "to get a sparky" to have my gyro in town and I could put the rotors on and prerotate to say 60 or 70 rpm. but definitely wouldn"t be able to taxi anywhere. ok 20 mt if I really had to. so the soldering would be easier here rather than getting some one to travel out a bit and do it. if I need to do that I will thou. sorry to hear about your lambs. please don"t worry about speedy replies . i"m filling in for a guy at work who has had an eye op that is causing him some grief so i"m burning the candles at both ends and running on empty lately.
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Thanks Tony.Can I get you to take a close up picture of the electret microphone insert. That is the shiny thing in the end of your microphone boom. The one you posted earlier is out of focus and I need to see if there are any tiny holes in it.I will attach some pics of a helmet I have here.Pic #1 The Aerial Pursuits Raptor helmet designated as "general aviation"Pic #2
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If Tony had to travel back and forward to a Sparky, wouldn"t it make more sense to travel to and aeroclub where he may be able to borrow some headsets.
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ok chook, I did know the camera was out of focus a bit on that mic shot but I thought you were after a generalizion photo. I don"t think I can even see any thing that tiny my self.
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OK that will work.I will be unavailable from August 30 through to Sept 15 - will be on the WA gyro and plankwing flying trip.What I will need are some pictures of your overall gyro to see how far back from your helmet the engine is, where the exhaust is pointing etc so that I can attempt to recreate your particular noise signature over here and then modify your helmet/microphone for that.Incidentally if you could also send the interface cable over as well (remember that is the one that connects your helmet to your radio)it is another component that we can confirm is not causing a problem as well.I will email you with my address and a couple of phone numbers so that you can confirm a date that is convenient for you to organize the transfer of bits.Regards.......Chook.
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sounds like a plan chook. that is my preference and timing will be good. i"ll organize another photo of my gyro showing the whole set up. all the current ones are old and don"t the new antenna position , which I will also check on the distance between antenna tip and rotors.
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hello again chook,
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struth I"ve been struggling with that for an hour. i"m the typical "having a man look man" anyway looking for the word "attach" when I just needed to press
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