Keep hand held microphone and cabin speaker or not

deadeye99

deadeye99

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deadeye99
I am interested in opinions on this subject. When my audio panel was upgraded the speaker and microphone were not hooked up. I flew in the late 70’s and that is all I had, no headsets. My ap/ia went to take a test flight and didn’t grab his headset and asked why they weren’t hooked up. Until then I didn’t care because I haven’t used them in years.
Opinions?
 
I'd put an "inop" label on them and keep them for nostalgia's sake. When I flew in the '70s that all we had too. That's also why I am deaf without really powerful hearing aids today.
 
I haven't had them in 20 years and haven't missed 'em at all. I'm all for removing unnecessary weight and wires, so I'd take 'em out since they are not hooked up or functioning and you haven't missed them.

OTOH, if they were hooked up and functional, I'd leave 'em in. I'm lazy like that.
 
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were it me, I'd spend the money to connect them rather than the (probably same) money to remove them.
 
Mine went in the weight loss pile... i have the oddesy battery conversion to do and I expect on a reweigh to have lost about 60lbs off the old gal. They didn’t gain weight pounds at a time always- ounces count. Many folks laughed when I said my goal was 950 from the 1012 she had been beefed up to....and it looks like I’m getting there...

i went into the project with the mantra- ounces makes pounds, so my vote would be toss that stuff...
 
If you have the mic jack in place for the old hand-mic, its a good idea to keep it wired up. Most of retrofitted intercom systems in older certified airplanes show the transmit keyline tied to the old hand mic jack. Its easy to get around that and eliminate the hand mic altoghether. But, you may run into A&P or a shop that insists it has to be there on certified airplanes. Its also an easy way to confirm a faulty PTT switch.
 
We just ran into an ICS problem with one of our birds....final determination was faults in 2 of the 3 headsets we were testing with. Both bad sets had been used with no problems less than 3 days before...
 
I'm in the process of getting a new panel and a bunch of other changes done. Microphone is gone. I decided to keep the speaker but I just need any reason to finally decide otherwise..
 
If you’re counting votes, I say keep. I like them.
 
Keep.

Better to have it and never ever need it.
 
I still have the cabin speaker mostly because it's too much effort to remove. I've not had a hand mike (and there's no place to plug one in other than one of the headset jacks). There's nothing that the speaker/mike would provide that the five sets of headsets in the plane wouldn't do already (I've got four adult sizes and one small set for my grandsons). About the only redundancy I get is if the audio amps in all the intercom seat positions suddenly died without affecting the cabin audio amp.

If we ever get that far, I'd probably have landed or switched to the handheld radio instead.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
I was over NC on my way to FL from MD when my headset mic went tu. Simple matter to reach into the side pocket and plug in the hand mic and keep on keepin' on.

Nice to have options.
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It happened to me in the Cherokee yesterday. Declared base to final, and no response. Two thumbs up for the anachronistic mic I used to laugh at all the time.
 
I pulled them out of my plane. Unnecessary weight and I fly with 4 headsets so even if one failed, there's another within reach. There's also plenty of easy ways to handle lost comms so it's not exactly a "critical" system.
 
I get ATIS and stuff over the speaker before starting the plane when I'm at towered fields. I needed the hand held mic once in a previous plane. Don't have one in the current bird.
 
I kept the speaker, but don't know why. The handheld mic is long gone and in the box somewhere in the hangar. If a headset dies, I'll grab a spare headset from the back seat. If that dies I'll break out the portable COM.
 
CA182R said:
I'm in the process of getting a new panel and a bunch of other changes done. Microphone is gone. I decided to keep the speaker but I just need any reason to finally decide otherwise..
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It's good to have a hand microphone as a backup because push-to-talk switches can fail. (It's happened to me more than once.)

It's good to have a speaker because headsets can fail. Also, I've noticed that listening to ATIS on the speaker is less likely to prevent hearing a call from ATC over the headset.

The weight of the hand mic and speaker are trivial, IMO.
 
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Palmpilot said:
It's good to have a hand microphone as a backup because push-to-talk switches can fail. (It's happened to me more than once.)
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Happened to me just a few weeks ago - single-point failure in spite of having two com radios. Unfortunately my OEM hand microphone, which hadn't been used in decades, didn't work either. :( So my King KX99 handheld com got some exercise.
 
headsets might grow legs, much harder to lose the speaker and mic.
 
EdFred said:
Need to shed weight. Keep 3 extra headsets in plane. lol
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Mine was like an 8lb speaker with a radioshack logo on it :eek:

Ounces add up to pounds. I've pulled nearly 100lbs out of my plane, nothing I can remove without losing any functionality/safety is negligible.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
Mine was like an 8lb speaker with a radioshack logo on it :eek:

Ounces add up to pounds. I've pulled nearly 100lbs out of my plane, nothing I can remove without losing any functionality/safety is negligible.
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Yeah, the high DA's of Wisconsin require as light of a plane as possible. lol
 
Thanks for all the replies. Looks about 50/50. I do have backup headsets and a portable radio with external antenna. This is a 182Q by the way. I will probably see about hooking them back up next time she is in for something.
 
deadeye99 said:
Thanks for all the replies. Looks about 50/50. I do have backup headsets and a portable radio with external antenna. This is a 182Q by the way. I will probably see about hooking them back up next time she is in for something.
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I have seen a 3-d printed cup holder that has a slot to fit the hanger for the mic. Might be a better use of the space and weight load.
 
I would get them connected. I had a new audio panel and avionics put in but about a year later I got a developing terrible squeal in my headsets starting about 20-30 min into my flights. The only way to get clear communication was to use my speaker and hand held mike. It took a long time to figure out what was wrong, but after trial, error, replacement, it was determined that the audio panels connectors had backed out of the box a little because of loosened screws back there. When everything got hot after use for a few minutes, the expansion caused a loss of electrical connection thus causing the squeal.

Prior to that, before I got that audio panel, I was able to get the ATIS on the speaker while keeping connection to ATC with my headsets. Next time around, I’ll get my audio panel to resume that functionality, or split the audio into different sides of the headset for simultaneous clarity.
 
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