Vintage RST Audio Panel Help!

Slipperhead

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Nov 26, 2017
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Slipperhead
Gents,
I'm scheduled for my IFR checkride in two weeks and am a relatively new pilot with 175 total hours. Up to this point, I've been flying fairly modern, equipped C172Ss belonging to my flight school. I just bought into a '68 Cardinal with the pictured audio panel from Radio Systems Technology. There is no paperwork/manual with the aircraft for this panel and I can find no instructions on the net. I have fiddled with it on the ground yesterday and during our first flight in it today. I have figured out the following:

All of the yellow and green switches are three-position switches. Flip them up and I think the sound is supposed to go to the cabin speaker (the speaker and hand-mike have been removed). Flip them down and the sound goes to the "phones"....headsets.

I used Com 1 in the down position today and it worked fine. I moved the Com 2 switch to the down position and could monitor my secondary channel. Perhaps if I had pressed the push-to-talk switch, I would have simultaneously broadcast on both channels....I don't know.

Nav 1 and Nav 2 worked the same way. The panel has a 430 and a VOR. I was able to activate the appropriate Nav switch and identify the VOR.

I think the red XMIT 1 switch is set for the pilot to transmit and the XMIT 2 position is for the co-pilot to transmit. The co-pilot has a red PTT switch lower on the stack by the headset jacks.

The aircraft does not have ADF or DME capability. AUX?

I have no clue what the AUTO, ICS ON/OFF, BYPASS/NORMAL, or XXXX BCN switches are for. Also, while tuning into the Richmond VOR today, the red light on the radio tower icon lit up! No idea why!

Any help appreciated!

Thx,

Garland
 

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send a PM to forum member: weirdjim , (he is RST Engineering), I'm sure that he can answer your questions.
 
Or we can just try to page him... @weirdjim

To the OP,
- ICS is almost certainly the intercom function;
- XMIT 1 and XMIT 2 selects which COM radio you (the pilot) are transmitting on. The 3-way COM 1 and COM 2 switches are for receive only (in other words you can listen to both radios simultaneously, but you can only transmit on one at a time);
- Your "XXX" BCN is probably the Marker Beacon audio;
 
Last edited:
The Normal/Bypass switch is used in case of audio panel failure. In the bypass position, the COM 1 speaker and phones outputs are hardwired to the speaker and phones, providing COM 1 radio operation.

The AUTO switch routes the COM audio from the radio selected by the transmit switch (XMIT 1/XMIT 2) to either the speaker or phones amplifier as selected.

It sounds like ICS is a voice-activated intercom system.

Pulled from here: http://www.rstengineering.com/rst/support/RST-504.pdf


 
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