Music through intercom with ipad.

Muff3n

Muff3n

Well-Known Member
Hey guys,

I have became interested in getting the right stuff to make it possible to play music through the intercom using my ipad on those longer cross countries. I don't have some kind of headset where I can hook my ipad to it, so I was curious as to if there was a way I could use one of the other audio jacks on the airplane to hook my ipad up to somehow and play music through it.

If anybody could mind sharing some links with the stuff I would need to be able to do it, and just tips in general I would appreciate it. Another question I have, if the music is playing low through the intercom, when I key the mic key to xmit that wouldn't distort my transmission would it? Like ATC couldn't hear my music bleeding through in the background could they?

Thanks.
 
http://www.sportys.com/PilotShop/product/15836

MUCH Cheaper than purchasing a new headset with bluetooth capability, but it is still a little pricey. You can connect any twin plug GA headset into this thing, and then stream the music into your headset via bluetooth from your Ipad. I had this thing before selling my old Bose X's and upgrading to the Sennheiser S1.

ATC won't be able to hear your music through the intercom, nor will any other person inside the aircraft be able to hear your music through the intercom. BluLink has an interrupt feature (which can be disabled) that will pause your music whenever ATC makes a transmission, whenever you speak into the microphone, or whenever somebody else on the intercom speaks to you. As soon as the transmission is finished, your music will resume.
 
Whew, that thing is pricey! It looks really nice though. I kind of would have liked something that would have broadcasted so everybody wearing a headset could hear it though.
 
It is pricey, but when you compare it to some of the bluetooth capable ANR headsets out there, it's peanuts. :) And I'm not exactly sure what you would need to have everybody hear music through the intercom. I know BluLink won't allow you to do that.
 
Buy one of the portable intercoms that has a music input. Or replace your existing aircraft intercom with one that has a music input.
 
I don't know about you guys but this is more my price range... :) http://www.sportys.com/PilotShop/product/17244

If you insist on it working with the entire intercom system and having ATC override the music, I would go with one of the portable intercom units with an aux music input that Roger Roger mentioned, like this: http://www.sportys.com/PilotShop/product/9030

If you wanted to really cheap out you could get this: http://www.sportys.com/PilotShop/product/14375

It's literally just a 3.5 mm stereo to microphone cable, and plugs into a spare intercom mic port. But you have to be careful because if your intercom transmits all inputs over the COM radio (not just the pilot) then ATC and everyone else will hear your background music.
 
Muff3n said:
Whew, that thing is pricey! It looks really nice though. I kind of would have liked something that would have broadcasted so everybody wearing a headset could hear it though.
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You would likely need an airplane with the feature pre-installed.
 
I guess I'm just lucky that the airplanes I fly have an AUX input which is "to hook up portable gps and hear it chirping at you" . Shop/ people in charge have all told us that the AUX port (which is 3.5mm) will not work with an ipod. ;)
 
spoolinup22 said:
I guess I'm just lucky that the airplanes I fly have an AUX input which is "to hook up portable gps and hear it chirping at you" . Shop/ people in charge have all told us that the AUX port (which is 3.5mm) will not work with an ipod. ;)
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Our aircraft have AUX inputs as well and in the past they worked fairly well, but on my latest cross countr...err rather I was testing it on the ground (right?), it was only picking up the mids, no bass or highs. I reverted to hooking it up through my headset (A20) and it sounded fantastic.
 
rd757 said:
Our aircraft have AUX inputs as well and in the past they worked fairly well, but on my latest cross countr...err rather I was testing it on the ground (right?), it was only picking up the mids, no bass or highs. I reverted to hooking it up through my headset (A20) and it sounded fantastic.
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haha yeah we were testing ours the other day but my student started listening to the chili peppers and it just magically didn't work anymore. how's the a20? I just got the X and am absolutely in love!
 
spoolinup22 said:
haha yeah we were testing ours the other day but my student started listening to the chili peppers and it just magically didn't work anymore. how's the a20? I just got the X and am absolutely in love!
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I love it so far, absolutely no complaints! I didn't like how the X fit on my ears (I've never liked headphones that sat 'on ear', rather than 'over the ear'), but the A20s fit very differently, in a good way. I wrote up a bit about it in the headset thread that's floating around on here. It's a big step up from the DC H10-13.4s I wore through training. They're very comfortable even on days like yesterday where I did over 6 hours of XC's. We updated all our G1000s to the newest firmware a few months ago and (this is purely a guess, at best) I'm wondering if it now somehow detects the audio levels playing through it and tries to muffle it. I have used the aux port before on long XCs and it worked great... so it's strange that they all of a sudden stopped working the same way.

Some of our fleet has the XM radio option, so I use that when it's available, but on the ones that don't, I guess the headset patch cord is the best bet. I wouldn't want to use Bluetooth, even if the A20 offered that option, because it kills my iPhone battery ridiculously fast.
 
Yeah, I have thought about getting some A20s. I know that wouldn't allow any music over the intercom, but honestly the intercom thing would have just been an added plus to whatever music set up I purchased. I definitely think it would be a good investment considering how many hours I am going to have to wear a standard headset before I get into any kind of 121 gig. As of now I would wear them at least 1300 more hours, That is less than a dollar per hour of use. Not too bad if you look at them in that regard I guess.

Thanks for all of the links guys. As far as the aux jacks....everything I fly is old and has crappy radios that has nothing like that! The one adapter than plugs up right into the mic port might be okay, but I would have to hook it up in the back and run the cord up to the front to my ipad. I would have to check to see if the audio xmits just from the jack that has the xmit button pressed, or if it broadcast anything being played on the intercom.
 
I highly, highly recommend a good ANR headset like the Bose or Lightspeed. I thought my old DCs were good-and they were, in a 172-but then I started flying a Cherokee 6 and it quickly became apparent that 4+ hours a day of that were gonna have me deaf in no time. Bought a used pair of Zulus from a fellow on here and I am very pleased with their performance.
 
Try Radioshack, another freighter told me there is this adaptor that you can plug into the copilot mic jack. Then it's just through the intercom, like you asked. Center wont hear unless you key the copilots mic.
 
I bought a Lightspeed 20 3G off ebay for $200 a few years back. It was a good headset and you could hook music up to it.
 
Is this in your own plane (ergo, one you can have an A&P make subtle changes to) or someone else's? Reason I ask is I am dealing with a similar situation right now with the flight simulator I am building. I am using an old Collins AMR-350 audio panel....I've done some testing with it already. I am basically going to be running a bunch of different sound cards into each individual input on the panel (NAV1/2, marker beacon, etc), and one of those inputs will be used for a CD/MP3 player in the co-pilot's panel (ahem...it's a recreational simulator, gimme a break, hehe!).

If you have an unused audio channel (such as ADF), what you *should* be able to do (this is something to chat with your A&P about) is mount a standard 3.5mm audio jack in the panel, and wire it to your unused input on the audio panel. Easy peasy. There are a couple of big advantages to this: for one, you are assured that ATC will not hear your tunes. Also, it can be run through the PA system or the intercom, just like any other audio channel. And since most audio panels automatically lower the volume on ancillary channels like NAV and ADF when something comes over a COM channel (the AMR-350 does, anyway), you can crank the music and still not miss any ATC broadcasts. Then of course there's the added bonus of it being extremely cheap....less than $5 in parts, and it's very very easy to do so your A&P probably won't charge much. (It's literally four solder joints and one hole in the panel).

A bit unconventional perhaps, but it should do the job effectively.

Matt
 
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