Hello my first post here so sorry that its just a question. I quad and motocross and with the helmets on its quite hard to hear eachother, now I know there are kits that are like 300 bucks that do what I want but hey, we are in the age of getting things done yourself so I figured I can do it myself for 1/3rd the cost and save some cash. I can follow instructions quite well, but this is not a field I am very experienced in. I hope one of you experts can help a guy out.

I want to take 2-way radios with a push to talk headset and basically extend it so i can mount the headphones and microphone inside of the helmet using velcro probably and move the push-to-talk button (thats built inside the casing of the microphone) to a longer cable that I can mount to the handlebar of the quad, using a momentary switch? (I think thats right). Now I would like to make it quick release from 2 points, 1 from the helmet and 1 from the handlebar this way we are not getting tangled up so easy.

I have done plenty of car stereo installs to be comfortable with doing the wiring with connectors, and solder but my main questions are;

1. What gauge wire should I use?

2. Any ideas on how to make those quick release connections? (something that can plug/unplug quickly kinda like a headphone jack?)

3. When I am actually doing the wiring, how does the wiring need to connected to the jacks and the momentary switch to make sure the Push to talk works and of course the headphones and mic?

Thank you electronic wizards! I have took the time to be very genuine and made a map of what I am trying to do. I hope I can get some genuine help! See below at my drawing board.

 

You could use banana plugs, male/female connectors, or 1/4" audio male/female connectors for your quick release. (I'd consider buying a 1/4" male to 1/4" female cable from Monoprice and cutting it.)

The end of your headset appears to be a TRS 1/8" plug (aka an audio stereo plug). The gauge of wire is not important since this is a very, very low current circuit and I would recommend choosing the gauge based on the desired durability of the wire.

It's hard to know exactly how the headset is internally wired and what the radio expects at its 3 input terminals in the jack (it is 3 terminals total, correct?) I found some diagrams of other radios' headsets:
http://www.aerialpursuits.com/comms/pttccts.htm

I would take an educated guess and say that the sleeve is ground and the tip and ring are (in unknown order) mic and speaker. In these other circuits it looks like the push to talk button simply breaks or connects the mic's connection.

What's for sure: you'd wire together the positive wire of both earbuds (mono signal) and the other wire of each goes to ground. One wire of the mic goes to ground.

If I'm right that the PTT button just breaks/connects the mic's signal, the positive wire of the mic goes to one terminal of the momentary switch and the other terminal of the switch goes to either tip or ring (once you discover which is which) of your new 1/8" TRS plug.

 

Thank you for the info, the diagrams make no sense to me I have never learned how to read any kind of electronic diagram, a lot of the symbols and and some verbiage i dont understand like tow lock switch? Mostly the symbols and the drawings have (to me) strange hieroglyphs! I am going to dig into this tonight however and try to get something working. As I progress I will keep up with my thread. Again thank you.

 

Well you will have to brush up on your Egyptian, then But I only posted those to help "guess" what circuit yours would use. Most likely you can get some appropriate cables and do trial and error to figure out which is the speaker and which is the mic and whether the act of connecting the mic causes the push to talk function to occur. Then it's just a matter of wiring.

 

Hi Patrick,

So I got everything soldered up to test, So far the headphones work when transmitting from another radio. When I push the PTT button, you can hear from the other radio that its trying to transmit, but when you talk into the microphone nothing happens just static. This is how I currently have it set up.

 

Hello,

Try it like this. The switch's only purpose is to break or connect the mic's path to the output plug.

 

Bingo!

Patrick thank you! I did your suggestion this morning and it works! Now I can liberate myself from paying $300 for a kit like this and make it myself for under $50 bucks including the radio.

 

Glad you got it working. Sounds like a much better price!