Intercom quit now fixed ;-)

After 250 hrs. on my RV9A my intercom stopped working. Communications with tower, etc. works fine, just can't talk to co-pilot. For someone electronically challenged, where should I start trouble shooting? And what would you expect to be the most likely culprit? thanks for your help.

Isolate switch?

btw, which intercom is it?

Here's my "Knock myself on the forehead" intercom story: I had several hundred hours flying the RV when my PS Engineering PS2000 stereo intercom was not working after powering up the panel for the day's flight.

With this (fail-safe) intercom, I too could talk to everybody except my passenger.

The intercom has a pushbutton on/off switch that I somehow had 'pushed' to the off-position during the previous shutdown...

Good luck troubleshooting Rosie

What type of intercom do you have. Most intercoms will failsafe to the COM radio so that even if power is lost, you can still transmit and receive on the COM. I would check your breaker/fuse. Make sure the intercom is getting power. It could just be hosed and the failsafe to COM feature is working as designed.

Can you hear a sidetone when you're talking on the intercom? What about on the pax side?

Looks to me like you're not getting power or your intercom is hosed.

Best,

no sidetone

Jamie said:

What type of intercom do you have.

Can you hear a sidetone when you're talking on the intercom? What about on the pax side?

Looks to me like you're not getting power or your intercom is hosed.

Best,

Click to expand...

I just went out and checked the push button on/off switch and no luck. I was really hopeful that I had accidentally turned it off as experienced by Rosie.

Also I get no sidetone on either headset. Sidetone disappeared simultaneously with intercom, I guess.

It is a PS Engineering unit.

Also, ISO switch was not the problem, darn'it.

Is there power?

Have you checked if there is power and ground at the intercom connector? Is it protected by a circuit breaker or by a fuse? Hope this helps

could it be the headset?

I did some additional troubleshooting. The passenger headset is working, I get a side tone and can hear it in the pilot headset. It just takes a little louder effort to get it to pick up sound. My wife has always had trouble with her voice getting picked up so when she couldn't hear me on the intercom, I figured it was an intercom problem since I couldn't hear her either. It's a cheap headset.

However, my DRE 6000 ANR gets no sidetone and no sound to the passenger headset. When I tried it in both sides, I got the same result.

My conclusion is that the DRE 6000 is the problem. It is confusing to me why it will transmit to other aircraft and tower, but not to passenger. I plan to borrow a neighbors headset to test my conclusion re: the DRE. I know that it is a cheap ANR headset, but how or where can it be fixed if I'm correct? I think I heard that DRE went out of business. If I'm correct and it's the headset, the old adage "you get what you pay for" must be true. Any suggestions.....other than buying a good pair of headsets? I plan to do that right after I raise the money for my hangar door. thanks in advance. Jack

Time to buy new headsets. Repairing them is only going to get you a patched, repaired, unreliable headset.

HEADSETS OK?

If you can transmit to the tower and hear them talking to you the headset is fine. You might have mentioned it but I'm not sure what intercom you have.
It sounds to me like the squelch on the intercom is set too high, that's why it takes a lot for the passenger to be able to talk. Does the intercom have two squelch knobs? Try playing with them.

Squelch was it!!!

fmarino1976 said:

It sounds to me like the squelch on the intercom is set too high, that's why it takes a lot for the passenger to be able to talk. Does the intercom have two squelch knobs? Try playing with them.

Click to expand...

Thank you, Thank you. It WAS the stupid squelch knob! Now both headsets work better than ever. I don't ever remember touching the knob or adjusting it. I must have accidentally moved it since it is located directly above my Garmin 250XL Gps/com which I use all the time in flight to check freq., enter direct to, etc.

I hope I'm not the only dummy out there that didn't know that the squelch knob could cause this. I thought it just removed static. duh

This forum is great. I got lots of troubleshooting ideas and the last one fixed it.

Jack