GTR 200 B in a 2013 RV12

I went round and round chasing intermittent radio issues on a new to me RV12. Ended up finding out that one of the mic jacks was shorted to ground. No biggie I thought pulled the wings and replaced the jack. Then when it still read continuity to ground I pulled the connection at the AV50000A box. Short goes away.

Reading about it I decided to ditch the flightcom 430 and SL40 and install a GTR200B have bluetooth, more modern radio, etc. I just got the radio today (shout out to Stein Air who was the most knowledgeable friendly place I have ever bought anything airplane related from) and am making my game plan.

I intend to wire it all around the AV50000A. Just install and wire connections directly to the radio so there are less points of failure and connections.

Question I have for people who know more than I do is where to use shielded wire etc. Im going to stereo headset jacks so will have to remove the floor and run all new wiring anyway.

To shield or not to shield that is the question! And if anyone has other hints they would be appreciated.

Im excited to get it done and installed but it will be a little bit of a project!

Thanks!

I know a person who did what you are doing, installed the new radio, wired around the AV50000A. However he put new headset jacks on the panel or under the panel (I forget which), and he said it reduced or eliminated noise by running less wire and wiring aroung the AV50000A.

If you put the headset jacks on the panel, you could just disconnect the old headset wires and wouldn't have to take the wings off or take up the floor panels.

Just an idea to think about.

Definitely shielded wire.
Stereo headphones: Use 3 conductor plus shield cable. (The three wires will be for left, right, and common (return) channels). Connect the shield to the radio ground, leave the shield unconnected at the jack. Use a fiber shoulder washer to insulate the jack from ground. Mike: Use 2 or 3 conductors plus shield wire. Mike high, mike ground, and PTT. (PTT does not have to be shielded). Same as headphones, shield unconnected at jack, jack isolated from ground.

tbag said:

I went round and round chasing intermittent radio issues on a new to me RV12. Ended up finding out that one of the mic jacks was shorted to ground. No biggie I thought pulled the wings and replaced the jack. Then when it still read continuity to ground I pulled the connection at the AV50000A box. Short goes away.

Reading about it I decided to ditch the flightcom 430 and SL40 and install a GTR200B have bluetooth, more modern radio, etc. I just got the radio today (shout out to Stein Air who was the most knowledgeable friendly place I have ever bought anything airplane related from) and am making my game plan.

I intend to wire it all around the AV50000A. Just install and wire connections directly to the radio so there are less points of failure and connections.

Question I have for people who know more than I do is where to use shielded wire etc. Im going to stereo headset jacks so will have to remove the floor and run all new wiring anyway.

To shield or not to shield that is the question! And if anyone has other hints they would be appreciated.

Im excited to get it done and installed but it will be a little bit of a project!

Thanks!

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Hello tbag,

Sounds like a great project. The GTR 200B is so much better than what you are replacing in many ways.

The GTR 200B installation manual shows you where to use shielded wire in the installation.

You will definitely be using 2 and 3 conductor shielded MIL-C-27500 wire for most of this installation as shown in the manual. Also carefully follow the guidance for when and where to ground the shielding.

Let us know if you have any installation questions.

Thanks,
Steve

I pulled the connection at the AV50000A box. Short goes away.

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Normally when we talk about a short, it means an unwanted
electrical connection. But mic jacks are supposed to be grounded, just not
locally at the jack. Instead of being grounded locally, mic jacks are grounded
at the radio end of the cable. The jacks themselves are not supposed to be
touching ground. An ohmmeter can not be used to test if the jack is isolated
from ground unless the instrument-panel end of the cable is first disconnected
from ground. If a music jack is installed, it also needs to be electrically
insulated from the mounting surface.

I have a GTR200 that came with the late 2017 avionics package.
I?ve had extreme trouble with the communications from the beginning. Basically unusable. The trouble shooting hours has been unbelievable. The GTR 200 is okay because I?ve switched it out with other RV-12s. I?ve checked grounding with the help of experts. I have grounded, grounded and grounded. The last resort I ran a separate avionics ground bus through the aircraft and it gets to the battery ground. This has improved the communications capability to at least usable but not what I would consider good.
I am very interested in getting the GTR 200 wiring out of and separated from the AV50000A box.
I would be grateful for information from anyone who has accomplished this.

BackCountry, Make sure that the headset jacks and music jack are not
touching the airframe. Those jacks must be mounted with insulating
washers. If it is desired to check with an ohmmeter, the Options D-Sub must
first be disconnected from the AV-50000A to prevent false positive continuity to ground.

Any chance you're getting ignition noise? I changed out spark plug caps on my early SN RV-12 with NGK Spark Plug Resistor Cover - 90deg. Elbow Type (LB05F) 8051 and fixed my comm problems.

I am going to do exactly what you are asking about Backcountry. I was going back and forth on using the stock mic and headphone jacks and for now, I am going to wire everything from scratch, with the exception of the PTT wires and the power and ground.

I ordered a little pod from spruce and am going to put it on the tunnel with 5 jacks, aux audio, stereo headphone x2 and mic x2. For now I am going to use double stick tape so nothing is permanent until I am confident it works 100% the way I want. I am going to pull the PTT wires on the input side of the AV50000A and run those to the GTR.

The shielded 2 conductor and 3 conductor wiring should get here from Spruce today and I am going to work on it next week. If you want me to keep track of pins I remove from the AV50000A and take photos I can.

The radio in my plane has been barely useable. Once I get everything in and working properly, then I will decide if I want to pull the floor out and run new shielded wiring to the stock mic and headset jack locations.

If this does work Im glad to help others, I spent a decent amount of time looking at all the wiring diagrams thinking about how I want mine to be.

Once its functioning properly, I will think about the audio inputs from the Skyview and the GPS inputs to the GTR. To me those are just fluff but I should make it all work right in the end

I have a GTR200 that came with the late 2017 avionics package.
I?ve had extreme trouble with the communications from the beginning. Basically unusable. The trouble shooting hours has been unbelievable. The GTR 200 is okay because I?ve switched it out with other RV-12s. I?ve checked grounding with the help of experts. I have grounded, grounded and grounded. The last resort I ran a separate avionics ground bus through the aircraft and it gets to the battery ground. This has improved the communications capability to at least usable but not what I would consider good.
I am very interested in getting the GTR 200 wiring out of and separated from the AV50000A box.
I would be grateful for information from anyone who has accomplished this.

Due to red X on Comm showing up on PFD, I just unplugged the Nav/Comm plug from the AV50000. Now GTR200 is no longer displayed one PFD, but it performs perfectly as a stand-alone unit.

benburb said:

Due to red X on Comm showing up on PFD, I just unplugged the Nav/Comm plug from the AV50000. Now GTR200 is no longer displayed one PFD, but it performs perfectly as a stand-alone unit.

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I'd give the Dynon tech line a phone call and have them see if they can help you trouble shoot that radio problem. It might have something to do with the serial port # assigned to the GTR200.

Success

So it all works, sounds great.

I removed the power and ground pins from the SL40 connector and used them.

Removed the wires from pins 1 and 3 at the fuselage connector at the AV50000A, and put new pins on and ran them to the GTR200B plug

Ran all new mic and headphone wires. Put them in this little pod that I will double stick tape down until I am excited enough to run new wires to the factory mic and headphone jacks.

At some point I will add the audio from the skyview and might want to explore connecting a GPS input to get the Garmin to know frequencies locally.

But for now its functioning and sounds great!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/N5xq43ZrHt8sYBMr9