[quote="abendx"]Lately a few things have come together with me and my jeep that had lead me to rethink trail comms a little bit.
I recently became a licensed HAM and bought a nice radio for the rig. When I installed it, I thought of something that always made me a bit bummed on the trail with the CB..... which was, either I could listen to the radio or the CB, but to have both on usually meant the CB went unheard. Now I have another radio in the rig and the last trip to JV, I decided to kill the tunes for the trail comms. It was nice being able to hear people when they called across the desert. But.... something wasn't right the entire trip... it was the lack of music to get crazy to (don't worry... we still had fun!).
So I started looking for something that would mute the music when the calls came in over the other radios. What I found I wanted was what they call a "ducker" in the audio world. There isn't much out there that is reasonable and has multiple ports. So I settled on a simple mixer and thought I was done... at least I would get the cb and ham traffic into the stereo system. Very imperfect and somewhat broke all the controls on the head unit (e.g. no iPod control). Also this was bad as I had to try and decipher the call over the music. Volume manipulation made things easier, but still imperfect and very cumbersome to operate. But it was a start.
Then I started looking around again.... but this time I found a couple of products that would fit the bill much better. One was just like what I came up with, but some ducking included in the box. That is great... but still wired in as to keep the integration out. Much better than I had come up with and I e-mailed the guy about it. Unfortunately, he's recently had surgery and wasn't making them for sometime. The other product I found.... worked a little differently. It went into the radios wire harness, and muted the output when a radio call came in.... brilliant! I could retain the radio's integration AND have it mute to hear the CB and HAM radios... nice! and an e-mail went off to those guys.
Now... for the very cool part. The return e-mail wasn't what I had hoped for.... they had no JK specific harness and told me they didn't recommend the universal kit they offer... but what they did offer was to prototype a new unit in my rig. They get to figure out how to make it work in a JK (harness, etc) and I get to give them a little product advice! Currently.... they have a bunch of products for different type vehicles that do similar but different things... some sent the output to the stereo, some to additional add on speakers... some cut the music when transmitting, some didn't. And all of them had only one trigger input.
So... what I have talked them into doing is trying out some of these integrations that I want. I wanted multiple trigger inputs (CB, HAM, etc). I wanted to hear the comms through the stereo speakers. I wanted the music to mute when I transmitted as well. I'll be meeting up with them next week to see what they can come up with.
I don't work for this company and am getting nothing out of this other than maybe the prototype and a solution to the problem I was trying to solve. I just happened to hit them up at the right time and they thought they could pull it off. Think about it... never have to choose to hear the music or your buddies calling for help again. You can do both (hopefully... lets see what these guys come up with)!
I'm excited... this is a problem that almost all of us face on the trail and there may be a solution!!
The product is called the Audio Interrupt. They are shooting for a Jan 13 release with a JK harness if the prototyping goes well.
Now.... can I get them to prototype up one for my Superduty?
[/quote][quote="abendx"]Update guys...
Just had the Audio Interrupt guys over for the prototyping. They had planned on leaving the device with me (they had pre built it), but want to go back to the bench to work a few things out that came up during our test.
Let me tell you guys.... while it does have a few bugs to be worked out, it is amazing!
~Incoming audio from the radios mutes the music!
~Outgoing audio from the radios mutes the music!
~Incoming radio transmissions are piped through the stereo speakers
~Works with multiple radio sources (I have three sources in the Jeep).
~Stereo controls are maintained and work as expected (iPod, NAV, etc).
~Stereo/Jeep independent (i.e. rig doesn't even have to be on to hear the radios).
~Super Duty guys.... we pulled apart the dash so they could get a look-see. Likelihood is high they will make one for it as well!!
~Aftermarket stereos are easy... they currently have an universal kit to deal with those low level outputs.
~Everything was CLEAN! All automotive grade harnesses and connectors... looks like something the factory built. I got to look into their black box as they made adjustments and the electronics build quality is as good as it gets.
I am guessing, as things stand, the product is probably ready for the basic stereo system... the premium one is what they will be doing some tweaking for. They are hoping to have it in my dirty paws before my next trip to the Hammers (mid month).... so hopefully soon, I'll have some real world experience with this guy and can tell you all if it is really as worthwhile as it seems to be.
One thing I did forget to ask them was their perceived target price.[/quote]
