Seems like all of ST's gear is spendy, from my non-rarefied air
point of view.
The RS-202S sounds pretty close, but the Program inputs probably are not stereo, nor A1-mixer quality.
And everything is right here in the thread, at least on this topic... As I say, I can't be the only A1 who needs to talk/listen on the PL; I'm a
bit shocked no one has dug this hole before.
Oh I've dug this hole. many times. and had it collapse on me and then I dug another hole and then didn't find any treasure and then... you get the idea.
My best solution, that I never actually built, was a
passive summing
mixer with 4-6 inputs and 2 outputs. Each input has 3 position select
toggle to go from left, right or both outputs. This would be
fed from outputs from multiple comms belt packs set to different channels and/or headphone outputs from a mixing
console or other device. Since all the device outputs are already "headphone
level" the relative levels between each input would be set by the volume controls on the various devices to eliminate having to put variable resistors and other complication in my "magic box" or add active circuitry. inputs on the box would likely be on
TRS jacks and I would just have various outboard adapters to fit a wide variety of situations. That takes care of the monitoring side and feeds a
TRS jack for my
headphones.
Microphone side can also be
passive and simply go to a
passive splitter to feed outputs that feed the belt pack interfaces as well as an
XLR to feed a mixing
console. Likely should use a
transformer or two to keep various devices isolated from one another for grounding reasons.
This was the simplest device I could come up with and it still ends up having a dozen connectors on it as well as a bunch of switches and likely a
transformer or 2 or 3. and a whole bunch of
wire and soldering to put it all together. AND I need to
build a bunch of different adapters to match up with various belt pack pinouts/connectors depending on how many channels of comm I'm
interfacing with,
etc.
Now add just about any other capability and this very simple device wouldn't work and you'd need something different. Like if you need a
line level input into this you're screwed because it's a
passive device and the levels between your "headphone
level" things will not match your "
line level" things. Or if you need a
line level output from this device to feed a talkback
circuit somewhere that doesn't have a mic pre then you need to add a mic pre to the box and thus
power and.... yeah...
Bottom
line reason that there is no off the shelf component available to do this is that there are just too many variables. Does it need to be stereo or
mono? Does it need to be active? What does it need to interface with? Do all those things need grounding isolation? blah blah blah...
And this is why I have several either off the shelf or adapted solutions that I use to solve this issue and I use whatever thing matches the situation I'm in since a "one size fits all" box is such a challenge. And even that is in a constant state of flux. For instance, my Model 233 announcer station that I used for many many shows is basically not going out much anymore because I'm just not seeing analog comms much anymore.
Now if you can whittle your variables down for your specific box you may be able to
build something pretty straightforward that'll do what you need it to do. It's just all about balancing flexibility with complexity. But you're not likely to find an off the shelf thing that does what you want. The closest you're going to get is on the avlifesavers site since he has a bunch of weird comms things that you may be able to combine to fit your specific situation.
Hope some of all this junk I just wrote is semi useful.
brian
"Comms are Life"
