Batboard

Good morning,

For some time I was wondering how our neighbor fire dept plugged in two microphones and a second speaker into one radio for their fire engine.

They have a regular mobile radio inside the cab with an RJ45 port for the microphone. There is also a second microphone and speaker at the pump operator's panel. The mic was connected to a RJ45 Ethernet type keystone and surface box with an CAT5E cable. I could not see how the speaker was wired since is was directly mounted to the operator's panel.

Unfortunately I did not have time to check out how this setup was connected to the radio. It is some kind of RJ45 splitter or the second set of mic/speaker is plugged in the accessory port?

Thanks for your input

More than likely it's connected to the accessory port. What model radio?

IIRC it was a Vertex standard

I also have seen a similar setup in an ambulance with A Kenwood mobile and a Motorola telephone style handset connected in the back of the ambulance.

Yes, I've seen similar setups but usually I see and work on dual-headed radios so the person in the rear can have full control of the radio. Costs more though.

You can do it trough the rear accessory connector on a lot of the radios. You may need to make up a custom cable for it, but the connections you need are typically there.

I had setup something like that in my truck one time. I had 2 CDM radios with remote heads mounted up on the dash. I didn't want the cables dangling down the front of everything for the mics, so I made up a cable connecting to the back accessory port and coming out to some CAT5 connectors under the seat. Let my cable come from below the seat, but kept the heads up where I could see them. I was not using 2 mic, but could of if I really wanted to.

If you want full control of the radio from 2 locations, then you need a dual control head setup.