R.I.C.K. Issue - Stuck TX

[aaknitt]

Here's the setup:

UHF radio on RICK J5 (RX), VHF radio on RICK J3 (TX) set up as a bidirectional repeater. Today I unplugged the 16 pin connector on the VHF radio to do some work, and now as soon as the RICK repeat enable button is engaged the COR light comes on and it keys the UHF radio continuously. Since nothing outside the RICK changed, I'm wondering if something in the RICK went poof (it was powered while I was plugging/unplugging things), or what else might cause this problem. I have it temporarily fixed by bypassing the RICK and going pin to pin on the two radios for PTT/COR (audio path is still through the RICK so that the levels are set correctly), but I'd like to know what the heck the problem is. I'm thinking of just getting an interface cable off of Ebay and saying to heck with the RICK completely.

Here's the second part of my question. Ideally I'd like to connect a local mic to the two rear connectors in parallel so that I can have a mic that will key both radios at the same time. Can I do this with the RICK (or interface cable) attached? Looking at the schematic, there is a potentiometer in the audio paths for level adjustment. If I simply parallel a mic across pin 2 of each radio, I'm assuming the mic audio would be attenuated by these two potentiometers. I'm not sure if this is going to be doable or not. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Andy

[wavetar]

Not sure about your RICK issue, which you've worked around anyway, but I've used a simple RJ45 telco box to plug a regular palm or desk mic into, and paralleled 2 lines from that to key two radios at once from the front mic jacks. Just be sure to stick a small value capacitor on one of the mic hi lines coming from one of the radios...you only need to get the voltage from one of them to bias the mic element. I suspect if you try to do it from the accessory connectors with the RICK hooked in as well you'll have issues.

[aaknitt]

Yeah I think I'm going to end up doing something similar, although I need 2 mics...one to key one of the radios and the other to key both of them. A diode in the PTT wiring should do the trick there. Thanks for the reminder about the cap...I probably would have forgotten that if you hadn't mentioned it.

Andy