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Hi Everyone, I just reached Rick Waedekin, ICOM's National Sales Mgr., by phone. HE said: 1) The ICOM A-23 does NOT need to be wired to the plane antenna to serve as effective cockpit backup. 2) The bad transmission I described (when I just plugged headset into the supplied adapter and tried to transmit from the cockpit on the ground with engine running) is the result of having 2 mics both trying to work at once (the one in my headset + the holes on the front of the ICOM itself). He said all I should need to do to solve this is to go buy an external PTT switch, and plug it into the 3rd receptacle that's part of that supplied headset adapter (which I erroneously had thought was just for patching in music from an external player). He said that an external PTT switch is wired to disable the mic that is built into the front of the ICOM (little holes) so that my voice goes ONLY through the mic in my headset. Then, use the external PTT switch to transmit. That will avoid the feedback whine and extreme garbling that happened when I tried it without this external PTT switch. 3) Yes, the ICOM A-23 should both send and receive fine from the ramp to Ground Control & Tower. I only tried that once today, but if it continues, and I want to test it, I can do so by trying another rubber duckie or by wiring it to the plane antenna (he said only do the latter if my plane antenna is on top of the plane, which it is). 4) If my transmissions are still too weak for Ground/Tower to hear me, there's a 3-yr warranty; send it back in to be checked. I also want to say how very nice he has been in all of our communications, and how very accessible (making allowance for the fact that they're in Oregon, which has been snowed in, power outages, etc.). Linda ============================================================================== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm
