Tuesday 11 October 2016

Clansman Drivers Box - Repurposing?

I have a Clansman harness 'Drivers Box' coming. The original intention of this was to rob it of its two 7-way connectors, to make up various adapters that would allow me to break-out the Clansman audio connections for test purposes, or to allow non clansman audio equipment use, and to allow me to use Clansman audio ancillaries with non-clansman radios.

A further project is to build a datamodes interface for the Clansman system.

Now, im starting to think like this -

The Drivers Box has two 7-pin audio connectors, two 12-pin harness connectors, a volume control, and a multiway switch. And I dare say, plenty of room inside. So what then, if I use one of the audio connectors for connection to the radio, the other to a handset/headset, and engineer the rear of the box for jack connectors, a 9-way D-type for PTT control, and a set of 4mm terminals? Then reuse (if the value is suitable) the volume control as, er, a volume control, and the switch either replaced with a suitable potentiometer for mic level control, or a set of attenuators to give fixed level intervals? (after all, the main control of mic level for digimodes is done from the PCs control window)

Rebuild as multi-purpose audio interface?
The two 12-way harness connectors would be removed, and either the holes reused for other connectors, or given a filling of Plastic Metal! An LED mounted dead center would act as PTT/Tx indicator for digimode use.

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