How to Record Aircraft Intercom Audio (iPhone adapter) 

Great tutorial, Nick. While you're at it, I'm sure a lot of pilots would be shocked how easily they can add isolated audio (music) input to their headset without a fancy audio panel. Have you considered adapting your board to also provide headphone output through the same jack? For passengers one can just buy a cheap splitter cable, but to get both mic in and audio out on the same iDevice, you gotta get custom. And then if you're really after it, you can attenuate the audio out when the intercom lights up.

Nice simple tutorial on how to make the adapter. Almost everyone should be able to follow these instructions. I really liked the including of the wiring diagrams! Learning how to follow these on simple circuits like this will give plane owners a head start for when they have to start figuring out why the nav light fuse blows when they fly the plane with the nav lights on, but not when testing in the hangar.

OMAGAD you're back !!!!

Welcome back, Nick!! Really missed you. This video was WONDERFUL. I love using my dusty soldering iron. There is exactly one dusty electronics store left in the northern Chicago suburbs, complete with tubes and a tube tester! Let's bow our heads in prayer for the memory of our beloved Radio Shack, Allied Electronics, and our local component stores. (Digikey, Jameco, and Parts-Express remain, though days away.) In your absence, I discovered "Captain Joe" a wonderful RU-vid site by a German commercial pilot. His topics, editing and presentation are excellent but it takes him quite a while to answer questions, preferring to make polished videos as time permits. Can you take on a few about commercial airliners and operations?

Holy wow, you're alive! Great info in this one. I've run into other strange audio recording issue before.

Brilliant - thanks a lot for taking the time to do this video! I have a Garmin Virb and was not happy with the £50 plus postage for the Garmin audio cable... so made my own using your circuit and it works a treat. (And, no, it's not complicated.) Keep up the good work.

I've just finally finished watching every one of your videos! I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad about that... Thank you for taking the time to make such amazing videos and for getting many (including myself!) into aviation! :) I hope to be able to get started sometime, get my PPL, and own a plane with a friend/friends.

love these diy aviation tool videos! keep em up!

I appreciate Nicks ingenuity, but in my opinion there is a much easier way to patch into the cockpit audio. What I do is use a Sony ICD PX333 (Which you can get on Amazon for around $30). You can use any recorder that has the capability to do audio-in but I have found the Sony works great. Once you have the recorder you have a few choices in what cables to get depending on how you want to patch in to the audio. You can either use the same audio out port in the airplane that your headset plugs into and split the connection, or you can use an open output in the back that isn't being used. If you want to split the connection, all you need is a male 1/4 plug connected to dual female 1/4 plugs. Make sure you get it to split the connection in parallel so you don't get a voltage drop and make sure it is a stereo cable. This can also be found on Amazon for a few bucks. From there you just need a stereo male 1/4 to male 1/8 plug which goes from one end of the splitter to the recorder. The other end of the splitter goes into your headset. The other way to do it using an open passenger port is to just get a male 1/8 to male 1/8 aux cord and a little male 1/4 to female 1/8 converter (Again, make sure it is all stereo). The 1/4 end of the adapter goes into the empty port on the airplane while the aux cord connects the adapter to the audio recorder. No cutting wires, soldering, or building anything. Just about $50 worth of cables and a recorder. If you had trouble following my description MrAviation101 did a video on it A LONG time ago so it is a little outdated but you will get the basic picture.

I don't understand why this doesn't have more views

Thank you bro for such detailed video. Feel sorry though for those who have disliked the video. I will assume they are not human beings....may be robots🤔. I mean give this guy some credit for teaching us all this for free. Thank u sir!!

I made a cable following your instructions and it works fine! Thank you!

Excellent instructional! This is the step in the right direction for making it easier for pilots to capture their flights' intercom audio. Maybe you could acid etch some boards and sell this as a DIY kit!

Glad to see ya back on the RU-vid brother! Hope all is well!

Since radio shack has disappeared and amazon is only a mediator for getting parts from a third party seller,I have found that I can get all the electronic components for any project from “you do it electronics” in Nedham, MA. They are easily accessed from the highway and online.Nice simple assembly instructions, right out of Wentworth or Northeastern in Boston.

My first "commercial" question is about cabin pressurization during decent. Hearing about Gwen Stefani's ear drum blowing out on a flight, reminds me of our kids suffering terribly during decent when they were very little. They didn't know how to pop their eustachian tubes and drinking water or chewing gum didn't work. In those years, flight attendants would hand you 2 cups, filled with a napkin soaked in hot water. The steam was supposed to help. Some flights passengers feel fine, other times your ears pop like crazy. Do the pilots manually control cabin pressure during descent? You briefly discussed this topic some time ago, talking about rate of descent in GA flying, without pressurization. Thanks... awaiting my turn being dragged off some flight for no reason.

yay youre back! please make more video's! we miss you.

So thanks for shedding light on why all my crazy adapters didn't work on the iphone! I am going to make one of these. You should put together a shopping basket on amazon and link it for some affiliate juju. :)

Cool video. I like knowing how things work, so even if I'm more inclined to buy the pre-made version I like knowing what's inside it. It's also helpful when things break.

Very nice build. Good to see you're not dead. Did you do some electrical engineering course or something?

Critical Angle makes a lot of good points that I agree with.. My set up of a Sony voice recorder and ONE simple 3.5mm/ 1/8 phone cable was appx $55.00 and thats 50 bucks for the recorder new.. One end goes in the recorder and the other end (the 1/8 size end) just plug into a jack IN THE BACK SEAT.. DUH.. no need for splitter! Then i simply download file to my pc and I burn it onto disc. Done. I mostly review/listen in my car...

Excuse my illiteracy, but why cant we just plug and go without an adapter circuit? Is the signal used by the recorder different than the output of the airplane intercom? Very great video thanks a lot! I hope it works with a type c end

Nice video, Nick. Pretty easy project once you have all the materials.

Yay, you're back! And I'm not a pilot or an electrical engineer, and this was crystal clear.

I know this is pretty old but... can you please confirm the sizes of the resistors? The video references three different sizes for R2. For those that have asked for a parts list: - One small bread board - One 10uf 50V capacitor (I believe it is 50v but it's not called out in the video) - One 1.5 kohm resistor - R4 (wattage not specified, we bought 1/4 watt) - One 20 kohm resistor - R3 (wattage not specified, we bough 1/4 watt) - One 15 kohm resistor - R2 (video calls out three different values, could be 1500 kohm 3:26, 15 kohm 3:29, or 1.5 kohm 7:10, can you confirm the size?) - One 3.5mm TRSS connector (to plug into phone) - One 3.5mm TRS connector AND 3.5mm to 1/4" adapter OR just a 1/4" TRS connector. - Wire - Zip ties, or popsicle stick I'd recommend not cutting up an old pair of headphones. We found that not all have usable wires inside. The pair we bought and destroyed didn't have a second set of insulated wires inside, but rather had bare wires wound with a fiber separator... which meant it was useless to us once we opened them up. We (my son and I) really want to make this, but we are pretty confused right now.

Great video!! Good DIY for the aviation community. I just would like to know whether the circuit with the three resistors and capacitor would be needed for a normal android smartphone. Thank you!

Excellent video, as yours usually are! Wasn't even planning to do this but I did get inspired to use it elsewhere.

Not pretty, but it works. There's probably some cool project enclosures that match that size board, too. Good job.

Yay so happy your back Your a genius!! I've just got my class 1 medical signed off so starting my ppl straining in 2 weeks. I have a go pro hero camera what's the best way of recording audio so I can use it for training and self improvement.

So I went and spoke with the guy at the helicopter place about capturing the intercom audio, and he didn't have a clue. However he did show me the headset connector in the Robinson R-44. It looked like a stubby 1/4". What you're showing is a standard 1/4". Is this compatible? I'm only going to get my hands on the controls once in my life, and I don't want to miss a thing.

Great to see you back at making videos I was beginning to wonder. When are you coming to Florida?

great video!!! keep it up!

Hello there. Great video!!! As per an earlier comment, the resistance in your commentary don't match those on the sketch. Would you confirm that the resistance on the sketch are the correct ones ?

Finaly new vid!!!!!!!!!!

Nice video.

Great demo!

Great video. Have you tested with the iPhone 7+ special audio adapter?

Thanks! just made it myself and it works, took 3 hours in the couch though. Only had 1000 and 10k ohms. Tried it with my laptop and it sounds good. Is this even legal? :)

Enjoy your videos! I am getting my IFR and just bought a GoPro Hero 5 Black and the NFlightcam audio cable. Recently, I saw something about the GoPro not being able to run off the power from the charger in the airplane. Just want to get your input. Also, on long flights, preparing for my 250nm cross-country, are there any other ways to power the cameras in the event I need to plug the phone and/or tablet into the charger. I know I can get about an hour or so on my Hero 5. Would appreciate input and ideas for camera use. Thanks!

many many thanks ! great effort :)

thanks. i am going to try to build one. I noticed that your narration of R2, R3 & R4 are different from those shown in the diagram (in terms of size). Please confirm what they should be.

Love your videos! My iPhone no longer has enough memory. Sounds like you use an old phone dedicated to recording solely for videos, and memory is not as much of an issue.

I have a gopro hero 7 silver, but there are no audio recording cables for it for an airplane. Well... There is, but it's like $200 CAD (way out of my price range. I found it online somewhere). I was wondering if I could buy an old gopro recording cable, and buy an adapter, like, mini usb to usb-c, because my gopro hero 7 uses a usb-c. Would that work to record the airplane air traffic control and my talking? Thanks!

When you said that Apple had a patent, specifically on the input impedance of the mic input channel, I was thrown for a bit of a loop at first. I didn't think you could patent something like that, and neither I nor my roommate could find anything to the effect with a quick search or two. That said, I did find this bit of information: electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/38452/electronic-aspects-of-iphone-3-5mm-audio-output www.audio-technica.com/cms/site/214c5c52432bc79b/ It seems that newer iPhones and iPads specifically require 1.6kohm-4.0kohm impedance on the microphone in order for iOS to switch to using an external mic for audio input. Schematic translation for the uninitiated: 1. R1 and the voltage source are basically just "there" in the schematic to "simulate" the aircraft's audio output to the headsets. This part of the schematic can be disregarded as a Thevenin Equivalent Circuit as Nick called it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9venin%27s_theorem 2. R2 and R3 act as a resistive voltage divider. When you do the math (R3/(R2+R3)), it comes out that the output voltage is approximately 0.43x that of the input voltage. 3. C1 is a coupling capacitor. It electrically isolates (blocks) the DC circuits of the aircraft's audio system and the iDevice's mic input, whilst still AC coupling (passing) the audio signal right on through from aircraft to iDevice 4. And finally, R4 is the impedance load that the iDevice would see on its mic input. Though, one thing that's not really covered in this how-to is the cost of acquiring all those extra tools if you don't already have them yourself. :P Soldering irons can be had for cheap, as can an ultra basic multimeter with a continuity test function. But those super cheap soldering irons are single temperature irons that, while usable, aren't really ideal. Same for the super cheap multimeters as well. And you might just end up investing as much into getting the tools to DIY this project as you would buying a ready-made solution. Unless you already have the tools on hand to DIY it yourself.

Thank you for this

What's the logic behind the filter design? I calculated a 10Hz cutoff, but what are you removing from the audio with that?

Do you then have to match audio to video separately?

What changes in your circuit are needed for recording directly int a camcorder?

regarding the 1/4" audio splitter: I am told that they could come in serial and parallel varieties and someone told me I would want the parallel variety. Could you comment? Love your videos, just recently subscribed and think I will start at the beginning and watch them all.

I must have done something wrong. My phone recognizes it's recording using the audio jack, but all I get is a buzzing noise :(. Is there a way to test it using the multimeter to see if everything is connexted properly.

I have followed your instructions and used a home amplifier's headphone output to simulate the aircraft radio and have trie recording.. I get a background humming sound along with the output.. Any ideas as to why this would be ?

What do you do if your normal 3.5mm jack doesn’t have a ground? Can I just connect the microphone wire ?

Hey you On the schematic R2 = 15kohm, but your saying 1.5kohm right ?

I mean, this is a nice walk-through, but it still seems way too complicated for most people. You can just buy an airplane/helicopter splitter to 3.5mm from mypilotstore for something like $50. If that's too expensive for someone then flying is the wrong hobby! Plug it in between the aircraft and your headset. That's what I use to get audio direct to the GoPros and it works great.

Would this work in the iphone 7 with the new adapter it has for audio?

great video. I'd like to use my pc gaming headset in my plane. the headset has a cable with two 3.5 jacks, one for mic and one for audio. i know the airplane com has two GA holes one for PJ 068 and the other for PJ 055. Any tips on how to go about this, perhaps a nice experimental video? anyhow, appreciate your work. thanks.

Is there a reason you didn't use a polarised capacitor symbol in the schematic? That could have saved you the "this isn't in the schematic, but..." part.

$32.00 - $50.00 on the "net", however really enjoyed the journeyman presentation. Nice job!

I followed the video and have been soldering for several years now and have taken electronics classes in school. I have a few questions... in the video you have the ground and signal soldered in what i think is reverse (the TRRS connector for the phone) i read that apple uses CTIA for their TRRS connectors which has the ground and signal swapped from what you showed in the video. So now I am confused as to which is right. Also does this setup only work when plugged into an airplane? I tried plugging this circuit into my sound board (vial a 1/4inch adapter into the headphone jack on the board) and played music into the board but whenever i connected a device to record, the external microphone was used instead of recording the incoming music. Also I have been trying to record to an ipod 4 because im afraid if I have the ground and signal reversed then i could damage the headphone jack so that old ipod may not be picking it up. I wanna use this to record airplane audio for a school project so any help would be great.

If any part of this was messed up could you risk damaging the phone?

The only part I can't really see is where you connect the grounds?

its been a long time

Will this work with a Samsung Galaxy s8?

do you know of any ready made alternatives for iphone or gopro?

I couldn't follow you after 8:45, since it does not show what leads connects to what leads in the back. Plus, once all the leads were already connected on the back ( don't know in which way they were connected @ 9:00 ), then at 9:30 started connecting the wires,..but we get to see only the back of the board. so we don't know what your wires are connecting to. ( I guess all my questions are very stupid for any engineer that might be watching this video... but it is just way too difficult for someone on the LEGO level). thanks.

Will this work with android phones?

Dunno if it helps, but you might consider putting the breadboard into a small project box and using it to protect the wires (and the board). www.allelectronics.com/item/1551-hbk/black-abs-box-2.36-x-1.38-x-0.8/1.html

I use a lavalier inside the headset and is lighter and simpler

yesssssa

Another quick cheap and easy method is to put the microphone in your apple earphones in your headset. Although sometimes uncomfortable, it gets the job done.

Hey Nick quick question for you. I built this audio adapter and I just tested it out today. It works! However I am getting terrible audio quality, is there any reason for that? Can I fix it? I used voice memos for I phone to record my flight audio today and it was so broken up and staticky that I could barely understand what I was saying. What can I do to fix it? I don’t think it’s the adapter because if something was wrong with it, I wouldn’t be picking up any audio at all but I am. Please help!!!

Ed Helms is that you

Hows 27F doin?

lol, basically splice the wires

I had my first flight lesson a few weeks ago and being a median guy (radio/tv) I had to record it. Here is the video of that flight ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gNjfkEnvXeM.html For audio I just took a $35 digital recorder and plugged it in to a headphone jack that we were not using. That means I had to sync the audio in the editor. That is not hard to do. Just look for a visual cue. When my CFI pointed to the window and said close it I used it as my sync point. Since there was a lot of noise on the right channel I canceled that side and made the left channel mono. Came out great. Little effort. -- Here is the recorder I used. images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51eXAVdXXYL._SL1000_.jpg

first love the vids

outro music?

If your not an electrical engineer... Wierd flex but ok Anyway good vid bro

Update on my previous comments:- This works fine for an iphone 5, but not for an iphone 4s. (tried two iphone 4s)

all this so you can use an iPhone... just use android and whatever brand phone you'd like, no proprietary connectors required.

I'm going to assume that if you use Android you can skip all the hassle and just use the adapter

Do you have a part list?

Hey Friendly Skies, what if you I paid you to make me one??? 😞😞😞

How about Android, eh?

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okay you lost me at volt meter and soldiering iron

Huh? What?!

Can I pay you to make this for me?

Bakvas

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