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Recording Helicopter Intercom


David A-Ribeiro

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Hello everyone,

 

Has anyone had experience with this?

 

I still do not know which type/model of heli it is (not military), so no details yet. Is it possible that there might be some kind of patchbay or mixer with line-outs to feed extra headsets? And if so,  would there be specific connectors or standard xlr/jack? And impedance?

 

Thanks for any tips.

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http://www.trewaudio.com/store/Military-fixed-wing-and-all-helicopter-intercom-tap-CAAVMIC.html

 

This is the proper plug for most heli headphone plugins.  Not sure about impedance, and it's a pretty hot level that can have some pretty weird noise problems.

 

I usually stick a lav mic into the earpiece of one of the heli's noise cancelling headphones and wear them myself so I can control levels and noise issues.

 

Cheers,

Brent Calkin 

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" Has anyone had experience with this?"

YES

Mike!

When people ask a question on this forum its usually means that what they are asking is outside either their experience or comfort zone.

Smart arse answers that you continually give don't help people with less experience as you.

Malcolm Davies. A.m.p.s.

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+ 1 for the lav mic in the headphone trick. It always sounds better then patching in to the comm system. Actually it's quite surprising how clear and quite it is considering the noise. One thing to keep in mind is pilots usually have to monitor a variety of sources .. Often they overlap each other making it difficult to concentrate. If its just the internal comms you're after ( ie just the occupants of the chopper ) thn get the pilot to mix out all the other sources

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Since I'm generally not even allowed to be in the small plane/helico myself, and given I have 5 minutes to find a solution, I put a lav inside the camera guy's headphones with a piece of gaffer, fix the transmitter somewhere outside of the way, stick an old 190 Lectro on the camera, put that channel in auto, verify that the levels are not hitting too hard the limiter, and go grab a coffee when they fly.

That's the best I can do, right ?

Actually the result is perfectly fine, the right level of ambient noise and "grit" on the voices to know you are in a plane.

Also, be right there when they land. Everybody will want to go out there as fast as possible, will have forgot everything about the rig, and will tear out each and every wires they can in a matter of seconds.

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Thought I´d post some pics of the helicopter shoot.

 

The intercom recording was done with the VT500 taped to the headphones going into a Senny 100 tucked away inside a pocket in the operator´s jacket. There was not a lot of space inside the helicopter but I managed to hide a small bag with the receiver and a Zoom H4 under the seat.

 

I could not set levels very accurately because the intercom would only work once the engines were running and by that time no one apart from ground crew are allowed around the chopper. So I set an approximate level by testing the mic on the earpiece against a small laptop speaker with what I guessed would be a similar signal, activated the H4 limiters and off they went.

 

Results were pretty good, everyone was happy.

 

Thanks for all the tips guys!

 

(The other photo just shows how on this particular model one could theretically also connect directly to the intercom duplex lines.)

 

post-1270-0-52112100-1361036870_thumb.jppost-1270-0-57813200-1361036891_thumb.jp

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