Auxiliary Audio Input?

[Homeboys-Scanna]

I guess a lot of cars have something called an "Auxiliary Audio Input"? Am I correct in assuming that this is a 1/8" stereo jack where you can plug something in and have the audio come out the car stereo speakers? My car is old and I haven't gotten to see one of these first hand.

So if you have a handheld scanner and you hook up headphone cord to the headphone jack on the scanner, you can plug it into the car stereo? How well does this work and how good is the audio?

Thanks.

[lindsay34654]

Originally Posted by Homeboys-Scanna

I guess a lot of cars have something called an "Auxiliary Audio Input"? Am I correct in assuming that this is a 1/8" stereo jack where you can plug something in and have the audio come out the car stereo speakers? My car is old and I haven't gotten to see one of these first hand.

So if you have a handheld scanner and you hook up headphone cord to the headphone jack on the scanner, you can plug it into the car stereo? How well does this work and how good is the audio?

Thanks.

It works as well as your car stereo except that you can only listen to one thing at a time. Like the scanner or the radio but not both. I use mine all the time. The volume is controled by the radio not the scanner

[Homeboys-Scanna]

It sounds like a great way to solve the problem of scanners not having enough audio versus wind/rain noise on the road. I wonder if there's a way to adapt a 1/8" stereo plug to a USB so you could hookup 2 radios (even if they both can't be used at the same time).

[mmckenna]

The other minor issue is that the auxiliary input in stereo and the scanner output is mono. If you just use a stereo 1/8" patch cord, you will only get audio coming out of one side of the car. Radio shack used to sell a 1/8" mono to 1/8" stereo adapter that would fix this. Not sure if they still do.

[NYRHKY94]

If you happen to have a cassette player in the car (I know it's old school these days), you can use an adapter that will play the scanner through your car stereo system. Work great, been using this method for years now.

[theshellguy1]

Originally Posted by mmckenna

The other minor issue is that the auxiliary input in stereo and the scanner output is mono. If you just use a stereo 1/8" patch cord, you will only get audio coming out of one side of the car. Radio shack used to sell a 1/8" mono to 1/8" stereo adapter that would fix this. Not sure if they still do.

I fixed that by running my 2 meter/440 audio in the left side of the stereo plug and my home patrol into the right side of the audio plug. Also did this on a brush truck by using a sound system audio mixer similar to this...

Behringer MicroMIX MX400 4-Channel Line Mixer at zZounds

[mmckenna]

Nice little mixer. We used a similar "stick on" mixer: ST-MX3 ‐ 3 Channel Audio Mixer ‐ Line input and output
for mixing radio audio for our fire station. There are 3 CDM-1250's, one used for agency paging alerts, one for county fire paging and one radio used for normal traffic. They work well, but the one you posted is less expensive. I'll try one of those next time.

[OK2BCK]

Originally Posted by theshellguy1

I fixed that by running my 2 meter/440 audio in the left side of the stereo plug and my home patrol into the right side of the audio plug. Also did this on a brush truck by using a sound system audio mixer similar to this...

Behringer MicroMIX MX400 4-Channel Line Mixer at zZounds

AGREED mixers are the best way to go! Especially those with basic equalizer.

[Ensnared]

Originally Posted by Homeboys-Scanna

I guess a lot of cars have something called an "Auxiliary Audio Input"? Am I correct in assuming that this is a 1/8" stereo jack where you can plug something in and have the audio come out the car stereo speakers? My car is old and I haven't gotten to see one of these first hand.

So if you have a handheld scanner and you hook up headphone cord to the headphone jack on the scanner, you can plug it into the car stereo? How well does this work and how good is the audio?

Thanks.

I use a 3.5 mm male to male mono cord from my hand held to Kenwood stereo. I prefer mono since the volume is greater. My scanner comes out of the left channel so that I can hear it better.