Creating a audio switch

[KF0AWL]

Ok guys hope you can follow me on this idea because I can solder wires but ya gotta keep it simple for me...
I had a idea of creating a setup that I can plug into the external speaker output on my hf rig for when I'm doing a display at say a fair,.
I have my headphones plugged in one port and a external speaker plugged into another on same box. I'm searching the bands for a signal and having it ONLY in the headphones so the guy next to me talking to a customer isn't annoyed hearing the usual squawk and squeal you can get when running through the bands looking for a ongoing qso.
I find a ongoing conversation reach over flip a switch to send the audio to the external speaker jack so my visitors can hear how a QSO works and away we go.
If your following my train of thought so far is it possible to home brew this in a easy portable setup and can you point me to a instruction on how to do it?
I did a Google search but im not very tech savvy in the audio world so im probably not wording it right in Google to find a answer.

 

[bharvey2]

This is fairly easy to accomplish depending upon your radio. What you need is a DPDT toggle switch. Electrically, it looks like this:



Your radio's audio output is connected to terminals 3 & 4. An external speaker is connected to 1 & 2 and headphones are connected to 5 & 6. . In one switch position the radio audio is directed to the external speaker (3 & 4 are connected to 1 & 2 respectively) in the other switch position the audio is directed to the headphones (3 & 4 are connected to 5 & 6)

There is one caveat: The impedance difference between an external speaker and headphones can be substantial. At the very least, there could be a big difference in volume between the speaker and the headphones. Worse case scenario is that you radio is damaged. (Not likely to happen) If you check your manual for the desired external speaker impedance (probably between 4 and 32 ohms) you can add a few components to prevent any problems.