Motorola Speakers w/ scanners

[Asmitty0010]

Will a motorola external speaker work w/ unidens or radioshack scanners. I know you'd have to splice to wire to fit into a 1/8 jack.

 

[mustang108]

motorola speakers

Yes, i have used Motorola speakers on my scanners and ham radio equipment for years and they are really nice audio....

 

[JnglMassiv]

Absolutely. These are great, perhaps the best, speakers for that application. The 6 and 12 watt amplified units are particularly loud and clear. They take a bit of modification to get working properly, though. Look for the P/N NSN6054A (12 watt) and NSN6027A (6W).

Here's a pretty awesome document compiled by N0SS going into detail about how to make some of these work:
http://www.n0ss.net/motorola_amp_spkr_mods_20060202.pd

 

[Al42]

Here's a pretty awesome document compiled by N0SS going into detail about how to make some of these work:
http://www.n0ss.net/motorola_amp_spkr_mods_20060202.pd

You'll notice that, in the first figure, the ground side of the audio input (White) and the ground side of the power input (Brown) are connected together. This is a no-no for the Uniden 246 and 396 (and maybe others). However, the two points are capacitively isolated from each other (by C10), so if you just leave out the jumper, the scanners should be happy.

 

[Asmitty0010]

speakers

Thanks guys for the info.

Looking at the mod page...does the speaker need some type of electrical power to work? or can you just plug a 1/8 jack into the back of ur scanner.

 

[rhutch]

I use the Motorola HSN1000A 6w amplified speaker, works great, just bought another 6 pin connector and attached the input and ground pins to the 3.5 mm connector and the power lead and ground (using an accessory plug) to the other two pins. The sound is great. Using it on both my 396 and 296.

 

[JnglMassiv]

Looking at the mod page...does the speaker need some type of electrical power to work? or can you just plug a 1/8 jack into the back of ur scanner.

The speakers on that page are all amplified by circuits within the speaker housing. They do require external power. You can also get stand-alone speakers that are strickly passive. This would mean they are powered by the phone/audio out jack. I don't have any experience with this configuration but my guess is that if you need considereably more audio than that provided by the scanner's internal speaker, you may be disappointed.

What radio are you using, Asmitty0010?

 

[rhutch]

I've used both Motorola Amplified and un-amplified, I prefer the amplified but the sound out of the unamplified is still better than the stock speaker.

 

[n6ciz]

Most handheld scanners have an internal resistor on their earphone jacks to limit the amount of audio and keep you from blowing out your eardrum if you turn the volume up too high. That's fine for earphones and amplified speakers, but for UNamplified speakers, you will find that the audio is low even with the volume turned up full.

The solution to this is to short the minus side of the earphone jack to ground which shorts out the internal resistor. You can do this with a piece of wire, or, a nifty trick, bend a paperclip around the metal base of the antenna and make contact with the ground of the speaker jack plug where it plugs into the radio.

Rich

 

[E-Man]

Im running Motorola HSN4030A, they sound great with no mods, but ebay is the only place I have been able to find them.

 

[Asmitty0010]

speaker

Thanks again for the recommendations. I am using a PRO-2096 and soon a BCD996T. I'm looking for a nice low sound, I have a radio shack external speaker now but it sounds like a tin can. If there are any alternatives out there besides a motorola that does give a nice deep, bass, sound...please let me know.

Thanks

 

[kc7vtr]

I connected a pair of small Sony stereo speakers meant for use with a portable CD player to the earphone jack of my Pro-96. After adding a wire between the jack and the antenna to short out the limiting resistor I'm very pleased with the results. It's louder than the internal speaker and has more, but not too much, bass. Overall a very pleasing sound.