Multiple Scanners on a single speaker?

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airsquad9

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I have four scanners currently in my truck and only one of them is attached to an amplified speaker (Uniden BC23A). I'm trying to get the other three on the speaker as well but I'm not sure if it will handle the load or even how I can do it. I'm also considering swapping it out with a Motorola HSN4032B but it has a plug for a Motorola radio, how would I convert that to a standard 3.5mm plug?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 

jonwienke

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You'll need a 4-channel mixer, and ground loop isolators between each scanner and the mixer. That will give you the ability to adjust the volume level for each scanner individually to balance them all out.
 

dlwtrunked

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You'll need a 4-channel mixer, and ground loop isolators between each scanner and the mixer. That will give you the ability to adjust the volume level for each scanner individually to balance them all out.

A much better idea is that some company (I once had one) takes inputs, and feeds them to a pair of stereo speakers where it spatially separates the signals so that each of the inputs as to what directions it seems to come from (by differently driving the speaker pair) is different. For example with 4 inputs, one would seem to be to the left, another to the front left, another to the front right, and the last to the right. More than 4 would be similarly spread in seeming to come form different directions. It did this by feeding different level audio to the two speakers. This REALLY helps and allows one to focus on one signal when more than one is being received as the brain/ears can pick which direction to which to pay attention--it is like listening to one conversation in a room with more than one. Otherwise feeding multiple outputs to just one speaker leads to a real mess when more than one is being received and is not at all a good idea. You may think feeding more than one signal to a single speaker will work from experience with multiple radios with individual speakers but then you are not realizing your brain makes use of the apparent direction to separate them. I wish I could remember the company and unfortunately sold the box that did this.
 

mmckenna

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I'm also considering swapping it out with a Motorola HSN4032B but it has a plug for a Motorola radio, how would I convert that to a standard 3.5mm plug?

Cut off the connector and solder on a 3.5mm plug. It's only two conductor cord, connect one conductor to the tip of the plug and the other to the shield.

I've got a couple of radios in my work truck. I used separate speakers, and mounted them on different side of the cab behind the seat. As DLW said, it works well for differentiating which traffic it is. I've got VHF on one side, 800 on the other.

Not sure how well the scanners will do driving larger speakers, though. You'd need to give it a try. Jon suggestion about mixing the audio together and feeding your amplified speaker would be an option. Price it all out, see what works out cheaper.
 

jonwienke

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A much better idea is that some company (I once had one) takes inputs, and feeds them to a pair of stereo speakers where it spatially separates the signals so that each of the inputs as to what directions it seems to come from (by differently driving the speaker pair) is different.

You still need a 4-channel mixer to do this, with stereo output and pan controls for each channel. Most mixers will do this. If you can feed the stereo out from the mixer into the vehicle sound system, that saves having to have a separate amplified speaker for the scanners.
 

majoco

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Just make a passive network to sum all the inputs so that each scanner sees it's required load and another resistor feeds the input to the powered speaker - you don't need another set of knobs in the truck to distract you - you can adjust the audio level with the volume knob each scanner.
 

ramal121

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Just make a passive network to sum all the inputs so that each scanner sees it's required load and another resistor feeds the input to the powered speaker - you don't need another set of knobs in the truck to distract you - you can adjust the audio level with the volume knob each scanner.

^^^ That makes the most sense to me and cheap to do.
 

jonwienke

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You'll still need ground loop isolators for each input.
 

Ubbe

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Yes, some scanners have bridged floating outputs where the plus and minus of the speaker out are not grounded and others have it's minus pole grounded that makes it impossible to connect them to one common speaker without damaging the audio amplifiers or reducing the sound levels a huge amount with resistors.

Even some cheap audio mixers have isolating transformers on its inputs that would take care of the grounding problem and also add some nice tone controls to model the audio to the best sound from a single speaker or pan the audio to different positions in the stereo image if feed to the aux input of a car stereo.

/Ubbe
 

krokus

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Using separate speakers will serve you better. The spatial difference is helpful, as others have mentioned, but it will also prevent audio distortions, due to competing signals.


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dlwtrunked

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Using separate speakers will serve you better. The spatial difference is helpful, as others have mentioned, but it will also prevent audio distortions, due to competing signals.


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And in using separate speakers, they need to be separated. In repeating, you need the spatial separation of the sounds as otherwise the mind/brain will hear a confused mess when more than one source speaks at the same time (not just helpful but essentially necessary). Using just one speaker is a very bad idea.
 

chief21

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A much better idea is that some company (I once had one) takes inputs, and feeds them to a pair of stereo speakers where it spatially separates the signals so that each of the inputs as to what directions it seems to come from (by differently driving the speaker pair) is different. <snip> I wish I could remember the company and unfortunately sold the box that did this.

Probably the NCS-3230 from New Communications Solutions (see link below). Unfortunately, they are no longer available except on the used market. Years ago, there were several models of audio mixers intended specifically for the amateur or scanner market., but I am not aware of any similar products today.

https://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/filters/2917.html
 
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The resistor network works good for me. I put 4 scanners on one amplified speaker that way. One word of warning- the Uniden P-2 scanners don't like their audio low grounded.
 

jonwienke

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The resistor network works good for me. I put 4 scanners on one amplified speaker that way. One word of warning- the Uniden P-2 scanners don't like their audio low grounded.

You can't ground any part of a Uniden audio output, or you will have audio distortion and possibly damage the amplifier. That's why you need a ground loop isolator unless that is already built in to the mixing device.
 

tdeater

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Probably the NCS-3230 from New Communications Solutions (see link below). Unfortunately, they are no longer available except on the used market. Years ago, there were several models of audio mixers intended specifically for the amateur or scanner market., but I am not aware of any similar products today.

https://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/filters/2917.html

NCS is still around:
Mobile Dispatch Consoles

I have a uniden scanner connected to mine, as well as a Yaesu ham radio and 2 motorola radios. If you contact them, they occasionally have older model used ones available. For receive only, there are a lot cheaper ways to do it though.
 

dlwtrunked

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Probably the NCS-3230 from New Communications Solutions (see link below). Unfortunately, they are no longer available except on the used market. Years ago, there were several models of audio mixers intended specifically for the amateur or scanner market., but I am not aware of any similar products today.

https://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/filters/2917.html

That is it and I probably bought it from Universal. I sold mine for <$20 trying to unload a mess in the shack. too bad it is gone. Far better than simple feeding a single speaker.
 
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