Can I wire my VHF radio to use the "ordinary" radio speakers ?

[Loggo]

Title says it all really and I guess everyone knows the answer beside me. I was wondering if I could simply feed the speaker output from my VHF into the radio speakers ? I am thinking that if the radio is switched off the VHF reception should be OK but what happens when the radio is on ?
Or am I just being lazy ??

 

[nimbusgb]

Title says it all really and I guess everyone knows the answer beside me. I was wondering if I could simply feed the speaker output from my VHF into the radio speakers ? I am thinking that if the radio is switched off the VHF reception should be OK but what happens when the radio is on ?
Or am I just being lazy ??

Lazy. But if you had a 'radio' with an external input ( line or pre-amp in ) you could potentially feed it through that. Trouble is you'd have too much power out of the speaker output of the VHF and would have to attenuate it significantly.

Also having the 'radio' on will consume bundles of power that you don't need and .....

Oh forget it just fit a vhf speaker.

 

[fireball]

Just connect it and put a little switch in - radio or VHF ...

 

[robp]

Title says it all really and I guess everyone knows the answer beside me. I was wondering if I could simply feed the speaker output from my VHF into the radio speakers ? I am thinking that if the radio is switched off the VHF reception should be OK but what happens when the radio is on ?
Or am I just being lazy ??

Do you have external (cockpit) speakers on your regular broadcast radio? If you don't I'm not sure why you would want to do it. In any case do not connect your VHF transceiver output to your "radio" speakers without a changeover switch. Even then you really need to know what you are doing. You could have two audio power outputs connected to each other which would not be good.

As previously said, just fit a little waterproof speaker pod somewhere convenient.

 

[JSYmartini]

Music speakers obviously aren't designed to solely reproduce voice signal like a vhf speaker does, you should find it noticably harder to understand what's being said.

 

[DaveS]

Music speakers obviously aren't designed to solely reproduce voice signal like a vhf speaker does, you should find it noticably harder to understand what's being said.

I'm sorry, but I really have to disagree with this. For about 10 years my cockpit speaker was a cheap (Greenweld, £4) "waterproof" (sic) speaker mounted in a microwave proof plastic dish. Worked fine until the speaker rusted into dust. Until it failed, absolutely no probems with clarity - a speaker is a speaker.

 

[fireball]

I'm sorry, but I really have to disagree with this. For about 10 years my cockpit speaker was a cheap (Greenweld, £4) "waterproof" (sic) speaker mounted in a microwave proof plastic dish. Worked fine until the speaker rusted into dust. Until it failed, absolutely no probems with clarity - a speaker is a speaker.

Well not quite! VHF audio out is very limited in range of frequency so it is acceptable to have a speaker tuned to the useful frequencies involved in human speech and may boost those - a stereo speaker is designed to cope with a far greater range to cope with the far greater range of frequencies found in music. The more expensive ones will aim for a fairly flat frequency performance - the cheap ones will just be a speaker in an enclosure.
So a speaker isn't just a speaker - but you'll get a better clarity if it can be mounted somewhere it won't be muffled.

 

[capsco]

I use the ones from mobile phone car kits, there are thousands of these now redundant, Nokia kits seem to be the best.

 

[fireball]

I use the ones from mobile phone car kits, there are thousands of these now redundant, Nokia kits seem to be the best.

Yup - brilliant - especially when I had a fleet of cars that required the kit removing from before they were returned ... whilst they are just a speaker in a box - the frequency response is just right for voice ..
Fitted one inside on the last boat because the VHF speaker was in the bottom of the set - inside the locker ... made a HUGE difference ... put it in series with a waterproof one outside as well ...

Haven't needed an external one on this boat as we put the SH 1500 in with remote mike ...

 

[robp]

Well not quite! VHF audio out is very limited in range of frequency so it is acceptable to have a speaker tuned to the useful frequencies involved in human speech and may boost those - a stereo speaker is designed to cope with a far greater range to cope with the far greater range of frequencies found in music. The more expensive ones will aim for a fairly flat frequency performance - the cheap ones will just be a speaker in an enclosure.
So a speaker isn't just a speaker - but you'll get a better clarity if it can be mounted somewhere it won't be muffled.

All true.

As an aside, I always remember setting up the first hi-fi system at home when I was a kid. (And it was a rarity). My mum said "I don't like that at all, it sounds tinny!" They had only ever used a.m. radio and never heard anything above about 5K!