Astro Spectra Mute Speaker

[Fireman90]

Hi Everyone,

Does anyone know how to mute the radio/speaker until the radio is paged? Its a Astro Spectra W7 head, set up as a base station. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

Ryan

[Bill_G]

I don't think you can do that without external switching. ie: page the radio that activates the call alert that closes the relay to the speaker. Someone manually resets the circuit.

[Fireman90]

Right, it requires a switching device, the way I understand it being setup from a friend that actually has it setup this way is that, there is a simple toggle switch that goes between what they have labled "mute/standby" and speaker unmute. If you dont want to hear the constant radio traffic you keep it on the mute/standby position, and when that radio is paged it opens up the speaker so you can hear the audio, but you dont have to reset it or anything it does it by itself. And obviously the unmute is where the speaker is constantly on. I will see if I can get a picture. But any help setting this up would be greatly appreciated thank you


Ryan

[Bill_G]

Copy what your friend did. Or does he have a different model of radio?

[Fireman90]

He has no idea how it is done either, I have a picture of it that I will try and post, but its looks like just a simple switch that goes from mute to no mute.

[Bill_G]

Oh, no kidding? Someone Tom Edisoned it for his station, and nobody knows how it works?

Well, the concept is easy. Finding someone to design and implement it is your challenge. Whether they will try to use off the shelf equipment, or roll their own is totally up to them. It will be a mix of programming and hardware to make it happen.

The simplest method is what I've already described - page the radio, it activates it's call alert output to energize a latching relay, the relay closure is in line with the speaker lead, the speaker remains on until someone resets the relay. Super simple to do if the radio is capable of call alert. Latching circuits are easy to build using just relay and diode logic.

Or

They could purchase a Zetron station controller. I don't recall the model number. Sweet system. Lots of outputs to control contactors for the kitchen stove, hallway lights, rollup doors, chimes, etc, with timed reset, and the whole nine yards. It's a thing of beauty.

[Fireman90]

Thanks for the info, I'm pretty sure I know a guy who can make the whole setup your talking about. As far as programming, are you talking about additional programming in the radio, if so what exactly?

Thank you
Ryan

[Bill_G]

You'll need to program the call alert tones, and enable an output to activate the relay.