[mcurcio1989]

New member here. I am hoping you guys could help me out with this project. I fly a powered paraglider (ultralight airplane). like most ultralight pilots I wear a helmet that has a built in two way radio headset (the actual radio is seperate). Currently it has some really old speakers in the earpieces that are mono and sound like a tin can. What I would like to do is replace these with better quality headphone speakers and then wire in a 3.5mm input so i can listen to music while flying. Here is the tricky part for me - I would like to make it so that I can plug in a 3.5mm audio jack to listen to music but then when sound (coming from the two way radio) is being transmitted I would like it to cut out the music input and only play the voice coming through the two way radio. 
 
So basically what I am looking for is a way to have two audio inputs and the second input needs to cut the other one out when it transmits sound. I woud prefer to make the 3.5mm input give stereo sound instead of the mono but if that is impossibe  I know this will require a little soldering and what not. There is room in the housings for some additional equipment / wiring)
 
If you have a recommendation on what speakers to put in i am open to suggestions. I am not super concerned with quality as the engine noise will really make it impossible to get good quality anyways. 
 
Thanks for any help
 
here are some pictures for you of the headset and I threw in a link to a video of me flying. 
 

 

 

[Avro_Arrow]

Why not use some IEM?
Something like the Shure SE215 will give
you excellent sound quality and provide noise isolation.

 

[mcurcio1989]

I am not sure what the difference is between IEM and just regular in ear headphones (if there is one). I tried using some In ear headphones and due to body movement in take off and the movement of the cups on the helmet they were constantly falling out. 
 
I have to wear the ear muffs on the helmet-this machine is extremely loud. Basically picture your ear being 1ft from the exhaust on a two stroke dirtbike. That is exactly the noise level at my ears. 
 

 

[Avro_Arrow]

Basic ear buds are the ones that just sit on top of your ear canal.
They don't seal well and tend to fall out.
IEM (In Ear Monitor) fit down inside your ear canal and are often
molded to fit the ear more securely. They don't usually come out easily.
Custom IEM are actually made by molds taken from your ears so they
will fit exactly.
 
Regular and especially custom IEM will cut done on outside noise by
quite a bit. Formula 1 race car drivers use custom IEM for their communication
systems.

 

[mcurcio1989]

Okay that is interesting I never knew those were custom made like that. I actually think I may have solved this one on my own. Basically i just spliced a regular 3.5mm headphone male headphone (via a cut car hook up cable) into the mono 3.5mm headphone jack for the two way radio. It actually somehow works exactly how I wanted the music is dimmed to almost nothing when voice is transmitted through the 2 way radio. I have no clue how that is happening. Im just hoping two outputs into one doesnt burn it up. It seems to be fine for now. If anyone knows a better way to do this let me know but for now this seems to be working great.
 

 

[Avro_Arrow]

I'm glad you found a solution that works for you.
Happy Flying!

 

[mcurcio1989]

Thanks! I cant wait to try this out in the air. Weather has been terrible the past few weeks tho so it may not be for a little bit. I ended up just picking up a crappy set of koss headphones from wal mart for 30 bucks and using the speakers out of them. There obviously not the best out there but they are a million times better than what was in their.