Comm radios wired to factory speakers

[sigepbiker]

I'd like to have my HAM or CB radio audio come through the factory speakers.

The easy way - connect into the 3.5mm jack. However, then I can only listen to the AUX setting, even with a splitter. No radio, iPod, or Bluetooth. Plus, if the car audio is turned off, no audio at all will come through the speakers.

However, on the 5th Gens with navigation, the voice prompts still come through the speakers even if the audio is off or on any audio setting. My goal is to do the same for my radio comms' audio.

Would using this audio cable connected straight to the speaker be enough, or am I missing something, like amp power for volume?

I'm OK with only one speaker working (probably driver side). I don't need surround sound HAM audio.

Thanks in advance!

 

[N55_6MT]

I'd like to have my HAM or CB radio audio come through the factory speakers.

The easy way - connect into the 3.5mm jack. However, then I can only listen to the AUX setting, even with a splitter. No radio, iPod, or Bluetooth. Plus, if the car audio is turned off, no audio at all will come through the speakers.

However, on the 5th Gens with navigation, the voice prompts still come through the speakers even if the audio is off or on any audio setting. My goal is to do the same for my radio comms' audio.

Would using this audio cable connected straight to the speaker be enough, or am I missing something, like amp power for volume?

I'm OK with only one speaker working (probably driver side). I don't need surround sound HAM audio.

Thanks in advance!

The cable you posted wouldn't do anything unless your HAM has an amplified speaker output on it, and even then I wouldn't tie anything directly into a factory speaker that also has the radio connected to it.

The "correct" way to do this is by adding or replacing the factory amplifier (if you have JBL), and adding a mixer to the input of that amp allowing you to hear both the radio/BT/nav,ect. and the HAM/CB output simultaneously.

Why not just add a single speaker under your dash that is only used for HAM? Something like this from Kenwood would work: https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-007737 If your radio doesn't have an amplified output on it, you may need to add a small audio amplifier to make this work.

 

[Bumbo]

Sounds like something an intercom system can do... like the ones that are found in an off-road truck. We are often times listening to music from a different source and it basically mutes when it senses audio from the VHF radio and/or driver/passenger intercom.

Basically you need an audio mixer that is smart enough to know how to route audio.

Edit: I think it's also worth mentioning that certain ham radio units have better audio interfaces than others. My Kenwood TM-V71a for example had two independent output channels that are software defined. I can wire everything up and control what pops outs of where from the front panel. Unlike most cheaper radios that mute the internal speaker forcing you to use the external jack at all times because there is something physically plugged into it.

 

[sigepbiker]

Well, I liked the idea of using a factory speaker because of how clean it would look, but it seams to be getting too complicated for my "skill set" to achieve it. If I still had a 4th Gen that didn't use the center channel speaker in the dash, I would have looked into adding that speaker for radio comm's audio for a nice clean look.

Thanks for the advice and forethought before tearing into something that wouldn't work right. Now to start looking at external speakers...