Yoke mounted Com freq swap buttons

[PT20J]

I had a couple of buttons on the top of the right pilot yoke horn left over from a long-gone Argus 3000 installed by the first owner and removed by the second. I decided to repurpose them with the new setup for remote Com1 (GTN 650Xi) and Com2 (GNC 255) frequency swap controls. I' really like it. The GTN and GNC have very different front panel controls and figuring out where to swap standby and active frequencies took too much thinking and looking away from the primary instruments. I could use the touch screen on the G3X, but the touch area on he CNS bar is small and difficult to hit precisely in turbulence. But the yoke buttons are perfect. An added feature is that if you hold a button down for two seconds, it switches that radio to 121.5. Holding down for two seconds again puts the frequencies back as they were.

Skip

[Marc_B]

Interesting.  I didn't realize there were other options for the buttons.  I have two buttons on the right pilot yoke horn:  1) Garmin telligence voice command and 2) playback which replays the last radio communication. (I use this all the time when I verbally confirm a frequency change and then my brain flushes and a blue screen appears in my head).  Is the freq change leveraging a function of the G3X?  I think both of mine are tied to the GTN.

[PT20J]

5 minutes ago, Marc_B said:

Interesting.  I didn't realize there were other options for the buttons.  I have two buttons on the right pilot yoke horn:  1) Garmin telligence voice command and 2) playback which replays the last radio communication. (I use this all the time when I verbally confirm a frequency change and then my brain flushes and a blue screen appears in my head).  Is the freq change leveraging a function of the G3X?  I think both of mine are tied to the GTN.

It's a common feature of Garmin radios. The buttons wire directly to the GTN and GNC. Many Garmin products have useful discrete inputs and outputs that may optionally be connected. For instance, the G3X has discrete outputs for CAS alerts that I used to trigger voice "Master Caution" and "Master Warning" alerts from the PMA450B. Unfortunately, the details are often in the installation manuals that Garmin only makes available to dealers. And, sometime the manuals are wrong. The certified G3X Pilot's Guide says there is a discrete input for an external Electronic Stability Protection (ESP) disable switch, but that capability only exists in the experimental version. Too bad, or I would have installed it. As it is, I just set ESP in configuration mode to default off on power up so it won't annoy me, and I only turn it on when about to launch IFR.

Skip