Thread: Clansman AFV Intercom harness, problem solving assistance needed.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

In my other club we have a number of ex-British Army fighting vehicles, these are mostly fitted with Clansman series intercoms based around IB2 or IB3 and CB2.

For an upcoming parade we have a short-term licence from ACMA to use a frequency in the low-band VHF spectrum.

Over the weekend I completed the installation of a UK/PRC-351, DCCU, IBHA, Initiate and TUAAM connected to the already installed IB3 and two CB2 for the driver and vehicle commander.

The intercom continues to work, we can receive audio into the harness from signals transmitted from a portable set but do not seem to be able to transmit out of the vehicle via the set installed into the harness (with sets that work outside the harness).

The installation complies with the attached diagram, although the "remote" wiring has not been connected between the IBHA and PRC-351.

Anyone have any ideas on problem solving our issues?

how have you got the crew boxes configured?

its bee na very long while since I played with pommie gear but if it anything like the vic 1 stuff there a couple of small rotating switches that change the permision setting for the crewbox. The newer verstions have it done electronically.

Have tried the crew boxes (CB2's) on "A" "B" and "Live IC" what I haven't tried is "Live IC + Monitor" but ran out of daylight and its 80 km between home and the vehicle, so looking at resources between now and Friday.

The parade is on Sunday.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Have tried the crew boxes (CB2's) on "A" "B" and "Live IC" what I haven't tried is "Live IC + Monitor" but ran out of daylight and its 80 km between home and the vehicle, so looking at resources between now and Friday.

The parade is on Sunday.

thats the control on the front which should beRX/TX on set A Press to ttalk on IC, RX TX on set b PTT on IC, intercom live at all times and monitor only on A+B

there should be one of two things holding you up depending on what age system you have

the very early ones had a small pair of recesed screwdriver friendly switches that turned on and of the A+B sets for the crewbox

laterones had the limiters in the main control box

the latest ones have it programmable in the main box and a setting on the crew box that lets you designate it as a crew commander box that has access to everything.

Some other things I remember are

with the latest system it works or it doesnt and it will give you an error code unless you have 2 crewboxes set as crew commander

with the older system
while you could daisy chain the boxes if you didnt have all the hidden switches the same it would hang that line.
if you had the obvious controls set to an invalid configuration you would loose everything on the radios until you hit a valid configuration.


Dodgy cables on the old system were a nightmare letting random things happen and jut to make it intereting sometimes the fault would be the female side of the pin on the box creating an intermittant problem that no amount of parts swapping would ever reveal until it developed into a permanent fault.

Sorry Dave I'm not completely understanding your instructions.

This is essentially what is fitted but only two crew boxes.



IB3


CB2


With the top right knob to "On" you press the PTT to communicate on the IC
with it to Live IC the mic is open and you don't need to press the PTT for I/C, I thought in this mode you should be able to use the PTT to transmit on Set A.

no, from memory live IC means you dont get to transmit on anything anything you ay down the mike will automatically goto the IC system only

Are your PTT switch(s) single, double switches (one for IC one for radio) or rockers?


I know the AUS Equivalent of that system requires there to be at least one crew Box to be configured as a Crew Commanders Box and the rest as normal crew boxes. FRom What I remember the system you have cant limit what crew box can talk on what radios it relies on crew dicipline to prevent problems.

That system uses a closed loop for the IC so even if one cable is damaged or 2 are damaged on different wires it will still work, the only exception is the cabling to the radio. I'm aware of some issues with radios that are both man packable and vehicle mountable needing to be witched to vehicle mode before they'll work in a vehicle, but I dont know what radios they are or whats involved.

Hi Dave

Your comment about the crew commanders box is a relevant one and something I was hoping someone here knew about.

Most of these vehicles in civilian life don't interface with the radios and only require IC and so are fitted with Crew Boxes only.

Using live IC means that you don't need to find the pressel which means all crew members talk naturally.

If we were to configure the vehicle as per the official manual, the driver doesn't get to hear the radio only the IC (saves confusion in operations/battle etc), in our situation it is convienient that the driver hears the radio so he knows at the same time as the commander when to start the engine and other instructions from the parade/troop commander.

In relation to the usual use of Crew Boxes, many vehicles have a radio operator who transmits on the radios and they use a regular Crew Box for that crew station. Sometimes CB2 or CB3. (CB3 controls all three radios on an IB3 but does not have Live IC.)

there should be a way to convert a normal crew box to a commanders box,

unfortuantely the vintage of that particualr setup your using fits in between my bouts of work with pommie comms gear

on the oldler version on the underside where the headset plugs in is a recesed roatary switch that you set with a small screwdriver

on the newer version its done via programming.

you wouldnt normally turn off the ability to hear any of the radios on any of the stations but you would normally limit the ability to transmit to the nets pertinant to the crew posiition.

The drivers box has no access to radios.