Autocom notes: (this is a work in progress, but I'll just throw some stuff in here for now, make another more complete post when I'm done playing)
I happen to be blessed with a reasonably well stocked electronics shop, some equipment and free time. (broken colarbone)
Autocom publish reams of info about what part to buy, but no real info about what's going on so you can make your own cables...
I've found that the autocom Active-7-smart has two ports to plug into (as well as the accessory lead).
The stereo port gives good results through a cheapy ground loop isolator from my 2820.. I have to set the GPS volume down to less than half
If I plug my IRiver digital music player into the same music in port at the same time, it drags the GPS sound down to too low a level... I'm not sure if Autocom's expensive part for doing this task is made such that this won't happen... anyone use an iRiver H320 with GPS through the music port on the Autocom?
IF I plug into the phone port with the same setup I get mono sound through both speakers (it picks up the RH side of the stereo lead for sound in, and the LH side for microphone out). And with my iRiver plugged into the music port, all is good. I was suprised to note that Garmin sound coming through the Autocom does not lower the music level... I'm not sure that plugging a phone into this thing would either, as I've never gotten my phone to work though my Autocom.
The Garmin motorcycle power connector has a mono 2.5mm jack moulded into it, if I was going to use the Phone port on the Autocom, I would use this one as it means only one connector to hook up when mounting the GPS.
I'm going to (when I go buy some mono 2.5mm plugs) try running mono sound out of the Garmin, into the the RH side of the phone connector. And running Microphone from the LH side of the phone connector, into the Garmin... and see if it all works...
And finally bluetooth...
I borrowed a friends Siemens S55 mobile to play with.
When I first hooked it up to the 2820, it was seen, I selected headset phone, I typed in the 1234 code, it hooked up... I could see my recent calls list, I played for a couple seconds more, it started connecting and disconnecting like crazy....
I tried again (clearing both hookups, restarting the phone and GPS, tried "other phone" on the garmin)... it would give me a stable hookup (from cold GPS start) until the phone tried to send anything to the Garmin, (I even dialed out once, but the Garmin then wouldn't hang up the call, as bluetooth had gone la la..) When I got a stable hookup, I tried calling the phone, and the Garmin didn't indicate... bluetooth was la la..
I mean to try each other choices in the Garmin phone list in order, but I'm left wondering if this is a hardware fault, just incompatibility or what... When the hookup has gone la la... it connects, then disconnects in a 10 second cycle...
I'm going to try with other phones till I get one working, but this is making me nervous about choosing a phone and then not having it work...
Al...