Radar detector audio

[Guest sily_rabit]

I have a Roady2 and a Escort 8500. I listen to the XM throught ear buds and want to combine the radar audio with the XM audio. So far, I found two solutions.

1) A device called a radar override. Exactly what I need. It has two inputs and one output. It cuts the music when it gets a signal from the radar input. Downfall is the price $99.

2) A simple y-splitter from Radio Shack with two male and one female end. It combines two stearo inputs. Seemed like a great idea. But for some reason, doesn't work out with the XM output. There is static noise and the volume of the music went way down. Then the left earbud got hot and quit working.

I tried the same set up with another set of earphones and replaced the XM with a cd player and it worked fine. I thought maybe the earphones went bad. So, I replaced the cd player with the Roady2 and it was the same problem (low sound, static noise), so I gave up before it fried another set up earphones.

Anyone else out there have XM and a radar detector hooked up to earphones or helmet speakers? What did you use?

[dutchinterceptor]

I went with the Mix-It-2 because it is amplified and it also mutes the music when the radar detector goes off. With earplugs I could still turn the volume up to where it was uncomfortable. I just used it for the first time on a 1000 mile ride last weekend and it worked great but it is a little pricey. Cyclegadgets for $179.95 and Chatterbox helmet speakers from Aerostich.

[Guest]

A little more looking around and I found another solution called the AmpliRider. I saw a couple other people on here have used it. I emailed the maker and Gary replied. He said it would work for my application as long as I added an isolator on the Escort line.

Still scratching my head as to why the splittler idea didn't work, I decide to check the mV output of the XM radio and the radar detector. The XM reads a pretty constant 3mV. The escort jumps all over as high at 400+ mV. I think the radar output is probably 90% of my problem.

Can someone else check the voltage on their radar output? To test I plugged a patch cord in the earphone outlet and connected my multi-meter on the the other end. I cycled the radar to use the test tones. Some time it jumped to 50mV other times it was over 400. This seems way out of range. Can someone confirm???